 CHAPTER V. THE SUCCESSFUL MIGRANT The reader will naturally be interested in learning exactly what these thousands of Negroes did on free soil. To estimate these achievements, the casual reader of contemporary testimony would now, as such persons did then, find it decidedly easy. He would say that in spite of the unfailing aid which philanthropists gave the blacks, they seldom kept themselves above want and, therefore, became a public charge, afflicting their communities with so much poverty, disease and crime, that they were considered the lepers of society. The student of history, however, must look beyond these comments for the whole truth. One must take into consideration the fact that in most cases these Negroes escaped as fugitives without sufficient food and clothing to comfort them until they could reach free soil, lacking the small fund with which the pioneer usually provided himself in going to establish a home in the wilderness, and lacking above all initiative of which slavery had deprived them. Furthermore, these refugees, with few exceptions, had to go to places where they were not wanted, and in some cases to points from which they were driven as undesirables, although preparation for their coming had sometimes gone to the extent of purchasing homes and making provisions for employment upon arrival. Several well-established Negro settlements in the North, moreover, were broken up by the slave hunters after the passing of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. The increasing intensity of the hatred of the Negroes must be understood, too, both as a cause and result of their intolerable condition. The Negroes of the North were in fair circumstances. Until that time it was generally believed that the Whites and Blacks would soon reach the advanced stage of living together on a basis of absolute equality. The Negroes had not at that time exceeded the number that could be assimilated by the sympathizing communities in that section. The intolerable legislation of the South, however, forced so many free Negroes in the rough to crowd Northern cities during the first four decades of the nineteenth century that they could not be easily readjusted. The number seeking employment far exceeded the demand for labor, and thus multiplied the number of vagrants and paupers, many of whom had already been forced to this condition by the Irish and the Germans, then immigrating into Northern cities. At one time, as in the case of Philadelphia, the Negroes constituting a small fraction of the population furnished one half of the criminals. A radical opposition to the Negro followed, therefore, arousing first the labouring classes and finally alienating the support of the well-to-do people and the press. This condition obtained till 1840 in most Northern communities, and until 1850 in some places where the Negro population was considerable. We must also take into account the critical labour situation during these years. The Northern people were divided as to the way the Negroes should be encouraged. The mechanics of the North raised no objection to having the Negroes freed and enlightened, but did not welcome them to that section as competitors in the struggle of life. When, therefore, the blacks converted to the doctrine of training the hand to work with skill, began to appear in Northern industrial centres, there arose a formidable prejudice against them. Negro and white mechanics had once worked together, but during the second quarter of the nineteenth century, when labour became more dignified and a larger number of white persons devoted themselves to skilled labour, they adopted the policy of eliminating the blacks. This opposition, to be sure, was not a mere harmless sentiment. It tended to give rise to the organisation of labour groups, and finally to that of trades unions, the beginnings of those controlling this country today. Carrying the fight against the Negroes still further, these labouring classes used their influence to obtain legislation against the employment of Negroes in certain pursuits. Maryland and Georgia passed laws restricting the privileges of Negro mechanics, and Pennsylvania followed their example. Even in those cases when the Negroes were not disturbed in their new homes on free soil, it was, with the exception of the Quaker and a few other communities, merely an act of toleration. It must not be concluded, however, that the Negroes, then migrating to the north, did not receive considerable aid. The fact to be noted here is that because they were not well received, sometimes by the people of their own new environment, the help which they obtained from friends afar off did not suffice to make up for the deficiency of community co-operation. This, of course, was an unusual handicap to the Negro, as his life as a slave tended to make him a dependent rather than a pioneer. It is evident, however, from accessible statistics that wherever the Negro was adequately encouraged he succeeded. When the urban Negroes in northern communities had emerged from their crude state, they easily learned from the white men their method of solving the problems of life. This tendency was apparent after 1840, and striking results of their efforts were noted long before the Civil War. They showed an inclination to work when positions could be found, purchased homes, acquired other property, built churches, and established schools. Going even further than this, some of them taking advantage of their opportunities in the business world accumulated considerable fortunes, just as had been done in certain centers of the South where Negroes had been given a chance. In cities far north, like Boston, not so much difference as to the result of this migration was noted. Some economic progress among the Negroes had early been observed there as a result of the long residence of Negroes in that city, as in the case of Lewis Hayden, who established a successful clothing business. In New York such evidences were more apparent. There were in that city not so many Negroes as frequented some other northern communities of this time, but enough to make for that city a decidedly perplexing problem. It was the usual situation of ignorant, helpless fugitives and free Negroes going they knew not where to find a better country. The situation at times became so grave that it not only caused prejudice, but gave rise to intense opposition against those who defended the cause of the blacks, as in the case of the abolition riots, which occurred at several places in the state in 1834. To relieve this situation, Garrett Smith, an unusually philanthropic gentleman, came forward with an interesting plan. Having large tracts of land in the southeastern counties of New York, he proposed to settle on small farms a large number of those Negroes huddled together in the congested districts of New York City. Desiring to obtain only the best class, he requested that the Negroes, to be thus colonized, be recommended by Reverend Charles B. Ray, Reverend Theodore S. Wright and Dr. J. McCune Smith, three Negroes of New York City, known to be representative of the best of the race. Given their recommendations, he deeded unconditionally to black men in 1846, three hundred small farms in Franklin, Essex, Hamilton, Fulton, Oneida, Delaware, Madison and Ulster counties, giving to each settler beside ten dollars to enable him to visit his farm. With these holdings, the blacks would not only have a basis for economic independence, but would have sufficient property to meet the special qualifications which New York, by the law of 1823, required of Negroes offering to vote. This experiment, however, was a failure. It was not successful because of the intractability of the land, the harshness of the climate, and in a great measure the inefficiency of the settlers. They had none of the qualities of farmers. Furthermore, having been disabled by infirmities and vices, they could not as beneficiaries answer the call of the benefactor. Peterborough, the town open to Negroes in this section, did maintain a school and served as a station of the underground railroad, but the agricultural results expected of the enterprise never materialized. The main difficulty in this case was the impossibility of substituting something foreign for individual enterprise. Progressive Negroes did appear, however, in other parts of the state. In Penyon, western New York, William Platt and Joseph C. Cassie were successful lumber merchants. Mr. W. H. Topp of Albany was, for several years, one of the leading merchant tailors of that city. Henry Scott of New York City developed a successful pickling business, supplying most of the vessels entering that port. Thomas Downing for thirty years ran a creditable restaurant in the midst of the Wall Street banks, where he made a fortune. Edward V. Clark conducted a thriving business, handling jewelry and silverware. The Negroes, as a whole, moreover, had shown progress. Aided by government and philanthropic white people, they had before the Civil War a school system with primary, intermediate and grammar schools, and a normal department. They then had considerable property, several churches, and some benevolent institutions. In southern Pennsylvania, nearer to the border between the slave and free states, the effects of the achievements of these Negroes were more apparent for the reason that in these urban centers there were sufficient Negroes for one to be helpful to the other. Philadelphia presented, then, the most striking example of the remaking of these people. Here, the handicap of the foreign element was greatest, especially after 1830. The Philadelphia Negro, moreover, was further impeded in his progress by the presence of southerners who made Philadelphia their home, and still more by the prejudice of those Philadelphia merchants who, sustaining such close relations to the South, hated the Negro, and the abolitionists who antagonized their customers. In spite of these untoward circumstances, however, the Negroes of Philadelphia achieved success. Negroes who had formally been able to toil upward were still restricted, but they had learned to make opportunities. In 1832, the Philadelphia blacks had $350,000 of taxable property, $359,626 in 1837, and $400,000 in 1847. These Negroes had 16 churches and 100 benevolent societies in 1837, and 19 churches and 106 benevolent societies in 1847. Philadelphia then had more successful Negro schools than any other city in the country. There were also about 500 Negro mechanics in spite of the opposition of organized labor. Some of these Negroes, of course, were natives of that city. Chief among those who had accumulated considerable property was Mr. James Fortin, the proprietor of one of the leading sale manufacturers, constantly employing a large number of men, black and white. Joseph Casey, a broker of considerable acumen, also accumulated desirable property, worth probably $75,000. Crowded out of the higher pursuits of labor, certain other enterprising businessmen of this group organized the Guild of Caterers. This was composed of such men as Bogle, Prosser, Dorsey, Jones, and Minton. The aim was to elevate the Negro waiter and cook from the plain of menials to that of progressive businessmen. Then came Stephen Smith, who amassed a large fortune as a lumber merchant, and with him whipper, vedal, and pernell. Still in bowers were reliable coal merchants. Edgar, a success in handling furniture, Bowser, a well-known painter, and William H. Riley, the intelligent bootmaker. There were a few such successful Negroes in other communities in the state. Mr. William Goodrich of York acquired considerable interest in the branch of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, extending to Lancaster. Benjamin Richards of Pittsburgh amassed a large fortune running a birch-earing business. Buying by contract, groves of cattle to supply the various military posts of the United States. Mr. Henry M. Collins, who started life as a boatman, left this position for speculation in real estate in Pittsburgh, where he established himself as an asset of the community and accumulated considerable wealth. Owen A. Barrett of the same city made his way by discovering the remedy known as B.A. Fone Stock's celebrated verma-fuge, for which he retained in the employ of the proprietor, who exploited the remedy. Mr. John Julius made himself indispensable to Pittsburgh by running the Concert Hall Café, where he served President William Henry Harrison in 1840. The field of greatest achievement, however, was not in the conservative east, where the people had well established their going toward an enlightened and sympathetic aristocracy of talent and wealth. It was in the west where men were in position to establish themselves anew, and make of life what they would. These crude communities, to be sure, often objected to the presence of the Negroes, and sometimes drove them out. But on the other hand, not a few of these centers in the making were in the hands of the Quakers and other philanthropic persons, who gave the Negroes a chance to grow up with the community when they exhibited a capacity which justified philanthropic efforts in their behalf. These favorable conditions obtained especially in the towns along the Ohio River, where so many fugitives and free persons of color stopped on their way from slavery to freedom. In Steubenville, a number of Negroes had by their industry and good deportment made themselves helpful to the community. Stephen Mulber, who had been there in that town for thirty years, was in 1835 the leader of a group of thrifty free persons of color. He had a brick dwelling in which he lived, and other property in the city. He made his living as a master mechanic, employing a force of workmen to meet the increasing demand for his labor. In Gallipolis there was another group of this class of Negroes, who had permanently attached themselves to the town by the acquisition of property. They were then able not only to provide for their families, but were maintaining also a school and a church. In Portsmouth, Ohio, despite the Black Friday upheaval of 1831, the Negroes settled down to the solution of the problems of their new environment and later showed in the accumulation of property evidence of actual progress. Among the successful Negroes in Columbus was David Jenkins, who acquired considerable property as a painter, glazier, and paper hanger. One Mr. Hill of Tillicothe was for several years its leading channer and courier. It was in Cincinnati, however, that the Negroes made most progress in the West. The migratory blacks came there at times in such large numbers, as we have observed, that they provoked the hostile classes of whites to employ rash measures to exterminate them. But the Negroes, accustomed to adversity, struggled on, endeavoring through schools and churches to embrace every opportunity to rise. By 1840 there were 2,255 Negroes in that city. They had exclusive of personal effects and $19,000 worth of church property, accumulated $209,000 worth of real estate. A number of their progressive men had established a real estate firm, known as the Iron Chest Company, which built houses for Negroes. One man, who had once thought it unwise to accumulate wealth from which he might be driven, had, by 1840, changed his mind and purchased $6,000 worth of real estate. Another Negro paid $5,000 for himself and family and bought a home worth $800 or $1,000. A freedman, who was a slave until he was twenty-four of age, then had two lots worth $10,000, paid a tax of $40, and had 320 acres of land in Mercer County. Another who was worth only $3,000 in 1836 had seven houses in 1840, 400 acres of land in Indiana and another tract in Mercer County, Ohio. He was worth altogether about $12,000 or $15,000. A woman who was a slave until she was thirty was then worth $2,000. She had also come into potential possession of two houses, on which a white lawyer had given her a mortgage to secure the payment of $2,000 borrowed from this thrifty woman. Another Negro, who was on the auction block in 1832, had spent $2,600 purchasing himself and family and had bought two brick houses worth $6,000 and 560 acres of land in Mercer County, Ohio, said to be worth $2,500. The Negroes of Cincinnati had as early as 1820 established schools which developed during the 40s into something like a modern system, with Gilmore's High School as a capstone. By that time they had also not only several churches, but had given time and means to the organizations and promotion of such as the Sabbath School Youth Society and Total Abstinence Temperance Society and the Anti-Slavery Society. The worthy example set by the Negroes of this city was a stimulus to noble endeavor and significant achievements of Negroes throughout the Ohio and Mississippi valleys. Disarming their enemies of the weapon that they would continue a public charge, they secured the cooperation of a larger number of white people, who at first had treated them with contempt. This unusual progress in the Ohio Valley had been promoted by two forces, the development of the steamboat as a factor in transportation, and the rise of the Negro mechanic. Negroes employed on vessels as servants to the traveling public, amassed large sums received in the form of tips. Furthermore the fortunate few, constituting the stewards of these vessels, could by placing contracts for supplies and using business methods realize handsome incomes. Many Negroes, thus enriched, purchased real estate and went into businesses in towns along the Ohio. The other force, the rise of the Negro mechanic, was made possible by overcoming much of the prejudice which had at first been encountered. A great charge in this respect had taken place in Cincinnati by 1840. Many Negroes, who had been forced to work as menial laborers, then had the opportunity to show their usefulness to their families and to the community. Negro mechanics were then getting as much skilled labor as they could do. It was not uncommon for white artisans to solicit employment of colored men, because they had the reputation of being better paymasters than master workmen of the favored race. White mechanics not only worked with the blacks but often associated with them, patronized the same barbershop and went to the same places of amusement. Out of this group came some very useful Negroes, among whom may be mentioned Robert Harlin, the horseman, A. V. Thompson, the tailor, J. Presley and Thomas Ball, contractors, and Samuel T. Wilcox, the merchant, who was worth $60,000 in 1859. There were among them two other successful Negroes, Henry Boyd and Robert Gordon. Boyd was a Kentucky freedman, who helped to overcome the prejudice in Cincinnati against Negro mechanics by inventing and exploiting a courted bed, the demand for which was extensive throughout the Ohio and Mississippi valleys. He had a creditable manufacturing business in which he employed 25 men. Robert Gordon was a much more interesting man. He was born a slave in Richmond, Virginia. He ingratiated himself into the favor of his master, who placed him in charge of a large coal yard, with the privilege of selling the slake for his own benefit. In the course of time, he accumulated in this position thousands of dollars, with which he finally purchased himself and moved away to free soil. After observing the situation in several of the northern centers, he finally decided to settle in Cincinnati, where he arrived with $15,000. Knowing the coal business, he well established himself there after some discouragement and opposition. He accumulated much wealth, which he invested in United States bonds during the Civil War, and in real estate on Walnut Hills, when the bonds were later redeemed. The ultimately favorable attitude of the people of Detroit toward immigrating Negroes had been reflected by the position the people of that section had taken from the time of the earliest settlements. Generally speaking, Detroit adhered to this position. In this congenial community prospered many a Negro family. There were the Williams, most of whom confined themselves to their trade of bricklaying and amassed considerable wealth. Then there were the cooks, descending from Lomax Bee Cook, a broker of no little business ability. Will Marion Cook, the musician, belongs to this family? The DeBaptiste, too, were among the first to succeed in this new home, as they prospered materially from their experience and knowledge previously acquired in Fredericksburg, Virginia, as contractors. From this day came Richard DeBaptiste, who in his day was the most useful Negro Baptist preacher in the Northwest. The Palhams were no less successful in establishing themselves in the economic world. Having an excellent reputation in the community, they easily secured the cooperation of the influential white people in the city. Out of this family came Robert A. Palham, for years editor of A Weekly in Detroit and from 1901 to the present time, an employee of the federal government in Washington. The children of the Richards, another old family, were in no sense inferior to the descendants of the other. The most prominent and the most useful to emerge from this group was the daughter, Fanny M. Richards. She was born in Fredericksburg, Virginia, October 1, 1841. Having left that state with her parents when she was quite young, she did not see so much of the antebellum conditions obtaining there. Desiring to have better training than what was then given to persons of color in Detroit, she went to Toronto, where she studied English, history, drawing, and needlework. In later years she attended the teacher's training school in Detroit. She became a public schoolteacher there in 1863 and after fifty years of creditable service in this work, she was retired on a pension in 1913. The Negroes in the North had not only shown their ability to rise in the economic world when properly encouraged, but had begun to exhibit power of all kinds. There were Negro inventors, a few lawyers, a number of physicians and dentists, many teachers, a score of intelligent preachers, some scholars of note, and even successful blacks in the finer arts. Some of these, with Frederick Douglass as the most influential, were also doing creditable work in journalism with about thirty newspapers which had developed among the Negroes as weapons of defense. This progress of the Negroes in the North was much more marked after the middle of the nineteenth century. The migration of Negroes to northern community was at first checked by the reaction in those places during the thirties and forties. Thus relieved of the large influx which once constituted a menace, those communities gave the Negroes already on hand better economic opportunities. It was fortunate too that prior to the check in the infiltration of the blacks, they had come into certain districts in sufficiently large numbers to become a more potential factor. They were strong enough in some cases to make common cause against foes, and could by cooperation solve many problems with which the blacks in dispersed condition could not think of grappling. Their endeavors along these lines proceeded in many cases from well-organized efforts like those culminating in the numerous national conventions which began meeting first in Philadelphia in eighteen thirty, and after some years of deliberation in this city extended to others in the north. These bodies aimed not only to promote education, religion, and morals, but taking up the work which the Quakers began. They put forth efforts to secure the free blacks opportunities to be trained in the mechanic arts, to equip themselves for participation in the industries, then springing up throughout the north. This movement however did not succeed in the proportion to the efforts put forth because of the increasing power of the trades unions. After the middle of the nineteenth century too, the Negroes found conditions a little more favorable to their progress than the generation before. The aggressive south had by that time so shaped the policy of the nation as not only to force the free states to cease aiding the escape of fugitives, but to undertake to impress the northerner into the service of assisting in their recapture as provided in the fugitive slave law. This repressive measure set a larger number of the people thinking of the Negro as a national problem than a local one. The attitude of the north was then reflected in the personal liberty laws as an answer to this measure and in the increasing sympathy for the Negroes. During this decade therefore, more was done in the north to secure the Negroes better treatment and to give them opportunities for improvement. Chapter 6 of A Century of Negro Migration. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by D. Randall. A Century of Negro Migration by Carter Woodson. Confusing Movements. The silver war raged largely in the south started the most exciting movement of the Negroes hitherto known. The invading Union forces drove the masters before them leaving the slaves and sometimes poor whites to escape where they would or to remain in helpless condition to constitute a problem for the northern army. Many poor whites of the border states went with the Confederacy not always because they wanted to enter the war but to choose what they considered the lesser of two evils. The slaves soon realized a community of interests with the Union forces sent as they thought to deliver them from throttle. At first it was difficult to determine a fixed policy for dealing with these fugitives. To drive them away was an easy matter but this did not solve the problem. General Butler's action at Fortress Monroe in 1861 however anticipated the policy finally adopted by the Union forces. Hearing that three fugitive slaves who were received into his lines were to have been employed in building fortifications for the Confederate army he declared them seized as contraband of war rather than declare them actually free as did General Fremont and General Hunter. He then gave them employment for wages and rations and appropriated to the support of the unemployed a portion of the earnings of the laborers. This policy was followed by General Wood Butler's successor and by General Banks in New Orleans. An elaborate plan for handling such fugitives was carried out by E. S. Pierce and General Rufus Saxon at Port Royal South Carolina. Seeing the situation in another light however General Halleck in charge in the West excluded slaves from the Union lines at first as did General Dix in Virginia but Halleck in his instructions to General McCullum February 1862 ordered him to put contrabands to work to pay for food and clothing. Other commanders like General McCook and General Johnson permitted the slave hunters to enter their lines and take their slaves upon identification ignoring the Confiscation Act of August 1861 which was construed by some as justifying the retention of such refugees. Officers of a different attitude however soon began to protest against the returning of fugitive slaves. General Grant also while admitting the binding force of General Halleck's order refused to grant permits to those in search of fugitives seeking asylum within his lines and at the capture of Fort Donaldson ordered the retention of all blacks who had been used by the Confederates in building fortifications. Lincoln finally urged the necessity for withholding fugitive slaves from the enemy believing that there could be in it no danger of servile insurrection and that the Confederacy would thereby be weakened as this opinion soon developed into a conviction that official action was necessary. Congress by act of March 13 1862 provided that slaves be protected against the claims of their pursuers continuing further in this direction the federal government gradually reached the position of withdrawing Negro labor from the Confederate territory. Finally the United States government adopted the policy of withholding from the Confederates slaves received with the understanding that their masters were in rebellion against the United States. With this as a settled policy then the United States government had to work out some scheme for the remaking of these fugitives coming into its camps. In some of these cases the fugitives found themselves among men more hostile to them than their masters were for many of the Union soldiers of the border states were slaveholders themselves and northern soldiers did not understand that they were fighting to free Negroes. The condition in which they were on arriving moreover was a new problem for the army some came naked some in decrepitude some afflicted with disease and some wounded in their efforts to escape. There were women in travail the helplessness of childhood and of old age the horrors of sickness and of frequent deaths in their crude state few of them had any conception of the significance of liberty thinking that it meant idleness and freedom from restraint in consequence of this ignorance there developed such undesirable habits as deceit, death and licentiousness to aggravate the afflictions of nakedness famine and disease. In the east large numbers of these refugees were concentrated at Washington Alexandria Fortress Monroe Hampton Craney Island and Fort Norfolk there were smaller groups of them at Yorktown Suffolk and Portsmouth some of them were conducted from these camps into York Columbia Harrisburg Pittsburgh and Philadelphia and by water to New York and Boston from which they went to various parts seeking labor some collected in groups as in the case of those at five points in New York large numbers of them from Virginia assembled in Washington in 1862 in Duff Green's role on Capitol Hill where they were organized as a camp out of which came a contraband school after being moved to the McClellan Barracks. Then there was in the district of Columbia another group known as Freedmen's Village on Arlington Heights. It was said that in 1864 30,000 to 40,000 Negroes had come from the plantations to the district of Columbia. It happened here too as in most cases of this migration that the Negroes were on hand before the officials grappling with many other problems could determine exactly what could or should be done with them. The camps near Washington fortunately became centers for the employment of contrabands in the city. Those repairing to Fortress Monroe were distributed as laborers among the farmers of that vicinity. In some of these camps and especially in those of the west the refugees were finally sent out to other sections in need of labor as in the cases of the contrabands assembled with the Union Army at first at Grand Junction and later at Memphis. There were three types of these camp communities which attracted attention as places for free labor experimentation. These were at Port Royal on the Mississippi in the neighborhood of Vicksburg and in Lower Louisiana and Virginia. The first trial of free labor of blacks on a large scale in a slave state was made in Port Royal. The experiment was generally successful. By industry, thrift, and orderly conduct the Negroes showed their appreciation for their new opportunities. In the Mississippi section invaded by the Northern Army General Thomas opened what he called infirmary farms which he leased to Negroes on certain terms which they usually met successfully. The same plan however was not so successful in the lower Mississippi section. The failure in this section was doubtless due to the inferior type of blacks in the lower cotton belt where Negroes had been more butylized by slavery. In some cases these refugees experienced many hardships. It was charged that they were worked hard, badly treated, and deprived of all their wages except what was given them for rations and a scanty pittance wholly insufficient to purchase necessary clothing and provide for their families. Not a few other refugees for these reasons applied for permission to return to their masters and sometimes such permission was granted for although under military authority they were by order of Congress to be considered as free men. These voluntary slaves of course were few and the authorities were not thereby impressed with the thought that Negroes would prefer to be slaves should they be treated as free men rather than as brutes. It became increasingly difficult however to handle this problem. In the first place it was not an easy matter to find soldiers well disposed to serve the Negroes in any manner whatever and the officers of the army had no desire to force them to render such services since those thus engaged suffered a sort of social ostracism. The same condition obtained in the case of caring for those afflicted with disease until there was issued a specific regulation placing the contraband sick in charge of the army surgeons. What the situation in the Mississippi Valley was during these months has been well described by an observer saying I hope I may never be called on again to witness the horrible scenes I saw in those first days of history of the freedmen in the Mississippi Valley. Assistance were hard to find especially the kind that would do any good in the camps. A detailed soldier in each camp of a thousand people was the best that could be done and his duties were so onerous that he ended by doing nothing. In reviewing the condition of the people at that time I am not surprised at the marvelous stories told by visitors who caught an occasional glimpse of the misery and wretchedness in these camps. Our efforts to do anything for these people as they heard it together in masses when founded on any expectation that they would help themselves often failed. They had become so completely broken down in spirit through suffering that it was almost impossible to arouse them. A few sympathetic officers and especially the chaplains undertook to relieve the urgent cases of distress. They could do little however to handle all the problems of the unusual situation until they engaged the attention of the higher officers of the army and the federal functionaries in Washington. After some delay this was finally done and special officers were detailed to take charge of the contraband. The Negroes were assembled in camps and employed according to instructions from the secretary of war as teamsters, laborers, and the like on forts and railroads. Some were put to picking, ginning, bailing, and removing cotton on plantations abandoned by their masters. General Grant, as early as 1862, was making further use of them as fatigued men in the department of the Surgeon General, the quartermaster and the commissary. He believed then that such Negroes as did well in these more humble positions should be made citizens and soldiers. As a matter of fact, out of this very suggestion came the policy of arming the Negroes, the first regiment of whom was recruited under orders issued by General Hunter at Port Royal, South Carolina in 1862. As the arming of the slaves to participate in this war did not generally please the white people who considered the struggle a war between civilized groups, this policy could not offer general relief to the congested contraband camps. A better system of handling the fugitives was finally worked out, however, with a general superintendent at the head of each department supported by a number of competent assistants. More explicit instructions were given as to the manner of dealing with the situation. It was to be the duty of the superintendent of contraband's says the order to organize them into working parties and saving the cotton as pioneers on railroads and steamboats and in any way where their services could be made available. Where labor was performed for private individuals they were charged in accordance with the orders of the commander of the department in case they were directed to save abandoned crops of cotton for the benefit of the United States government. The officers selling such crops were turned over to the superintendent of contraband's the proceeds of the sale which together with other earnings were used for clothing and feeding the Negroes. Clothing sent by philanthropic persons to these camps was received and distributed by their superintendent. In no case, however, were Negroes to be forced into the service of the United States government or to be enticed away from their homes except when it became a military necessity. Some order out of the chaos eventually developed for as John Eaton one of the workers in the West reported there was no promiscuous intermingling. Families were established by themselves. Every man took care of his own wife and children. One of the most touching features of our work says he was the eagerness with which colored men and women availed themselves of the opportunities offered them to legalize unions already formed. Some of which had been in existence for a long time. Chaplain A.S. Fiss on one occasion married in about an hour 119 couples at one service. Chiefly those who had long lived together. Letters from Virginia camps and from those of Port Royal indicate that this favorable condition generally obtained. This unusual problem in spite of additional effort however would not readily admit a solution. Benevolent workers of the North therefore began to minister to the needs of these unfortunate blacks. They sent considerable sums of money increasing quantities of clothing and even some of their most devoted men and women tutorial among them as social workers and teachers. These efforts also took organized form in various parts of the North under the direction of the Pennsylvania Freedmen's Relief Association, The Tracks Society, the American Missionary Association, Pennsylvania Friends Freedmen's Relief Association, Old School Presbyterian Mission, the Reform Presbyterian Mission, the New England Freedmen's Aid Committee, the New England Freedmen's Aid Society, the New England Freedmen's Mission, the Washington Christian Union, the Universalists of Maine, the New York Freedmen's Relief Association, the Hartford Relief Society, the National Freedmen's Relief Association of the District of Columbia, and finally the Freedmen's Breweral. As an outlet to the congested grouping of Negroes and poor whites in the war camps it was arranged to send a number of them to the loyal states as fast as they're presented themselves opportunities for finding homes and employment. Cairo, Illinois in the West became the center of such activities extending its ramifications into all parts of the invaded southern territory. Some of the refugees permanently settled in the north taking up the work abandoned by the northern soldiers who went to war. It was soon felt necessary to appoint a superintendent of such affairs at Cairo for there were those who, desiring to lead a straggling life, had to be restrained from crying by military surveillance and regulations requiring labor for self-support. Exactly how many whites and blacks were thus aided to reach northern communities cannot be determined but in view of the frequent mention of their movements by travelers the number must have been considerable. In some cases as in Lawrence, Kansas there were assembled enough freedmen to constitute a distinct group. Speaking of this settlement the editor of the Alton Telegraph said in 1862 that although they amounted to many hundreds not one that he could learn of had been a public charge. They readily found employment at fair wages and soon made themselves comfortable. There was a little apprehension that the north would be overrun by such blacks. Some had no such fear however for the reason that the census did not indicate such a movement. Many slaves were freed in the north prior to 1860 yet with all the immigration from the slave states to the north there were then in all the northern states but 226,152 free blacks while there were in the slave states 261,918 and excess of 35,766 in the slave states. Federics Starr believed that during the civil war there might be an influx for a few months but it would not continue. They would return when sure that they would be free. Starr thought that if necessary these refugees might be used in building the much desired pacific railroad to divert them from the north. There is little ground for this apprehension in fact if their readjustment and development in the contraband camps could be considered an indication of what the Negroes would eventually do. Taking all things into consideration most unbiased observers felt that blacks in the camps deserved well of their benefactors. According to Levi Coffin these contraband were in 1864 disposed of as follows in military services as soldiers, laundresses, cooks, officers, servants and laborers in the various staff departments 41,150 in cities on plantations and in freed men's villages and cared for 72,500. Of these 62,300 were entirely self-supporting just as any industrial class anywhere else as planters, mechanics, barbers, hackmen and dremen conducting enterprises on their own responsibility or working as hired laborers. The remaining 10,200 received subsistence from the government. 3,000 of these were members of families whose heads were carrying on plantations and had undertaken cultivation of 4,000 acres of cotton pledging themselves to pay the government for their subsistence from the first income of a crop. The other 7,200 included the poppers that is all Negroes over and under the self-supporting age the crippled and sick in hospitals. This class however instead of being unproductive had then under cultivation 500 acres of corn, 790 acres of vegetables and 1,500 acres of cotton besides working at wood chopping and other industries. There were reported in the aggregate over 100,000 acres of cotton under cultivation 7,000 acres of which were leased and cultivated by blacks. Some Negroes were managing as many as 300 or 400 acres each. Statistics showing exactly how much the numbers of contraband in the various branches of the service increase are wanting but in view of the fact that the few thousand soldiers here given increased to about 200,000 before the close of the civil war the other numbers must have been considerable if they all grew the least proportionately. Much industry was shown among these refugees. Under this new system they acquired the idea of ownership and of the security of wages and learned to see the fundamental difference between freedom and slavery. Some Yankees however seeing that they did less work than did laborers in the north considered them lazy but the lack of industry was customary in the south and a river should not be expected to rise higher than its source. One of their superintendents said that they worked well without being urged that there was among them a public opinion against idleness which answered for discipline and that those put to work with soldiers labored longer and did the nicer parts. In natural tech and the faculty of getting a livelihood says the same writer the contrabands are inferior to the Yankees but quite equal to the mass of southern population. The Negroes also show capacity to organize labor and use capital in the promotion of enterprises. Many of them purchased land and cultivated it to great profit both to the community and to themselves. Others entered the service of the government as mechanics and contractors from the employment of which some of them realized handsome incomes. The more important development however was that of manhood. This was best observed in their growing consciousness of rights and their readiness to defend them even when encroached upon by members of the white race. They quickly learned to appreciate freedom and exhibited evidences of manhood in their desire for the comforts and conveniences of life. They readily purchased articles of furniture within their means bringing their home equipment up to the standard of that of persons similarly circumstance. The end disposition to labor was overcome in a healthy nature by instinct and motives of superior forces such as love of life the desire to be clothed and fed the sense of security derived from provision for the future the feeling of self-respect the love of family and children and the convictions of duty. These enterprises began in doubt soon ceased to be a bare hope or possibility. They became during the war a fruition and a consummation in that they produced Negroes who would work for a living and fight for freedom. They were therefore considered adapted to civil society. They had shown capacity for knowledge for free industry for subordination to law and discipline for soldierly fortitude for social and family relations for religious culture and aspirations. These qualities said the observer when stirred and sustained by the incitements and rewards of a just society and combining with the currents of our continental civilization will under the guidance of a benevolent providence which forgets neither them nor us make them a constantly progressive race and secured them ever after from the calamity of another enslavement and ourselves from the worst calamity of being their oppressors. It is clear that these smaller numbers of Negroes under favorable conditions could be easily adjusted to a new environment. When however all Negroes were declared free they're set in a confused migration which was much more of a problem. The first thing the Negro did after realizing that he was free was to roam over the country to put his freedom to a test. To do this according to many writers he frequently changed his name residence employment and wife sometimes carrying with him from the plantation the fruits of his own labor. Many of them easily acquired a dog and a gun and were disposed to devote their time to the chase until the assistance in the form of mules and land expected from the government materialized. Their emancipation therefore was interpreted not only as freedom from slavery but from responsibility. Where they were going they did not know but the towns and cities became very attractive to them. Speaking of this upheaval in Virginia Egan wrote says that many of them roamed over the country without restraint. Release from their accustomed bonds says Hall and filled with the pleasing if not vague sense of uncontrolled freedom they flocked to the cities with little hope of obtaining remunerary air of work. Wagon loads of them were brought in from the country by the soldiers and dumped down to shift for themselves. Referring to the proclamation of freedom in Georgia Thompson asserts that their most general and universal response was to pick up and leave the home place to go somewhere else preferably to a town. The lure of the city was strong to the blacks appealing to their social natures to their inherent love for a crowd. Davis maintains that thousands of the 70,000 Negroes in Florida crowded into the federal military camps and into towns upon realizing that they were free. According to Ficklin the exodus of the slaves from the neighboring plantations of Louisiana into Baton Rouge, Carrollton and New Orleans was so great as to strain the resources of the federal authorities to support them. 10,000 poured into New Orleans alone Fleming records that upon leaving their homes the blacks collected in gangs at the crossroads in the villages and towns especially near the military posts. The towns were filled with crowds of blacks who left their homes with absolutely nothing thinking that the government would care for them or more probably not thinking at all. The portrayal of these writers of this phase of reconstruction history contains a general truth but in some cases the picture is overdrawn. The student of history must bear in mind that practically all of our histories of that period are based all together on the testimony of prejudice white and are written from their point of view. Some of these writers have aimed to exaggerate the vagrancy of the blacks to justify the radical procedure of the whites in dealing with it. The Negroes did wonder about thoughtlessly believing that this was the most effective way to enjoy their freedom but nothing else could be expected from a class who had never felt anything but the heel of oppression. History shows that such vagrancy has always followed the immediate emancipation of a large number of slaves. Many Negroes who flocked to the towns and army camps more over had like their masters and poor whites seen their homes broken up or destroyed by the invading Union armies. Whites who had never learned to work were also roaming and in some cases constituted marauding bands. There was more over an actual drain of laborers to the lower and more productive lands in Mississippi and Louisiana. This developed later into a more considerable movement toward the southwest just after the Civil War, the Exodus being from South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi to Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas. Here is the Paraneering Spirit, a going to the land of more economic opportunities. This slow movement continued from about 1865 to 1875 when the development of the numerous railway systems gave rise to land speculators who induced whites and blacks to go west and southwest. It was a migration of individuals, but it was reported that as many as 35,000 Negroes were then persuaded to leave South Carolina and Georgia for Arkansas and Texas. The usual charge that the Negro is naturally migratory is not true. This impression is often received by persons who hear of the thousands of Negroes who move from one place to another from year to year because of the desire to improve their unhappy condition. In this there is no tendency to migrate but an urgent need to escape undesirable conditions. In fact, one of the American Negroes greatest shortcomings is that they are not sufficiently pioneering. Statistics show that the whites have more inclination to move from state to state than the Negro. To prove this assertion, Professor William O. Skrogs has shown that in 1910, 16.6 percent of the Negroes had moved to some other state than that in which they were born, while during the same period 22.4 percent of the whites had done the same. The South, however, was not disposed to look at the vagrancy of the ex-slaves so philosophically. That section had been devastated by war and to rebuild these waste places reliable labor was necessary. Legislatures of the slave states therefore immediately after the close of the war granted the Negro nominal freedom but inactive measures of vagrancy and labor so as to reduce the Negro again almost to the status of a slave. White magistrates were given wide discretion in adjudging Negro's vagrants. Negroes had to sign contracts to work. If without what was considered a just cause, the Negro left the employee of a planter. The former could be arrested and forced to work and in some sections with ball and chain. If the employer did not care to take him back, he could be hired out by the county or confined in jail. Mississippi, Louisiana and South Carolina had further drastic features. By local ordinance in Louisiana every Negro had to be in the service of some white person and by special laws of South Carolina and Mississippi the Negro became subject to a master almost in the same sense in which he was prior to emancipation. These laws of course convinced the government of the United States that the South had not yet decided to let slavery go and for that reason military rule and congressional reconstruction followed. In this respect the South did itself a great injury for many of the provisions of the black codes especially the vagrancy laws were unnecessary. Most Negroes soon realized that freedom did not mean relief from responsibility and they quickly settled down to work after a rather protracted and exciting holiday. During the last year of and immediately after the silver war there set in another movement not of a large number of Negroes but of the intelligent class who had during years of residence in the north enjoyed such advantages of contact and education as to make them desirable and useful as leaders in the reconstruction of the south and the remaking of the race. In their tirades against the carpet bag politicians who handled the reconstruction situation so much to the dissatisfaction of the southern whites historians often forget to mention also that a large number of the Negro leaders who participated in that drama were also natives or residents of northern states. Three motives impelled these blacks to go south. Some had found northern communities so hostile as to impede their progress many wanted to rejoin relatives from whom they had been separated by their flight from the land of slavery and others were moved by the spirit of adventure to enter a new field ripe with all sorts of opportunities. This movement together with that of migration to large urban communities largely accounts for the depopulation and the consequent decline of certain colored communities in the north after 1865. Some of the Negroes who returned to the south became men of national prominence. William J. Simmons who prior to the silver war was carried from South Carolina to Pennsylvania returned to do religious and educational work in Kentucky. Bishop James W. Hood of the African Methodist Episcopal Lion Church went from Connecticut to North Carolina to engage in similar work. Honorer Boat R. T. Greener the first Negro graduate of Harvard went from Philadelphia to teach in the district of Columbia and later to be a professor in the University of South Carolina. F. L. Cardoza educated at the University of Edinburgh returned to South Carolina and became state treasurer. R. B. Elliott born in Boston and educated in England settled in South Carolina from which he was sent to Congress. John M. Langston was taken to Ohio and educated but came back to Virginia his native state from which he was elected to Congress. J. T. White left Indiana to enter politics in Arkansas becoming state senator and later commissioner of public works and internal improvements. Judge Mifflin Wister Gibbs a native of Philadelphia purposely settled in Arkansas where he served as city judge and register of United States land office. T. Morris Chester of Pittsburgh finally made his way to Louisiana where he served with distinction as a lawyer and held the position of Brigadier General in charge of the Louisiana state guards under the Kellogg government. Joseph Carter Corbin who was taken from Virginia to be educated at Chilacothe, Ohio went later to Arkansas where he served as chief clerk in the post office at Little Rock and later as state superintendent of schools. Pickney Benton Stewart Pinchback who moved nor for education and opportunity returned to enter politics in Louisiana which honored him with several important positions among which was that of acting governor. End of Chapter 6 Chapter 7 of a Century of Negro Migration This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. This recording by Michelle Fry, Baton Rouge, Louisiana in September 2019. A Century of Negro Migration by Carter Woodson Chapter 7 The Exodus to the West Having come through the house in days of the reconstruction only to find themselves reduced almost to the status of slaves many Negroes deserted the south for the promising west to grow up with the country. The immediate causes were doubtless political bulldozing a rather vague term covering all such crimes as political injustice and persecution was the source of most complaint. The abridgment of the Negro's rights had affected them as a great calamity. They had learned that voting is one of the highest privileges to be obtained in this life and they wanted to go where they might still exercise that privilege. That persecution was the main cause was disputed however as there were cases of Negroes migrating from parts where no such conditions obtained. Yet some of the whites giving their version of the situation admitted that violent methods had been used so to intimidate the Negroes as to compel them to vote according to the dictation of the whites. It was also learned that the bulldozers concerned in dethroning the non-tax paying blacks were an impecunious and irresponsible group themselves led by men of the wealthy class. Coming to the defense of the whites some said that much of the persecution with which the blacks were afflicted was due to the fear of Negro uprisings the terror of the days of slavery. The whites however did practically nothing to remove the underlying causes they did not encourage education and made no efforts to cure the Negroes of faults for which slavery itself was to be blamed and consequently could not get the confidence of the blacks. The races tended rather to drift apart. The Negroes lived in fear of re-enslavement while the whites believed that the war between the north and the south would soon be renewed. Some Negroes thinking likewise sought to go north to be among friends. The blacks of course had come so to regard southern whites as their enemies as to render impossible a voluntary division in politics. Among the worst of all faults of the whites was their unwillingness to labor and their tendency to do mischief. As there were so many to live on the labor of the Negroes they were reduced to a state a little better than that of bondage. The master class was generally unfair to the blacks. No longer responsible for them as slaves the planters endeavored after the war to get their labor for nothing. The Negroes themselves had no land, no mules, no presses nor cotton gins and they could not acquire a sufficient capital to obtain these things. They were made victims of fraud in signing contracts which they could not understand and had to suffer the consequent privations and want aggravated by robbery and murder by the Ku Klux Klan. The murder of Negroes was common throughout the south and especially in Louisiana. In 1875 a general Sheridan said that as many as 3,500 persons had been killed and wounded in that state the great majority of whom being Negroes that 1,884 were killed and wounded in 1868 and probably 1200 between 1868 and 1875. Frightful massacres occurred in the parishes of Bozier, Catehola, St. Bernard, Grant and Orleans. As most of these murders were for political reasons the offenders were regarded by their communities as heroes rather than as criminals. A massacre of Negroes began in the parish of St. Landry on the 28th of September and continued for three days resulting in the death of from three to four hundred. Thirteen captives were taken from the jail and shot and as many as 25 dead bodies were found burned in the woods. They broke out in the parish of Bozier another three-day riot during which 200 Negroes were massacred. More than 40 blacks were killed in the parish of Caddo during the following month. In fact, the number of murders, mamings and whippings during these months aggregated over 1,000. The result was that the intelligent Negroes were either intimidated or killed so that the illiterate masses of Negro voters might be ordered to refrain from voting the Republican ticket to strengthen the Democrats or be subjected to starvation through the operation of the mischievous land tenure and credit system. What was not done in 1868 to overthrow the Republican regime was accomplished by the renewed and extended use of such drastic measures throughout the south in 1876. Certain whites maintained however that the unrest was due to the work of radical politicians at the north who had sent their emissaries south to delude the Negroes into a fever of migration. Some said it was a scheme to force the nomination of a certain Republican candidate for president in 1880. Others laid it to the charge of the defeated white and black Republicans who had been thrown from power by the whites upon regaining control of the reconstructed states. A few insisted that a speech delivered by Senator Wyndham in 1879 had given stimulus to the migration. Many Southerners said that speculators in Kansas had adopted this plan to increase the value of their land. Then there were other theories as to the fundamental causes each consisting of a charge of one political faction that some other had given rise to the movement varying according as they were Bourbons, Conservatives, Native White Republicans, Carpetbag Republicans, or Black Republicans. Impartial observers however were satisfied that the movement was spontaneous to the extent that the blacks were ready and willing to go. Probably no more inducement was offered them than to other citizens among whom land companies sent agents to distribute literature. But the fundamental causes of the unrest were economic for since the Civil War race troubles have never been sufficient to set in motion a large number of Negroes. The discontent resulted from the land tenure and credit systems which had restored slavery in a modified form. After the Civil War a few Negroes in those parts where such opportunities were possible invested in real estate offered for sale by the impoverished and ruined planters of the conquered Commonwealths. When however the Negroes lost their political power their property was seized on the plea for delinquent taxes and they were forced into the ghetto of towns and cities as it became a crime punishable by social prescription to sell Negroes desirable residences. The aim was to debase all Negroes to the status of menial labor in conformity with the usual contention of the South that slavery is a normal condition of the blacks. Most of the land of the South however always remained as large tracts held by the planters of cotton who never thought of alienating it to the Negroes to make them a race of small farmers. In fact they had not the means to make extensive purchases of land even if the planters had been disposed to transfer it. Still subject to the experimentation of white men the Negroes accepted the plan of paying them wages but this failed in all parts except in the sugar district where the blacks remained contented save when disturbed by political movements. Then they tried all systems of working on shares in the cotton districts but this was finally abandoned because the planters in some cases were not able to advance the Negro tenants supplies pending the growth of the crop and some found the Negro too indifferent and lazy to make the partnership desirable. Then came the renting system which during the reconstruction period was general in the cotton districts. This system threw the tenant on his own responsibility and frequently made him the victim of his own ignorance and the rapacity of the white man. As exorbitant prices were charged for rent usually six to ten dollars an acre for land worth 15 or 30 dollars an acre the Negro tenant not only did not accumulate anything but had reason to rejoice at the end of the year if he found himself out of debt. Along with this went the credit system which furnished the capstone of the economic structure so harmful to the Negro tenant. This system made the Negroes dependent for their living on an advance of supplies for food clothing or tools during the year secured by a lean on the crop when harvested. As the Negroes had no chance to learn business methods during the days of slavery they fell a prey to a class of loan sharks harpies and vampires who established stores everywhere to extort from these ignorant tenants by the mischievous credit system their whole income before their crops could be gathered. Some planters who sympathized with the Negroes brought forward the scheme of protecting them by advancing certain necessities at more reasonable prices. As the planter himself however was subject to usury the scheme did not give much relief. The Negroes crop therefore when gathered went either to the merchant or to the planter to pay the rent for the merchant's supplies were secured by a mortgage on the tenant's personal property and a pledge of the growing crop. This often prevented Negro laborers in the employ of Black tenants from getting their wage at the end of the year for although the laborer had also a lean on the growing crop the merchant and the planter usually had theirs recorded first and secured thereby the support of the law to force the payment of their claims. The Negro tenant then began the year with three mortgages covering all he owned his labor for the coming year and all he expected to acquire during that 12 months. He paid one third of his product for the use of the land he paid an exorbitant fee for recording the contract by which he paid his pound of flesh he was charged two or three times as much as he ought to pay for ginning his cotton and finally he turned over his crop to be eaten up in commissions if any was still left to him. The worst of all results from this iniquitous system was its effects on the Negroes themselves. It made the Negroes extravagant and unscrupulous convinced that no share of their crop would come to them when harvested they did not exert themselves to produce what they could they often abandoned their crops before harvest knowing that they had already spent them in cases however where the Negro tenants had acquired mules horses or tools upon which the speculator had a mortgage the blacks were actually bound to their landlords to secure the property. It was soon evident that in the end the white man himself was the loser by this evil system there appeared waste places in the country improvements were wanting land lay idle for the lack of sufficient labor and that which was cultivated yielded a diminishing return on account of the ignorance and improvidence of those tilling it. These Negroes as a rule had lost the ambition to become landowners preferring to invest their surplus money in personal effects and in the few cases where the Negroes were induced to undertake the buying of land they often tired of the responsibility and gave it up. There began in the spring of 1879 therefore an emigration of the Negroes from Louisiana and Mississippi to Kansas for some time there was a stampede from several river parishes in Louisiana and from counties just opposite them in Mississippi. It was estimated that from five to ten thousand left their homes before the movement could be checked. Persons of influence soon busyed themselves in showing the blacks the necessity for remaining in the south and those who had not then gone or prepared to go were persuaded to return to the plantations. This lull in the excitement however was merely temporary for many Negroes had merely returned home to make more extensive preparations for leaving the following spring. The movement was accelerated by the work of two Negro leaders of some note Moses Singleton of Tennessee the self styled Moses of the Exodus and Henry Adams of Louisiana who credited himself with having organized for this purpose as many as 98,000 blacks. Taking this movement seriously a convention of the leading whites and blacks was held at Vicksburg Mississippi on the 6th of May 1879. This body was controlled mainly by unsympathetic but diplomatic whites. General N. R. Miles of Yazoo County Mississippi was elected president and a W. Crandall of Louisiana secretary. After making some meaningless but eloquent speeches the convention appointed a committee on credentials and adjourned until the following day. On reassembling Colonel W. L. Nugent chairman of the committee presented a certain preamble and resolutions citing causes of the exodus and suggesting remedies. Among the causes thought he were quote the low price of cotton and the partial failure of the crop. The irrational system of planting adopted in some sections whereby labor was deprived of intelligence to direct it and the presence of economy to make it profitable. The vicious system of credit fostered by laws permitting laborers and tenants to mortgage crops before they were grown or even planted. The apprehension on the part of many colored people produced by insidious reports circulated among them that their civil and political rights were endangered or were likely to be. The hurtful and false rumors diligently disseminated that by immigrating to Kansas the Negroes would obtain lands, mules, and money from the government without cost to themselves and become independent forever. End quote. Referring to the grievances and proposing a redress the committee admitted that errors had been committed by the whites and blacks alike as each in turn had controlled the government of the states there represented. The committee believed that the interests of the planters and laborers, landlords, and tenants were identical, that they must prosper or suffer together and that it was the duty of the planters and the landlords of the state there represented to devise and adopt some contract by which both parties would receive the full benefit of labor governed by intelligence and economy. The convention affirmed that the Negro race had been placed by the Constitution of the United States and the states there represented and the laws thereof on a plane of absolute equality with the white race and declared that the Negro race should be accorded the practical enjoyment of all civil and political rights guaranteed by the said constitutions and laws. The convention pledged itself to use whatever of power and influence it possessed to protect the Negro race against all dangers in respect to the fair expression of their wills at the polls which they apprehended might result from fraud, intimidation, or bulldozing on the part of the whites and as there could be no liberty of action without freedom of thought they demanded that all elections should be fair and free and that no repressive measures should be employed by the Negroes to deprive their own race in part of the fullest freedom in the exercise of the highest right of citizenship. The committee then recommended the abolition of the mischievous credit system called upon the Negroes to contradict false reports as to crimes of the whites against them and after considering the Negroes right to emigrate urged that they proceed about it with reason. Ex-governor Frutte of Mississippi submitted a plan to establish in every county a committee composed of men who had the confidence of both whites and blacks to be auxiliary to the public authorities to listen to complaints and arbitrate, advise, conciliate, or prosecute as each case should demand. But unwilling to do more than make temporary concessions the majority rejected Frutte's plan. The whites thought also to stop the exodus by inducing the steamboat lines not to furnish the immigrants' transportation. Negroes were also detained by rits obtained by preferring against them false charges. Some who were willing to let the Negroes go thought of importing white and Chinese labor to take their places. Hearing of the movement and thinking that he could offer a remedy, Senator D. W. Voorhees of Indiana introduced a resolution in the United States Senate authorizing an inquiry into the causes of the exodus. The movement however could not be stopped and it became so widespread that the people in general were forced to give it serious thought. Men in favor of it declared their views, organized migration societies, and appointed agents to promote the enterprise of removing the freedmen from the South. Becoming a national measure therefore the migration evoked expressions from Frederick Douglas and Richard T. Greener, two of the most prominent Negroes in the United States. Douglas believed that the exodus was ill-timed. He saw in it the abandonment of the great principle of protection to persons and property in every state of the union. He felt that if the Negroes could not be protected in every state the federal government was shorn of its rightful dignity and power. The late rebellion had triumphed. The sovereign of the nation was an empty vessel and the power and authority in individual states was supreme. He thought therefore that it was better for the Negroes to stay in the South than go North as the South was a better market for the Black Man's labor. Douglas believed that the Negroes should be warned against a nomadic life. He did not see any more benefit in the migration to Kansas than he had years before in the emigration to Africa. The Negroes had a monopoly of labor at the South and they would be too insignificant in numbers to have such an advantage in the North. The Blacks were then potentially able to elect members of Congress in the South but could not hope to exercise such power in other parts. Douglas believed moreover that this exodus did not conform to the laws of civilizing migration as the carrying of a language literature and the like of a superior race to an inferior. And it did not conform to the geographic laws assuring healthy migration from East to West in the same latitude as this was from South to North far away from the climate in which the migrants were born. The exodus of the Negroes however was heartily endorsed by Richard T. Greener. He did not consider it the best remedy for the lawlessness of the South but felt it was a salutary one. He did not expect the United States to give the oppressed Blacks in the South the protection they needed as there is no abstract limit to the right of a state to do anything. He would not encourage the Negro to lead a wandering life but in that instance such advice was gratuitous. Greener failed to find any analogy between African colonization and migration to the West as the former was promoted by slave holders to remove the free Negro from the country and the other sprang spontaneously from the class considering itself agreed. One led out of the country to a comparative wilderness the other directed to a better land and larger opportunities. He did not see how the migration to the North would diminish the potentiality of the Negro in politics for Massachusetts first elected Negroes to her general court. Ohio had nominated a Negro representative and Illinois another. He showed also that Mr. Douglas's objection on the grounds of migrating from South to North rather than from East to West was not historical. He thought little of the advice to the Negroes to stick and fight it out for he had evidence that the return of the unreconstructed Confederates to power in the South would for generations doom the Blacks to political oppression unknown in the annals of a free country. Greener showed foresight here in urging the Negroes to take up desirable Western land before it would be preempted by foreigners. As the Swedes, Norwegians, Irish, Hebrews and others were organizing societies and raising funds to promote the migration of their needy to these lands why should the Negroes be debarred? Greener had no apprehension as to the treatment the Negroes would receive in the West. He connected the movement too with the general welfare of the Blacks considering it a promising sign that they had learned to run from persecution. Having passed their first stage that of appealing to philanthropists the Negroes were then appealing to themselves. Feeling very much as Greener did these Negroes rushed into Kansas and neighboring states in 1879. So many came that some systematic relief had to be offered. Mrs. Comstock, a Quaker lady organized for this purpose the Kansas Freedmen's Relief Association to raise funds and secure for them food and clothing. In this work she had the support of Governor J. P. St. John. There was much suffering upon arriving in Kansas but relief came from various sources. During this year forty thousand dollars and five hundred thousand pounds of clothing, bedding and the like were used. England contributed 50,000 pounds of goods and eight thousand dollars. In 1879 the refugees took up 20,000 acres of land and brought 3,000 under cultivation. The Relief Association at first furnished them with supplies, teams and seed which they profitably used in the production of large crops. Desiring to establish homes they built 300 cabins and saved 30,000 dollars the first year. In April 1300 refugees had gathered around Wyandotte alone. Up to that date 60,000 had come to Kansas nearly 40,000 of whom arrived in destitute condition. About 30,000 settled in the country some on rented lands and others on farms as laborers leaving about 25,000 in cities where on account of crowded conditions and the hard weather many greatly suffered. Upon finding employment however they all did well most of them becoming self-supporting within one year after their arrival and few of them coming back to the Relief Association for aid the second time. This was especially true of those in Topeka Parsons and Kansas City. The people of Kansas did not encourage the blacks to come. They even sent messengers to the south to advise the Negroes not to migrate and if they did come anyway to provide themselves with equipment. When they did arrive however they welcomed and assisted them as human beings. Under such conditions the blacks established five or six important colonies in Kansas alone between 1879 and 1880. Chief among these were Baxter Springs, Nicodemus, Morton City, and Singleton. Governor St. John of Kansas reported that they seemed to be honest and of good habits were certainly industrious and anxious to work and so far as they had been tried had proved to be faithful and excellent laborers. Giving his observations there Sir George Campbell bore testimony to the same report. Footnote in Kansas City said Sir George Campbell and still more in the suburbs of Kansas proper the Negroes are much more numerous than I have yet seen. On the Kansas side they form quite a large proportion of the population. They're certainly subject to no indignity or ill usage. There the Negroes seem to have quite taken to work at trades. He saw them doing building work both alone and assisting white men and also painting and other tradesmen's work. On the Kansas side he found a Negro blacksmith with an establishment of his own. He had come from Tennessee after emancipation. He had not been back there and did not want to go. He also saw black women keeping apple stalls and engaged in other such occupations as to leave him under the impression that in the states which you called intermediate between black and white countries the blacks evidently had no difficulty. See the American Journal of Social Science number 11 page 32 and 33. End of footnote. Out of these communities have come some most progressive black citizens. In consideration of their desirability their white neighbors have given them their cooperation secured to them the advantages of democratic education and honored a few of them with some of the most important positions in the state. Although the greater number of these blacks went to Kansas about 5,000 of them saw refuge in other western states. During these years Negroes gradually invaded Indian territory and increased the number already infiltrated into and assimilated by the Indian nations. When assured of their friendly attitude toward the Indians the Negroes were accepted by them as equals even during the days of slavery when the blacks on account of the cruelties of their masters escaped into the wilderness. Here we are at sea as to the extent to which this invasion and subsequent miscegenation of the black and red races extended for the reason that neither the Indians nor the migrating Negroes kept records and the United States government has been disposed to classify all mixed breeds in tribes as Indians. Having equal opportunity among the red men the Negroes easily succeeded. A traveler in Indian territory in 1880 found their condition unusually favorable. The cozy homes and promising fields of these freedmen attracted his attention as striking evidences of their thrift. He saw new fences, additions to cabins, new barns, churches and schoolhouses indicating prosperity. Given every privilege which the Indians themselves enjoyed the Negroes could not be other than contented. It was very unfortunate however that in 1889 when by proclamation of President Harrison the Oklahoma territory was thrown open the intense race prejudice of the white immigrants and the rule of the mob prevented a larger number of Negroes from settling in that promising Commonwealth. Long since extensively advertised as valuable the land of Oklahoma had become a coveted prize for the adventurous squatters invading the territory in defiance of the law before it was declared open for settlement. The rush came with all the excitement of pioneer days redoubled. Stakes were set, parcels of land were claimed, cabins were constructed in an hour and towns grew up in a day. Then came conflicting claims as to titles and rights of preemption culminating in fighting in bloodshed. And worst of all with this disorderly group they developed the fixed policy of eliminating the Negroes entirely. The Negro however was not entirely excluded some had already come into the territory and others in spite of the barrier set up continued to come. With the cooperation of the Indians with whom they easily amalgamated they readjusted themselves and acquired sufficient wealth to rise in the economic world. Although not generally fortunate a number of them have coal and oil lands from which they obtain handsome incomes and a few like Sarah Rector have actually become rich. Dishonest white men with the assistance of unprincipled officials have defrauded and are still endeavoring to defraud these Negroes of their property lending them money secured by mortgages and obtaining for themselves through the court's appointments as the Negroes guardians. They turn out to be the robbers of the Negroes in case they do not live in a community where an enlightened public opinion frowns upon this crime. During the later 80s and the early 90s there were some other interstate movements worthy of notice here. The mineral wealth of the Appalachian mountains was being exploited. Foreigners at first were coming into this country in sufficiently large numbers to meet the demand but when this supply became inadequate labor agents appealed to the blacks in the south. Negroes then flocks to the mining districts of Birmingham, Alabama and to East Tennessee. A large number also migrated from North Carolina and Virginia to West Virginia and some few of the same group to southern Ohio to take the places of those unreasonable strikers who often demanded larger increases in wages than the income of their employers could permit. Many of these Negroes came to West Virginia as is evidenced by the increase in Negro population of that state. West Virginia had a Negro population of 17,970 in 1870, 25,896 in 1880, 32,690 in 1890, 43,499 in 1900 and 64,173 in 1910. End of chapter 7, The Exodus to the West.