In 1841 there followed several clashes which aggravated the situation.
In the month of June one Burnett referred to as "a mischievous and
swaggering Englishman running a cake shop," had harbored a runaway
slave. When a man named McCalla, his reputed master, came with an
officer to reclaim the fugitive, Burnett and his family resisted them.
The Burnetts were committed to answer for this infraction of the law and
finally were adequately punished. The proslavery mob which had gathered
undertook to destroy their home but the officials prevented them.
Besides, early in August according to a report, a German citizen
defending his blackberry patch near the city was attacked by two Negroes
and stabbed so severely that he died. Then about three weeks thereafter,
according to another rumor, a very respectable lady was insultingly
accosted by two colored men, and when she began to flee two others
rudely thrust themselves before her on the sidewalk. But in this case,
as in most others growing out of rumors, no one could ever say who the
lady or her so-called assailants were. At the same time, too, the
situation was further aggravated by an almost sudden influx of
irresponsible Negroes from various parts, increasing the number of those
engaged in noisy frolics which had become a nuisance to certain white
neighbors.[40]

Accordingly, on Tuesday, the twenty-ninth of August, there broke out on
the corner of Sixth and Broadway a quarrel in which two or three persons
were wounded. On the following night the fracas was renewed. A group of
ruffians attacked the Dumas Hotel, a colored establishment, on
McCallister Street, demanding the surrender of a Negro, who, they
believed, was concealed there. As the Negroes of the neighborhood came
to the assistance of their friends in the hotel the mob had to withdraw.
On Thursday night there took place another clash between a group of