Website design By BotEap.comThe Dead Rabbits Irish Street gang of the mid-19th century was as cruel as any gang in New York City history. They ruled the miserable area of ​​Lower Manhattan called Five Points, and if a member of any other gang dared to step foot on their turf, bad things would happen to them very quickly.

Website design By BotEap.comThere is some controversy as to how dead rabbits got their name. One version is that the word “Rabbit” sounds like the Irish word raibead, which means “man to fear.” “Dead” was a slang word from the 1800s that meant “very.” So a “dead rabbit” is a “very feared man.”

Website design By BotEap.comAnother version is that the Dead Rabbits were an offshoot of a larger gang called “Roach Guards”. Two factions within the Roach Guards were constantly fighting, and during a fist fight at an especially violent gang meeting, someone threw a dead rabbit into the room. When the fighting stopped, one group adopted the name “dead rabbits”, while the other kept the name “cockroach guards”. Preying on today’s Crips and Bloods street gangs for over 125 years, to mark which group a man belonged to, a Dead Rabbit wore a blue stripe on his pants, while a Roach Guard wore a red stripe on his pants.

Website design By BotEap.comIn addition to the Roach Guards, the Rabbits’ arch nemesis were the Bowery Boys. On July 4, 1857, the Rabbits and the Bowery Boys faced off at the corner of Bayard and Bowery. The incident began when besieged police officers, chased out of Five Points by a group of rabbits, ran into the living room of a Bowery Boy. The Rabbits followed the cop into the dive and were turned away by an angry group of Bowery Boys.

Website design By BotEap.comThe Bowery Boys were offended by the invasion of their territory, so a large group of Bowery Boys marched into the Five Points area. They were cut down by a battalion of rabbits and a two-day war began, with up to a thousand fighters fighting with axes, knives, stones, and even firearms. The police sent reinforcements, but both gangs turned them down and told them in no uncertain terms to mind their own business. The war rocked back and forth in both territories, with Canal Street being the border line.

Website design By BotEap.comBy the end of the second day, the two gangs were nearly exhausted, and New York Mayor Fernando Wood called in the Seventh Regiment of the National Guard. The National Guard, along with the New York City Police, got into what was left of the skirmish and began to break the heads of the weary warriors. When the dust settled, eight gang members died and hundreds more were injured.

Website design By BotEap.comThis did not end the animosity between the Bowery Boys and Rabbits. In August 1858, at the corner of Worth and Center Street, a small group of the Bowery Boys were beaten up by a larger group of Rabbits. As the Bowery Boys ran off licking their wounds, two unsuspecting men emerged from a home on 66 Center Street. They walked right in the path of the angry rabbits, and thinking these two men were Bowery Boys coming back for more, the rabbits pounced on them with a vengeance. A man was able to escape, but Cornelius Rady was not so lucky. He was hit on the back of the head with a stone from a sling and died shortly thereafter. Rabbit Patrick Gilligan was arrested for Rady’s murder, but it is unclear if he was convicted.

Website design By BotEap.comThe Civil War began two years later and many of the gang members were recruited, against their will, to war and sent to distant places, mainly in the South. When the war ended, the Rabbits were either dead or in no physical condition to continue to haunt the streets of Lower Manhattan. But in New York City, the creature that was, and in some cases still is, other street gangs soon followed to take the place of the Rabbits.