It is important for us to understand why much of Isaac Hoppers work was missing. The Draft Riots of 1863 are a key reason for periods of Isaac Hopper’s work that seems to not appear. 

         Beginning on September of 1862, President Abraham Lincoln announced the Emancipation Proclamation, which would soon take effect on January 1, 1863, where freed slaves in those states or such regions that were still in rebellion against the Union. If any southern state returned to the Union between September and January, whites in that state could lose ownership of their slaves. Regardless of its limits, slaves, free blacks, and abolitionist throughout the country marked this time in history as one of the most important actions on the nations freedom. The Emancipation brought forth formal recognition that the war was being fought on behalf of black freedom and equality. 

         Although the Emancipation Proclamation for many New Yorker’s was a confirmation of their worst fear. Labor competition grew due to the fact that southern blacks supposedly fled to the north. By March of 1863 fuel was very much added to the fire in terms of stricter federal draft law. All male citizens between twenty and thirty-five and all unmarried men between the ages of thirty-five and forty-five years old were subjected to military duty. The federal government entered all illegible men into a lottery. It was possible that those who could pay for a substitute or pay the government three hundred dollars could do so in order to get out of it. Black at this time were not considered citizens so they were exempt from the draft.[1]

         The proceedings of this draft were not pretty. The Draft Riots marked the bloodiest and most destructive rioting in U.S. history.[2]They lasted five days killing hundreds of people, and seriously injuring many. And of course, African Americans were often the biggest targets of of the rioter’s violence. Many criticized the federal government titling this as the “nigger war.” Riots broke out, and they targeted military and governmental buildings, as a symbol of the draft being unfair. Mobs broke out, which attacked anyone who interfered with their actions. By the afternoon of the first day, some of the rioters began attacking black people on matters of political, economic, and social reasons. “The mob hated rich men as much as black men. Any well-dressed man who appeared on the streets was subject to a mob attack. Among the 250 buildings wrecked were factories and shops in which many of the rioters had been exploited.”[3]

[1]The New York City Draft Riots of 1863. Accessed April 29, 2019. https://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/317749.html&title=The New York City Draft Riots of 1863&desc=.

[2]Editors, History.com. "New York Draft Riots." History.com. October 27, 2009. Accessed April 29, 2019. https://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/draft-riots.

[3]Richardson, Joe M. The Florida Historical Quarterly 47, no. 4 (1969): 437-38. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30140256.