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A CENTURY OF
NEGRO MIGRATION

BY

GARTER G. WOODSON, Ph.D. (Hahvabd)
Editor of the Journal of Negro History, and Author of The
Education of the Negro Prior to 1881

WASHINGTON, D. C.
THE ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF
NEGRO LIFE AND HISTORY
1918

Copyright, 1918
By Cartes Godwin 'Woodson

Cb^X

PRESS OF
THE NEW ERA PRINTING COMPANY
LANCASTER, PA.

To MY Father
JAMES WOODSON
WHO MADE IT POSSIBLE FOR ME
TO ENTER THE LITEBAEY WORLD

PREFACE
IN treating this movement of the Negroes, the
writer does not presume to say the last word
on the subject. The exodus of the Negroes from
the South has just begun. The blacks have re
cently realized that they have freedom of body
and they will now proceed to exercise that right.
To presume, therefore, to exhaust the treatment
of this movement in its incipiency is far from
the intention of the writer. The aim here is
rather to direct attention to this new phase of
Negro American life which will doubtless prove
to be the most significant event in our local his
tory since the Civil War.
Many of the facts herein set forth have seen
light before. The effort here is directed toward
an original treatment of facts, many of which
have already periodically appeared in some
form. As these works, however, are too numer
ous to be consulted by the layman, the writer has
endeavored to present in succinct form' the lead
ing facts as to how the Negroes in the United
States have struggled under adverse circum
stances to flee from bondage and oppression in
quest of a land offering asylum to the oppressed
and opportunity to the unfortunate. How they
have often been deceived has been carefully
noted.

vi Preface
With the hope that this volume may interest
another worker to the extent of publishing many
other facts in this field, it is respectfully sub
mitted to the public.
Carter G. Woodson.
Washington, D, C,
March 31, 1918.

CONTENTS
Chapter P^qb
I.— Finding a Place of Refuge  1
n.— A Transplantation to the North. . . 18
in.— Fighting it out on Free Soil  39
IV.— Colonization' as a Remedy for Mi
gration  61
v.— The Successful Migrant  81
VI.— Confusing Movements  101
VII.— The Exodus to the West  126
VIII.— The Migration of the Talented
Tenth  147
IX.— The Exodus during the World War. 167
Bibliography  193
Index  212

Maps and Diagrams
Map Showing the Per Cent of Negroes in Total
Population, by States : 1910  159
Diagram Showing the Negro Population of North
ern and Western Cities ui 1900 and 1910 . . , , 163
Maps Showing Counties in Southern States in
which Negroes Formed 50 Per Cent of the
Total Population  165

vu

CHAPTER I
FINDING A PLACE OF BEFUGB
THE migration of the blacks from the South
ern States to those offering them better
opportunities is nothing new. The objective
here, therefore, will be not merely to present the
causes and results of the recent movement of
the Negroes to the North but to connect this
event with the periodical movements of the
blacks to that section, from about the year 1815
to the present day. That this movement should
date from that period indicates that the policy
of the commonwealths towards the Negro must
have then begun decidedly to differ so as to
make one section of the country more congenial
to the despised blacks than the other. As a
matter of fact, to justify this conclusion, we
need but give passing mention here to develop
ments too well known to be discussed in detail.
Slavery in the original thirteen States was the
normal condition of the Negroes. When, how
ever, James Otis, Patrick Henry and Thomas
Jefferson began to discuss the natural rights of
the colonists, then said to be oppressed by Great
Britain, some of the^atriots of the Revolution
carried their reasoning to its logical conclusion,
contending that the Negro slaves should be
1

2 A Century of Negro Migration
freed on the same groimds, as their rights were
also founded in the laws of nature.^ And so it
was soon done in most Northern common
wealths. Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachu
setts exterminated the institution by constitu
tional provision and Rhode Island, Connecticut,
New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania by
gradual emancipation acts.^ And it was thought
that the institution would soon thereafter pass
away even in all southern commonwealths ex
cept South Carolina and Georgia, where it had
seemingly become profitable. There came later
the industrial revolution following the invention
of Watt's steam engine and mechanical appli
ances like Whitney's cotton gin, all which
changed the economic aspect of the modern
world, making slavery an institution offering
means of exploitation to those engaged in the
production of cotton. This revolution rendered
necessary a large supply of cheap labor for cot
ton culture, out of which the plantation system
grew. The Negro slaves, therefore, lost all hope
of ever winning their freedom in South Caro
lina and Georgia; and in Maryland, Virginia,
and North Carolina, where the sentiment in
favor of abolition had been favorable, there was
1 Locke, Anti-Slavery, pp. 19, 20, 23; Worlcs of John Wool-
man, pp. 5&, 73; and Moore, Notes on Slavery in Massachu
setts, p. 71.
zBassett, Federalist System, chap. xii. Hart, Slavery and
Abolition, pp. 153, 154.

Finding a Place of Eefuge 3
a decided reaction which soon blighted their
hopes.^ In the Northern commonwealths, how
ever, the sentiment in behalf of universal free
dom, though at times dormant, was ever ap
parent despite the attachment to the South of
the trading classes of northern cities, which
profited by the slave trade and their commerce
with the slaveholding States. The Northern
States maintaining this liberal attitude devel
oped, therefore, into an asylum for the Negroes
who were oppressed in the South.
The Negroes, however, were not generally
welcomed in the North. Many of the north
erners who sympathized with the oppressed
blacks in the South never dreamt of ha-viug them
as their neighbors. There were, consequently,
always two classes of anti-slavery people, those
who advocated the abolition of slavery to ele
vate the blacks to the dignity of citizenship, and
those who merely hoped to exterminate the in
stitution because it was an economic evil.^ The
latter generally believed that the blacks consti
tuted an inferior class that could not discharge
the duties of citizenship, and when the proposal
to incorporate the blacks into the body politic
was clearly presented to these agitators their
anti-slavery ardor was decidedly dampened.
Unwilling, however, to take the position that a
3 Turner, The Eise of the New West, pp. 45, 46, 47, 48, 49;
Hammond, Cotton Industry, chaps, i and ii; Scherer, Cotton as
a World Power, pp. 168, 175.
* Locke, Anti-Slavery, chaps, i and ii.

4 A Century of Negro Migration
race should be doomed because of personal ob
jections, many of the early anti-slavery group
looked toward colonization for a solution of this
problem.** Some thought of Africa, but since
the deportation of a large number of persons
who had been brought under the influence of
modern civilization seemed cruel, the most pop
ular colonization scheme at first seemed to be
that of settling the Negroes on the public lands
in the West. As this region had been lately
ceded, however, and no one could determine
what use could be made of it by white men, no
such policy was generally accepted.
When this territory was ceded to the United
States an effort to provide for the government
of it finally culminated in the proposed Ordi
nance of 1784 carrying the provision that slav
ery should not exist in the Northwest Territory
after the year 1800.® This measure finally
failed to pass and fortunately too, thought some,
because, had slavery been given sixteen years
of growth on that soil, it might not have been
abolished there until the Civil War or it might
have caused such a preponderance of slave
commonwealths as to make the rebellion suc
cessful. The Ordinance of 1784 was antecedent
to the more important Ordinance of 1787, which
carried the famous sixth article that neither
slavery nor involuntary servitude except as a
5 Jay, An Inquiry, p. 30.
'Ford edition, Jefferson's Writings, III, p. 432,

Finding a Place of Refuge 5
punishment for crime should exist in that ter
ritory. At first, it was generally deemed fea
sible to establish Negro colonies on that domain.
Yet despite the assurance of the Ordinance of
1787 conditions were such that one could not
determine exactly whether the Northwest Ter
ritory would be slave or free.''
What then was the situation in this partly un
occupied territory? Slavery existed in what is
now the Northwest Territory from the time of
the early exploration and settlement of that re
gion by the French. The first slaves of white
men were Indians. Though it is true that the
red men usually chose death rather than slavery,
there were some of them that bowed to the yoke.
So many Pawnee Indians became bondsmen
that the word Pcmi became synonymous with
slave in the West.^ Western Indians them
selves, following the custom of white men, en
slaved their captives in war rather than choose
the alternative of putting them to death. In
this way they were known to hold a number of
blacks and whites.
T For the passage of this ordinance three reasons have been
given: Slavery then prior to the invention of the cotton gin
was considered a necessary evil in the South. The expected
monopoly of the tobacco and indigo cultivation in the South
would be promoted by excluding Negroes from the Northwest
Territory and thus preventing its cultivation there. Dr. Cut
ler's influence aided by Mr. Grayson of Virginia was of much
assistance. Whe philanthropic idea was not so prominent as
men have thought. — Dunn, Indiana, p. 212.
8 Hid., p. 254.

6 A Century of Negro Migration
The enslavement of the black man by the
whites in this section dates from the early part
of the eighteenth century. Being a part of the
Louisiana Territory which under France ex
tended over the whole Mississippi Valley as far
as the Allegheny mountains, it was governed
by the same colonial regulations.® Slavery,
therefore, had legal standing in this territory.
When Antoine Crozat, upon being placed in con
trol of Louisiana, was authorized to begin a
traffic in slaves, Crozat himself did nothing to
carry out his plan. But in 1717 when the control
of the colony was transferred to the Compagnie
de I' Occident steps were taken toward the im
portation of slaves. In 1719, when 500 Guinea
Negroes were brought over to serve in Lower
Louisiana, Philip Francis Renault imported 500
other bondsmen into Upper Louisiana or what
was later included in the Northwest Territory.
Slavery then became more and more extensive
until by 1750 there were along the Mississippi
five settlements of slaves, KaskasMa, KaoMa,
Fort Chartres, St. Phillipe and Prairie du
Rocher.io In 1763 Negroes were relatively
» Code Noir.
10 Speaking of these settlements in 1750, M. Viner, a Jesuit
Missionary to the Indians, said: "We have here "Whites, Ne
groes, and Indians, to say nothing of cross-breeds- There are
five French villages and three viUages of the natives within a
space of twenty-one leagues— In the five French viUages there
are perhaps eleven hundred whites, three hundred blacks, and
some sixty red slaves or savages."

Finding a Place of Refuge 7
numerous in the Northwest Territory but when
this section that year was transferred to the
British the number was diminished by the action
of those Frenchmen who, unwilling to become
subjects of Great Britain, moved from the ter
ritory.^^ There was no material increase in the
slave population thereafter until the end of the
Unlike the condition of the slaves in Lower Louisiana where
the rigid enforcement of the Slave Code made their lives almost
intolerable, the slaves of the Northwest Territory were for
many reasons much more fortunate. In the first place, subject
to the control of a mayor-commandant appointed by the Gover
nor of New Orleans, the early dwellers in this territory managed
their plantations about as they pleased. Moreover, as there
were few planters who owned as many as three or four Negroes,
slavery in the Northwest Territory did not get far beyond the
patriarchal stage. Slaves were usually well fed. The relations
between master and slave were friendly. The bondsmen were
allowed special privileges on Sundays and holidays and their
children were taught the catechism according to the ordinance
of Louis XIV in 1724, which provided that all masters should
educate their slaves in the Apostolic Catholic religion and have
them baptized. Male slaves were worked side by side in the
fields with their masters and the female slaves in neat attire
went with their mistresses to matins and vespers. Slaves
freely mingled in practically all festive enjoyments. — See
Jesuit Relations, LXIX, p. 144; Hutchins, An Sistoricdl Nar
rative, 1784; and Code Noir.
11 Mention was thereafter made of slaves as in the case of
Captain Philip Pittman who in 1770 wrote of one Mr. Beauvais,
"who owned 240 orpens of cultivated land and eighty slaves;
and such a case as that of a Captain of a militia at St. Philips,
possessing twenty blacks ; and the case of Mr. Bales, a very rich
man of St. Genevieve, Illinois, owning a hundred Negroes,
beside having white people constantly employed." — ^See Cap
tain Pittman 's The Present State of the European Settlements
in the Mississippi, 1770.
2

8 A Century of Negro Migration
eighteenth century when some Negroes came
from the original thirteen.
The Ordinance of 1787 did not disturb the re
lation of slave and master. Some pioneers
thought that the sixth article exterminated slav
ery there ; others contended that it did not. The
latter believed that such expressions in the Or
dinance of 1787 as the "free inhabitants" and
the "free male inhabitants of full size" implied
the continuance of slavery and others found
ground for its perpetuation in that clause of the
Ordinance which allowed the people of the ter
ritory to adopt the constitution and laws of any
one of the thirteen States. Students of law
saw protection for slavery in Jay's treaty which
guaranteed to the settlers their property of all
kinds.^^ When, therefore, the slave question
came up in the Northwest Territory about the
close of the eighteenth century, there were three
classes of slaves : first, those who were in servi
tude to French owners previous to the cession
of the Territory to England and were still
claimed as property in the possession of which
the owners were protected under the treaty of
1763; second, those who were held by British
owners at the time of Jay's treaty and claimed
afterward as property under its protection; and
third, those who, since the Territory had been
controlled by the United States, had been
brought from the commonwealths in which Slav
ic Dunn, Indiana, chap. vL

Finding a Place of Refuge 9
ery was allowed.^* Freedom, however, was
recognized as the ultimate status of the Negro
in that territory.
¦This question having been seemingly settled,
Anthony Benezet, who for years advocated the
abolition of slavery and devoted his time and
means to the preparation of the Negroes for
li"ving as freedmen, was practical enough to
recommend to the Congress of the Confedera
tion a plan of colonizing the emancipated blacks
on the western lands.^* Jefferson incorporated
into his scheme for a modern system of public
schools the training of the slaves in industrial
and agricultural branches to equip them for a
higher station in life. He believed, however,
that the blacks not being equal to the white race
should not be assimilated and should they be
free, they should, by all means, be colonized
afar off.^' Thinking that the western lands
might be so used, he said in writing to James
Monroe in 1801: "A very great extent of coun
try north of the Ohio has been laid off in to'wn-
ships, and is now at market, according to the
provisions of the act of Congress. . . . There
is nothing," said he, "which would restrain the
State of Virginia either in the purchase or the
13 Hinsdale, Old Northwest, p. 350.
liTyrannicai Libertymen, pp. 10, 11; Locke, Anti-Slavery,
pp. 31, 32; Brannagan, Serious Remonstrance, p. 18.
18 Washington edition of Jefferson's Writings, chap, vi, p.
456, and chap, viii, p. 380.

10 A Century of Negro Migration
application of these lands. ' '" Yet he raised the
question as to whether the establishment of such
a colony within our limits and to become a part
of the Union would be desirable. He thought
then of procuring a place beyond the limits of
the United States on our northern boundary,
by purchasing the Indian lands with the consent
of Great Britain. He then doubted that the black
race would live in such a rigorous climate.
This plan did not easily pass from the minds
of the friends of the slaves, for in 1805 Thomas
Brannagan asserted in his Serious Remon
strances that the government should appro
priate a few thousand acres of land at some dis
tant part of the national domains for the Ne
groes' accommodation and support. He be
lieved that the new State might be established
upwards of 2,000 miles from our frontier.^'' A
copy of the pamphlet containing this proposi
tion was sent to Thomas Jefferson, who was im
pressed thereby, but not having the courage to
brave the torture of being branded as a friend
of the slave, he failed to give it his support.^^
The same question was brought prominently be
fore the public again in 1816 when there was
presented to the House of Representatives a
memorial from the Kentucky Abolition Society
praying that the free people of color be colonized
18 Ford edition of Jefferson's Writings, III, pp. 244; IX, p.
303; X, pp. 76, 290.
1' Brannagan, Serious Remonstrances, p. 18.
18 Library edition of Jefferson's Writings, X, pp. 295, 296.

Finding a Place of Refuge 11
on the public lands. The committee to whom
the memorial was referred for consideration
reported that it was expedient to refuse the re
quest on the ground that, as such lands were not
granted to free w*hite men, they saw no reason
for granting them to others.^®
Some Negro slaves unwilling to wait to be
carried or invited to the Northwest Territory
escaped to that section even when it was corir
trolled by the French prior to the American
Revolution. Slaves who reached the West by
this route caused trouble between the French
and the British colonists. Advertising in 1746
for James Wenyam, a slave, Richard Colgate,
his master, said that he swore to a Negro whom
he endeavored to induce to go with him, that he
had often been in the backwoods with his mas
ter and that he would go to the French and In
dians and fight for them.^° In an advertise
ment for a mulatto slave in 1755 Thomas Rin-
gold, his master, expressed fear that he had es
caped by the same route to flie French. He,
therefore, said: "It seems to be the interest, at
least, of every gentleman that has slaves, to be
active in the beginning of these attempts, for
whilst we have the French such near neighbors,
we shall not have the least security in that kind
of property. ' '^^
19 Adams, Neglected Period of Anti-Slavery, pp. 129, 130.
20 The Pennsylvania Gazette, July 31, 1746.
21 The Maryland Gazette, March 20, 1755.

12 A Century of Negro Migration
The good treatment which these slaves re
ceived among the French, and especially at
Pittsburgh the gateway to the Northwest Ter
ritory, tended to make that city an asylum for
those slaves who had sufficient spirit of ad
venture to brave the wilderness through which
they had to go. Negroes even then had the idea
that there was in this country a place of more
privilege than those they enjoyed in the sea
board colonies. Knowing of the likelihood of
the Negroes to rise during the French and In
dian War, Governor Dinwiddle wrote Fox one
of the Secretaries of State in 1756: "We dare
not venture to part with any of our white men
any distance, as we must have a watchful eye
over our Negro slaves, who are upward of one
hundred thousand.'"'^ Brissot de Warville
mentions in his Travels of 1788 several ex
amples of marriagesi of white and blacks in
Pittsburgh. He noted the case of a Negro who
married an indentured French servant woman.
Out of this union came a desirable mulatto girl
who married a surgeon of Nantes then stationed
at Pittsburgh. His family was considered one
of the most respectable of the city. The Negro
referred to was doing a creditable business and
his wife took it upon herself to welcome for
eigners, especially the French, who came that
way. Along the Ohio also there were several
cases of women of color living with unmarried
22 Washington's Writings, II, p. 134.

Finding a Place of Refuge 13
white men ; but this was looked upon by the Ne
groes as detestable as was evidenced by the fact
that, if black women had a quarrel with a mu
latto woman, the former would reproach the
latter for being of ignoble blood.^*
These tendencies, however, could not assure
the Negro that the Northwest Territory was to
be an asylum for freedom when in 1763 it passed
into the hands of the British, the promoters of
the slave trade, and later to the independent col
onies, two of which had no desire to exterminate
slavery. Furthermore, when the Ordinance of
1787 with its famous sixth article against slav
ery was proclaimed, it was soon discovered that
this document was not necessarily emancipa
tory. As the right to hold slaves was guaran
teed to those who owned them prior to the
passage of the Ordinance of 1787, it was to be
expected that those attached to that institution
would not indifferently see it pass away. Va
rious petitions, therefore, were sent to the ter
ritorial legislature and to Congress praying that
the sixth article of the Ordinance of 1787 be ab-
rogated.2* No formal action to this effect was
taken, but the practice of slavery was continued
even at the winking of the government. Some
slaves came from the Canadians who, in accord
ance with the slave trade laws of the British
28 Brissot de Warville, New Travels, II, pp. 33-34.
2* Harris, Slavery in Illinois, chaps, iii, iv, and v; Dunn, In
diana, pp. 21&-260; Hinsdale, Old Northwest, pp. 361-358.

14 A Century of Negro Migration
Empire, were supplied "with bondsmen. It was
the Canadians themselves who pro-vdded by act
of parliament in 1793 for prohibiting the impor
tation of slaves and for gradual emancipation.
When it seemed later that the cause of freedom
would eventually triumph the proslavery ele
ment undertook to perpetuate slavery through
a system of indentured servant labor.
In the formation of the States of Indiana and
Illinois the question as to what should be done
to harmonize with the new constitution the sys
tem of indenture to which the territorial legis
latures had been committed, caused heated de
bate and at times almost conflict. Both In
diana^ and Illinois^® finally incorporated into
25 This code provided that all male Negroes under fifteen
years of age either owned or acquired must remain in servitude
untU they reached the age of thirty-five and female slaves until
thirty-two. The male children of such persons held to service
could be bound out for thirty years and the female children for
twenty-eight. Slaves brought into the territory had to comply
with contracts for terms of service when their master registered
them within thirty days from the time he brought them into the
territory. Indentured black servants were not exactly sold,
but the law permitted the transfer from^ one owner to another
when the slave acquiesced in the transfer before a notary, but
it was often done without regard to the slave. They were even
bequeathed and sold as personal property at auction. Notices
for sale were frequent. There were rewards for runaway
slaves. Negroes whose terms had almost expired were kid
napped and sold to New Orleans. The legislature imposed a
penalty for such, but it was not generally enforced. They
were taxable property valued according to the length of service.
Negroes served as laborers on farms, house servants, and in
salt mines, the latter being an excuse for holding them as

Finding a Place of .Refuge 15
;heir constitutions compromise provisions for
I nominal prohibition of slavery modified by
ilauses for the continuation of the system of in-
ientured labor of the Negroes held to service.
The proslavery party persistently struggled
?or some years to secure by the interpretation
)f the laws, by legislation and even by amend-
ng the constitution so to change the funda-
nental law as to provide for actual slavery.
These States,however, gradually worked toward
'reedom in keeping with the spirit of the ma
jority who framed the constitution, despite the
laves. Persons of color could purchase servants of their own
ace. The law provided that the Justice of the County could
in complaint from the master order that a lazy servant be
shipped. In this frontier section, therefore, where men often
ook the law in their own hands, slaves were often punished
md abused just as they were in the Southern States. The law
lealing with fugitives was somewhat harsh. When appre-
Lended, fugitives had to serve two days extra for each day
hey lost from their master's service. The harboring of a run-
iway slave was punishable by a fine of one day for each the
lave might be concealed. Consistently too with the provision
if the laws in most slave States, slaves could retain aU goods
ir money lawfully acquired during their servitude provided
heir master gave his consent. Upon the demonstration of
)roof to the county court that they had served their term they
:ould obtain from that tribunal certificates of freedom. See
rfte Laws nf Indiana.
26 Masters had to provide adequate food, and clothing and
;ood lodging for the slave, but the penalty for failing to comply
rith this law was not clear and even if so, it happened that
Qany masters never observed it. There was also an effort to
irevent cruelty to slaves, but it was difficult to establish the
^Ut of masters when the slave could not bear witness against
lis owner and it was not likely that the neighbor equally guilty

16 A Century of Negro Migration
fact that the indenture system in southern Illi
nois and especially in Indiana was at times tan
tamount to slavery as it was practiced in parts
of the South.
It must be borne in mind here, however, that
the North at this time was far from becoming a
place of refuge for Negroes. In the first place,
the industrial revolution had not then had time
to reduce the Negroes to the plane of beasts in
the cotton kingdom. The rigorous climate and
the industries of the northern people, more
over, were not inviting to the blacks and the de
velopment of the carrying trade and the rise of
manufacturing there did not make that section
or indifferent to the complaints of the blacks would take their
petitions to court.
Under this system a large number of slaves were brought into
the Territory especially after 1807. There were 135 in 1800.
This increase came from Kentucky and Tennessee. As those
brought were largely boys and girls with a long period of
service, this form of slavery was assured for some years. The
children of these blacks were often registered for thirty-five
instead of thirty years of service on the ground that they were
not born in Illinois. No one thought of persecuting a master
for holding servants unlawfully and Negroes themselves could
be easily deceived. Very few settlers brought their slaves there
to free them. There were only 749 in 1820. If one considers
the proportion of this to the number brought there for manu
mission this seems hardly true. It is better to say that during
these first two decades of the nineteenth century some settlers
came for both purposes, some to hold slaves, some, as Edward
Coles, to free them. It was not only practiced in the southern
part along the Mississippi and Ohio but as far north in Illinois
as Sangamon County, were found servants known as "yellow
boys" and "colored girls." — See the Laws of Illinois.

Finding a Place of Refuge 17
more attractive to unskilled labor. Fiirther-
more, when we consider the fact that there were
many thousands of Negroes in the Southern
States the presence of a few in the North must
be regarded as insignificant. This paucity of
blacks then obtained especially in the North
west Territory, for its French inhabitants in
stead of being an exploiting people were pioneer
ing, having little use for slaves in carrying out
their policy of merely holding the country for
France. Moreover, like certain gentlemen from
Virginia, who after the American Revolution
were afraid to bring their slaves with them to
occupy their bounty lands in Ohio, few enter
prising settlers from the slave States had in
vaded the territory with their Negroes, not
knowing whether or not they would be secure
in the possession of such property. When we
consider that in 1810 there were only 102,137
Negroes in the North and no more than 3,454 in
the Northwest Territory, we must look to the
second decade of the nineteenth century for the
beginning of the migration of the Negroes in
the United States.

CHAPTER n
A TRANSPLANTATION TO THE NOBTH
JUST after the settlement of the question of
holding the western posts by the British
and the adjustment of the trouble arising from
their capture of slaves during our second war
with England, there started a movement of the
blacks to this frontier territory. But, as there
were few towns or cities in the Northwest dur
ing the first decades of the new republic, the
flight of the Negro into that territory was like
that of a fugitive taking his chances in the ¦wil
derness. Having lost their pioneering spirit in
passing through the ordeal of slavery, not many
of the bondmen took flight in that direction
and few free Negroes ventured to seek their
fortunes in those wilds during the period of the
frontier conditions, especially when the country
had not then undergone a thorough reaction
against the Negro.
The migration of the Negroes, however, re
ceived an impetus early in the nineteenth cen
tury. This came from the Quakers, who by the
middle of the eighteenth century had taken the
position that all members of their sect should
free their slaves.^ The Quakers of North Caro-
1 Moore, Anti-Slavery, p. 79; and Special Report of the
'United States Commissioner of Education,lS7l, p. 376; Weeks,
Southern Quakers, pp. 215, 216, 231, 232, 242.
18

Transplantation to the North 19
Una and Virginia had as early as 1740 taken up
the serious question of humanely treating their
Negroes. The North Carolina Quakers advised
Friends to emancipate their slaves, later pro
hibited traffic in them, forbade their members
from even hiring the blacks out in 1780 and by
1818 had exterminated the institution among
their communicants.^ After healing themselves
of the sin, they had before the close of the eight
eenth century militantly addressed themselves
to the task of abolishing slavery and the slave
trade throughout the world. Differing in their
scheme from that of most anti-slavery leaders,
they were advocating the establishment of the
freedmen in society as good citizens and to that
end had provided for the religious and mental
instruction of their slaves prior to emancipating
them.^ Despite the fact that the Quakers were not
free to extend their operations throughout the
colonies, they did much to enable the Negroes
to reach free soil. As the Quakers believed in
the freedom of the will, human brotherhood, and
equality before God, they did not, like the Puri
tans, find difficulties in solving the problem of
elevating the Negroes. Whereas certain Puri
tans were afraid that conversion might lead to
the destruction of caste and the incorporation
2 TTie Southern WorTcman, xxvii, p. 161.
3 Rhodes, History of the United States, chap, i, p. 6 ; Ban
croft, History of the United States, chap, ii, p. 401 ; and Locke,
Anti-Slavery, p. 32.

20 A Century of Negro Migration
of undesirable persons into the "Body Poli
tick," the Quakers proceeded on the principle
that all men are brethren and, being equal be
fore God, should be considered equal before the
law. On account of unduly emphasizing the re
lation of man to God, the Puritans "atrophied
their social humanitarian instinct" and devel
oped into a race of self-conscious saints. Be
lieving in human nature and laying stress upon
the relation between man and man, the Quakers
became the friends of all humanity.*
In 1693 George Keith, a leading Quaker of
his day, came forward as a promoter of the re
ligious training of the slaves as a preparation
for emancipation. William Penn advocated the
emancipation of slaves, that they might have
every opportunity for improvement. In 1695
the Quakers while protesting against the slave
trade denounced also the policy of neglecting
their moral and spiritual welfare.'' The grow
ing interest of this sect in the Negroes was
sho"wn later by the development in 1713 of a
definite scheme for freeing and returning them
to Africa after having been educated and trained
to serve as missionaries on that continent.
When the manumission of the slaves was
checked by the reaction against that class and it
4 A Brief Statement of the Rise and Progress of the Testi
mony of the Quakers, passim; Woodson, The Education of the
Negro Prior to 1861, p. 43.
5 Woodson, The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861, p. 44;
and Locke, Anti-Slavery, p. 32..

TroMsplantation to the North 21
became more of a problem to establish them in
a hostile environment, certain Quakers of North
Carolina and Virginia adopted the scheme of
settling them in Northern States.® At first,
they sent such freedmen to Pennsylvania. But
for various reasons this did not prove to be
the best asylum. In the first place, Penn
sylvania bordered on the slave States, Mary
land and Virginia, from which agents came
to kidnap free Negroes. Furthermore, too
many Negroes were already rushing to that
commonwealth as the Negroes' heaven and
there was the chance that the Negroes might be
settled elsewhere in the North, where they
might have better economic opportunities.'' A
committee of forty was accordingly appointed
by North Carolina Quakers in 1822 to examine
the laws of other free States with a view to de
termining what section would be most suitable
for colonizing these blacks. This committee
recommended in its report that the blacks be
colonized in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.
The yearly meeting, therefore, ordered the
removal of such Negroes as fast as they were
willing or as might be consistent with the pro
fession of their sect, and instructed the agents
effecting the removal to draw on the treasury
for any sum not exceeding two hundred dollars
to defray expenses. An increasing number
8 The Southern WorTcman, xxxvii, pp. 158-169.
7 Turner, The Negro in Pennsylvania, pp, 144, 145, 151, 155,

22 A Century of Negro Migration
reached these States every year but, owing to
the inducements offered by the American Col
onization Society, some of them went to Liberia,
When Liberia, however, developed into every
thing but a haven of rest, the number sent to the
settlements in the Northwest greatly increased.
The quarterly meeting succeeded in sending to
the West 133 Negroes, including 23 free blacks
and slaves given up because they were con
nected by marriage with those to be trans
planted,* The Negro colonists seemed to pre
fer Indiana.^ They went in three companies
and with suitable young Friends to whom were
executed powers of attorney to manumit, set
free, settle and bind them out,^" Thirteen carts
and wagons were bought for these three com
panies ; $1,250 was furnished for their traveling
expenses and clothing, the whole cost amounting
to $2,490, It was planned to send forty or fifty
to Long Island and twenty to the interior of
Pennsylvania, but they failed to prosper and re
ports concerning them stamped them as desti
tute and deplorably ignorant. Those who went
to Ohio and Indiana, however, did well,^^
Later we receive another interesting account
of this exodus, David White led a company of
fifty-three into the West, thirty-eight of whom
8 Southern WorTcman, xxxvii, p. 157,
8 Levi Coffin, Reminiscences, chaps, i and ii.
10 Southern WorTcman, xxxvii, pp. 161-163.
11 Coffin, Reminiscences, p. 109; and Howe's Historical Col
lections, p. 356,

Transplantation to the North 23
belonged to Friends, five to a member who had
ordered that they be taken West at his expense.
Six of these slaves belonged to Samuel Law
rence, a Negro slaveholder, who had purchased
himself and family. White pathetically reports
the case of four of the women who had married
slave husbands and had twenty children for the
possession of whom the Friends had to stand a
lawsuit in the courts. The women had decided
to leave their husbands behind but the thought
of separation so tormented them that they made
an effort to secure their liberty. Upon appeal
ing to their masters for terms the owners, some
what moved by compassion, sold them for one
half of their value. White then went West and
left four in Chillicothe, twenty- three in Lees-
burg and twenty-six in Wayne County, Indiana,
without encountering any material difficulty.^^
Others had thought of this plan but the
Quakers actually carried it out on a small scale.
Here we see again not only their desire to have
the Negroes emancipated but the "vital interest
of the Quakers in success of the blacks, for
members of this sect not only liberated their
slaves but sold out their own holdings in the
South and moved with these freedmen into the
North. Quakers who then lived in free States
offered fugitives material assistance by open
and clandestine methods.^* The most prom-
12 Southern WorTcman, xxxvii, pp. 162, 163,
18 Levi Coffin, Reminiscences, pp, 108-111,

24 A Century of Negro Migration
inent leader developed by the movement was
Le-vi Coffin, whose daring deeds in behalf of
the fugitives made him the reputed President
of the Underground Railroad. Most of the
Quaker settlements of Negroes with which he
was connected were made in what is now Ham
ilton, Howard, Wayne, Randolph, Vigo, Gib
son, Grant, Rush, and Tipton Counties, Indiana,
and Darke County, Ohio.
The promotion of this movement by the
Quakers was well on its way by 1815 and was
not materially checked until the fifties when the
operations of the drastic fugitive slave law in
terfered, and even then the movement had
gained such momentum and the execution of
that mischievous measure had produced in the
North so much reaction like that expressed in
the personal liberty laws, that it could not be
stopped. The Negroes formd homes in Western
New York, Western Pennsylvania and through
out the Northwest Territory. The Negro popu
lation of York, Harrisburg and Philadelphia
rapidly increased. A settlement of Negroes de
veloped at Sandy Lake in Northwestern Penn-
sylvania^* and there was another near Berlin
Cross Roads in Ohio.^^ A group of Negroes
migrating to this same State found homes in
the Van Buren Township of Shelby County.^® A
1* Siebert, The Underground Railroad, p, 249.
isLangston, From the Virginia Plantation to the National
Capitol, p. 35.
18 Howe, Historical Collections, p. 465.

Transplantation to the North 25
more significant settlement in the State was
made by Samuel Gist, an Englishman possess
ing extensive plantations in Hanover, Amherst,
and Henrico Counties, Virginia. He provided
in his will that his slaves should be freed and
sent to the North. He further provided that the
revenue from his plantation the last year of his
life be applied in building schoolhouses and
churches for their accommodation, and "that
all money coming to him in Virginia be set
aside for the employment of ministers and
teachers to instruct them. ' ' In 1818, Wickham,
the executor of his estate, purchased land and
established these Negroes in what was called
the Upper and Lower Camps of Brown
County.^'^ Augustus Wattles, a Quaker from Connecti
cut, made a settlement in Mercer County, Ohio,
early in the nineteenth century. In the winter
of 1833^, he providentially became acquainted
with the colored people of Cincinnati, finding
there about ' ' 4,000 totally ignorant of every thing
calculated to make good citizens." As most of
them had been slaves, excluded from every ave
nue of moral and mental improvement, he es
tablished for them a school which he maintained
for two years. He then proposed to these Ne
groes to go into the country and purchase land to
remove them "from those contaminating influ
ences which had so long crushed them in our
'^''History of Brown County, OTUo, p. 313.

26 A Century of Negro Migration
cities and -villages. "^^ They consented on the
condition that he would accompany them and
teach school. He travelled through Canada,
Michigan and Indiana, looking for a suitable
location, and finally selected for settlement a
place in Mercer County, Ohio. In 1835, he made
the first purchase of land there for this purpose
and before 1838 Negroes had bought there about
30,000 acres, at the earnest appeal of this bene
factor, who had travelled into almost every
neighborhood of the blacks in the State, and laid
before them the benefits of a permanent home for
themselves and of education for their children.^^
This settlement was further increased in 1858
by the manumitted slaves of John Harper of
North Carolina.2o John Randolph of Roanoke
endeavored to establish his slaves as freemen
in this county but the Germans who had settled
in that community a little ahead of them started
18 Wattles said: he purchased for himself 190 acres of land,
to establish a manual labor school for colored boys. He had
maintained a school on it, at his own expense, tiU the eleventh
of November, 1842, -While in Philadelphia the winter before,
he became acquainted with the trustees of the late Samuel
Emlen, a Friend, of New Jersey. He left by his will $20,000
for the "support and education in school learning and the
mechanic arts and agriculture, boys, of African and Indian
descent, whose parents would give them up to the school. They
united their means and purchased Wattles farm, and appointed
him the superintendent of the establishment, which they caUed
the Emlen Institute. "—See Howe's Historical Collections r
356. ' ^
19 Howe's Historical Collections, p. 355.
20 Manuscripts in the possession of J. E. Mooriand.

Transplantation to the North 27
such a disturbance that Randolph's executor
could not carry out his plan, althoug'h he had pur
chased a large tract of land there.^^ It was nec
essary to send these freemen to Miami County.
Theodoric H. Gregg of Dinwiddle County, Vir
ginia, liberated his slaves in 1854 and sent them
to Ohio.^^ Nearer to the Civil War, when public
opinion was proscribing the uplift of Negroes
in Kentucky, Noah Spears secured near Xenia,
Greene County, Ohio, a small parcel of land for
sixteen of his former bondsmen in 1856.^*
Other freedmen found their way to this com
munity in later years and it became so pros
perous that it was selected as the site of Wilber-
force University.
This transplantation extended into Michigan.
With the help of persons phUanthropically in
clined there sprang up a flourishing group of
Negroes in Detroit. Early in the nineteenth
century they began to acquire property and to
pro-vide for the education of their children.
Their record was such as to merit the enco
miums of their fellow white citizens. In later
years this group in Detroit was increased by the
operation of laws hostile to free Negroes in the
South in that life for this class not only became
intolerable but necessitated their expatriation.
Because of the Virginia drastic laws and espe-
21 TTie African Repository, xxii, pp. 322, 333.
22 Simmons, Men of MarTc, p. 723,
i^ Southern WorTcman, xxxvii, p, 158i.

28 A Century of Negro Migration
cially that of 1838 prohibiting the return^ to that
State of such Negro students as had been ac
customed to go North to attend school, after
they were denied this privilege at home, the
father of Richard DeBaptiste and Marie Louis
More, the mother of Fannie M, Richards, led a
colony of free Negroes from Fredericksburg to
Detroit.^* And for about similar reasons the
father of Robert A. Pelham conducted others
from Petersburg, Virginia, in 1859.^^ One
Saunders, a planter of Cabell County, West Vir
ginia, liberated his slaves some years later and
furnished them homes among the Negroes set
tled in Cass County, Michigan, about ninety
miles east of Chicago, and ninety-five miles
west of Detroit.
This settlement had become attractive to
fugitive slaves and freedmen because the Quak
ers settled there welcomed them on their way to
freedom and in some cases encouraged them to
remain among them. When the increase of
fugitives was rendered impossible during the
fifties when the Fugitive Slave Law was being
enforced, there was still a steady growth due
to the manumission of slaves by sympathetic
and benevolent masters in the South,^® Most
of these Negroes settled in Calvin Township,
in that county, so that of the 1,376 residing there
2* TTie Journal of Negro History, I, pp, 23-33.
25 Ibid., I, p. 26.
26 Th^ African Repository, passim.

Transplantation to the North 29
in 1860, 795 were established in this district,
there being only 580 whites dispersed among
them. The Negro settlers did not then obtain
control of the government but they early pur
chased land to the extent of several thousand
acres and developed into successful small farm
ers. Being a little more prosperous than the
average Negro community in the North, the
Cass County settlement not only attracted Ne
groes fleeing from hardships in the South but
also those who had for some years unsuccess
fully endeavored to establish themselves in
other communities on free soil.^'^
These settlements were duplicated a little
farther west in Illinois. Edward Coles, a Vir
ginian, who in 1818 emigrated to Illinois, of
which he later served as Governor and as lib
erator from slavery, settled his slaves in that
27 Although constituting a majority of the population even
before the Civil War the Negroes of this township did not get
recognition in the local government until 1875 when John
Allen, a Negro, was elected township treasurer. From that
time until about 1890 the Negroes always shared the honors of
office with their white citizens and since that time they have
usually had entire control of the local government in that
township, holding such offices as supervisor, clerk, treasurer,
road commissioner, and school director. Their record has been
that of efficiency. Boss rule among them is not known. The
best man for an office is generally sought; for this is a com
munity of independent farmers. In 1907 one hundred and
eleven different farmers in this community had holdings of
10,439 acres. Their township usually has very few delinquent
taxpayers and it promptly makes its returns to the county. —
See the Southern WorTcman, xxxvii, pp. 486-488.

30 A Century of Negro Migration
commonwealth. He brought them to Edwards-
ville, where they constituted a community
known as "Coles' Negroes, "^^ There was an
other community of Negroes in Illinois in what
is now called Brooklyn situated north of East
St, Louis. This town was a center of some
consequence in the thirties. It became a station
of the Underground Railroad on the route to
Alton and to Canada. As all of the Negroes
who emerged from the South did not go farther
into the North, the black population of the town
gradually grew despite the fact that slave
hunters captured and reenslaved many of the
Negroes who settled there,^^
These settlements together with favorable
communities of sympathetic whites promoted
the migration of the free Negroes and fugitives
from the South by serving as centers offering
assistance to those fleeing to the free States and
to Canada, The fugitives usually found friends
in Philadelphia, Columbia, Pittsburgh, Elmira,
Rochester, Buffalo, Gallipolis, Portsmouth,
Akron, Cincinnati, and Detroit, They passed
on the way to freedom through Columbia, Phila
delphia, Elizabethtown and by way of sea to
28 Davidson and Stowe, A Complete History of Illinois, pp,
321, 322; and Washburn, Edward Coles, pp, 44 and 53,
28 The Negro population of this town so rapidly increased
after the war that it has become a Negro town and unfor
tunately a bad one. Much improvement has been made in
recent years. — ^See Southern WorTcman, xxxvii, pp. 489-494.

Transplantation to the North 31
New York and Boston, from which they pro
ceeded to permanent settlements in the North.^**
In the West, the migration of the blacks was
further facilitated by the peculiar geographic
condition in that the Appalachian highland, ex
tending like a peninsula into the South, had a
natural endo-wment which produced a class of
white citizens hostile to the institution of slav
ery. These mountaineers coming later to the
colonies had to go to the hills and mountains be
cause the first comers from Europe had taken
up the land near the sea. Being of the German
and Scotch-Irish Presbyterian stock, they had
ideals differing widely from those of the sea
board slaveholders.^^ The mountaineers be
lieved in "civil liberty in fee simple, and an
open road to civil honors, secured to the poorest
and feeblest members of society." The eastern
element had for their ideal a government of in
terests for the people. They believed in liberty
but that of kings, lords, and commons, not of all
the people.^^
Settled along the Appalachian highland, these
new stocks continued to differ from those dwell
ing near the sea, especially on the slavery ques-
tion.^^ The natural endowment of the moun-
33 Olmsted, BcuiTc Country, p. 134.
30 Still, Underground Railroad, passim; Siebert, Underground
Railroad, pp. 34, 35, 40, 42, 43, 48, 56, 59, 62, 64, 70, 145, 147;
Drew, Refugee, pp. 72, 97, 114, 152, 335 and 373.
31 Ihe Jownal of Negro History, I, pp. 132-162.
32 Ibid., 1, 138.

32 A Century of Negro Migration
tainous section made slavery there unprofitable
and the mountaineers bore it grievously that
they were attached to commonwealths domi
nated by the radical pro^slavery element of the
South, who sacrificed all other interests to safe
guard those of the peculiar institution. There
developed a number of clashes in all of the
legislatures and constitutional conventions of
the Southern States along the Atlantic, but in
every case the defenders of the interests of
slavery won. When, therefore, slaves -with the
assistance of anti-slavery mountaineers began
to escape to the free States, they had little dif
ficulty in making their way through the Appa
lachian region, where the love of freedom had
so set the people against slavery that although
some of them yielded to the inevitable sin, they
never made any systematic effort to protect it.^*
The development of the movement in these
mountains was more than interesting. During
the first quarter of the nineteenth century there
84 In the Appalachian mountains, however, the settlers were
loath to follow the fortunes of the ardent pro-slavery element.
Actual abolition, for example, was never popular in western
Virginia, but the love of the people of that section for freedom
kept them estranged from the slaveholding districts of the
State, which by 1850 had completely committed themselves to
the pro-slavery propaganda. In the Convention of 1829-30
Upshur said there existed in a great portion of the West (of
Virginia) a rooted antipathy to the slave. John Randolph was
alarmed at the fanatical spirit on the subject of slavery, which
was growing in Virginia. — See the Journal of Negro History,
I, p. 142.

Transplantation to the North 33
were many ardent anti-slavery leaders in the
mountains. These were not particularly inter
ested in the Negro but were determined to keep
that soil for freedom that the settlers might
there realize the ideals for which they had left
their homes in Europe. When the industrial
revolution -with the attendant rise of the plan
tation cotton culture made abolition in the
South improbable, some of them became col-
onizationists, hoping to destroy the institution
through deportation, which would remove the
objection of certain masters who would free
their slaves provided they were not left in the
States to become a public charge.'^ Some of
this sentiment continued in the mountains even
until the Ci-vil War. The highlanders, there
fore, found themselves involved in a continuous
embroglio because they were not moved by re
actionary influences which were unifying the
South for its bold effort to make slavery a na
tional institution.*® The other members of the
mountaineer anti-slavery group became at
tached to the Underground Railroad system, en
deavoring by secret methods to place on free
soil a sufficiently large number of fugitives to
show a decided diminution in the South.*'^ John
Bro-wn, who communicated -with the South
through these mountains, thought that his work
35 Adams, Neglected Period of Anti-Slavery.
38 The Jownal of Negro History, I, pp. 132-160.
37 Siebert, 'Underground Railroad, p. 166.

34 A Century of Negro Migration
would be a success, if he could change the situa^
tion in one county in each of these States.
The lines along which these Underground
Railroad operators moved connected naturally
with the Quaker settlements established in free
States and the favorable sections in the Appa
lachian region. Many of these workers were
Quakers who had already established settle
ments of slaves on estates which they had pur
chased in the Northwest Territory. Among
these were John Rankin, James Gilliland, Jesse
Lockehart, Robert Dobbins, Samuel Crothers,
Hugh L. FuUerton, and Williami Dickey. Thus
they connected the heart of the South with the
avenues to freedom^ in the North.** There were
routes extending from this section into Ohio,
Indiana, Illinois and Pennsylvania. Over the
Ohio and Kentucky route culminating chiefly in
Cleveland, Sandusky and Detroit, however,
more fugitives made their way to freedom than
through any other avenue,*® partly too because
they found the limestone caves very helpful for
hiding by day. These operations extended even
through Tennessee into northern Georgia and
Alabama. Dillingham, Josiah Henson and Har
riet Tubman used these routes to deliver many
a Negro from slavery.
The opportunity thus offered to help the op
pressed brought forward a class of anti-slavery
men, who went beyond the limit of merely ex-
38 Adams, Neglected Period of Anti-Slavery.
•8 Siebert, Underground Railroad, chaps, v and vi.

Transplantation to the North 35
pressing their horror of the evil. They believed
that something should be done "to deliver the
poor that cry and to direct the wanderer in the
fight way. ' '*" Translating into action what had
long been restricted to academic discussion,
these philanthropic workers ushered in a new
Bra in the uplift of the blacks, making abolition
more of a reality. The abolition element of the
North then could no longer be considered an in
significant minority advocating a hopeless cause
but a factor in drawing from the South a part
of its slave population and at the same time of
fering asylum' to the free Negroes whom the
southerners considered undesirable.*^ Prom
inent among those who aided this migration in
various ways were Benjamin Lundy of Tenn
essee and James G. Birney, a former slave
holder of Huntsville, Alabama, who manumitted
his slaves and apprenticed and educated some
of them in Ohio.
This exodus of the Negroes to the free States
promoted the migration of others of their race
to Canada, a more congenial part beyond the
borders of the United States. The movement
from the free States into Canada, moreover,
was contemporary with that from the South to
the free States as -will be evidenced by the fact
that 15,000 of the 60,000 Negroes in Canada in
1860 were free born. As Detroit was the chief
*o An Address to the People of North Carolima on the Evils
of Slavery,
41 Washington, Story of the Negro, I, chaps, xii, xiii and xiv.

36 A Century of Negro Migration
gateway for them to Canada, most of these
refugees settled in towns of Southern Ontario
not far from that city. These were Dawn, Col
chester, Elgin, Dresden, Windsor, Sandwich,
Bush, Wilberforce, Hamilton, St. Catherines,
Chatham, Riley, Anderton, London, Maiden and
Gonfield.*^ And their coming to Canada was not
checked even by request from their enemies that
they be turned away from that country as unde
sirables, for some of the white people there wel
comed and assisted them. Canadians later ex
perienced a change in their attitude toward
these refugees but these British Americans
never made the life of the Negro there so in
tolerable as was the case in some of the free
States. It should be observed here that this move
ment, unlike the exodus of the Negroes of to
day, affected an unequal distribution of the en
lightened Negroes.** Those who are fleeing
from the South to-day are largely laborers seek
ing economic opportunities. The motive at
work in the mind of the antebellum refugee was
higher. In 1840 there were more intelligent
blacks in the South than in the North but not so
after 1850, despite the -vigorous execution of the
Fugitive Slave Law in some parts of the North.
While the free Negro population of the slave
i^ Father Henson' s Story of his own Life, p. 209; Coffin,
Reminiscences, pp. 247-2S6; Howe, The Refugees from Slavery,
p. 77; HavUand, A Woman's 'WorTc, pp. 192, 193, 196.
« Woodson, The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861, pp.
236-240.

Transplantation to the North 37
States increased only 23,736 from 1850 to 1860,
that of the free States increased 29,839. In the
South, only Delaware, Maryland and North
Carolina showed a noticeable increase in the
number of free persons of color during the
decade immediately preceding the Ci-vil War.
This element of the population had only slightly
increased in Alabama, Kentucky, Missouri,
Tennessee, Virginia, Louisiana, South Carolina
and the District of Columbia. The number of
free Negroes of Florida remained constant.
Those of Arkansas, Mississippi and Texas di
minished. In the North, of course, the migra
tion had caused the tendency to be in the other
direction. With the exception of Maine, New
Hampshire, Vermont and New York which had
about the same free colored population in 1860
as they had in 1850 there was a general increase
in the number of Negroes in the free States.
Ohio led in this respect, having had during this
period an increase of 11,394.** A glance at the
table on the accompanying page will show in de
tail the results of this migration.
Statistics of ths Free Coloked Population or the United
States
state Population
1850 1860
Alabama  2,265 2,690
Arkansas  608 144
California  962 4,086
Connecticut  7,693 8,627
Delaware  18,073 19,829
** The United States Censuses of 1850 and 1860.

38 A Century of Negro Migration
Florida  932 932
Georgia  2,931 3,500
lUinois  5,436 7,628
Indiana  11,262 11,428
Iowa  333 1,069
Kentucky  10,011 10,684
Louisiana  17,462 18,647
Maine  1,356 1,327
Kansas  625
Maryland  74,723 83,942
Massachusetts  9,064 9,602
Michigan  2,583 6,797
Minnesota  259
Mississippi  930 773
Missouri  2,618 3,572
New Hampshire  520 494
New Jersey  '  23,810 25,318
New York  49,069 49,005
North Carolina  27,463 30,463
Ohio  25,279 36,673
Oregon  128
Pennsylvania  53,626 56,949
Rhode Island  3,670 3,952
South Carolina  8,960 9,914
Tennessee  6,422 7,300
Texas  397 355
Vermont  718 709
Virginia  54,333 58,042
Wisconsin  635 1,171
Territories :
Colorado  46
Dakota  0
District of Columbia  10,059 11,131
Minnesota  39
Nebraska  67
Nevada  45
New Mexico  207 85
Oregon  24
Utah  22 30
Washington  30
Total  434,495 488,070

CHAPTER III
FIGHTING- IT OUT ON FREE SOIL
HOW, then, was this increasing influx of ref
ugees from the South to be received in
the free States? In the older Northern States
where there could be no danger of an Africani
zation of a large district, the coming of the Ne
groes did not cause general excitement, though
at times the feeling in certain localities was suf
ficient to make one think so,^ Fearing that the
immigration of the Negroes into the North
might so increase their numbers as to make
them constitute a rather important part in the
community, however, some free States enacted
laws to restrict the privileges of the blacks.
Free Negroes had voted in all the colonies ex
cept Georgia and South Carolina, if they had the
property qualification; but after the sentiment
attendant upon the struggle for the rights of
man had passed away there set in a reaction,^
Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and Kentucky
disfranchised all Negroes not long after the
Revolution. They voted in North Ciarolina until
^The New TorTc Daily Advertiser, Sept. 22, 1800; The New
TorTc Journal of Commerce, July 12, 1834; and The New Yorlc
Commercial Advertiser, July 12, 1834.
2 Hart, Slavery and Abolition, pp. 53, 82.
4 39

40 A Century of Negro Migration
1835, when the State, feeling that this pri-sdlege
of one class of Negroes might affect the enslave
ment of the other, prohibited it. The Northern
States, following in their wake, set up the same
barriers against the blacks. They were disfran
chised in New Jersey in 1807, in Connecticut in
1814, and in Pennsylvania in 1838. In 1811 New
York passed an act requiring the production of
certificates of freedom from blacks or mulat-
toes offering to vote. The second constitution,
adopted in 1823, provided that no man of color,
unless he had been for three years a citizen of
that State and for one year next preceding any
election, should be seized and possessed of a
freehold estate, should be allowed to vote, al
though this qualification was not required of
the whites. An act of 1824 relating to the gov
ernment of the Stockbridge Indians provided
that no Negro or mulatto should vote in their
councils.* That increasing prejudice was to a great ex
tent the result of the immigration into the North
of Negroes in the rough, was nowhere better
illustrated than in Pennsylvania. Prior to 1800,
and especially after 1780, when the State pro
vided for gradual emancipation, there was little
race prejudice in Pennsylvania.* When the re-
3 Goodell, American Slave Code, Part III, chap, i ; Hurd, The
Law of Freedom and Bondage, I, pp. 51, 61, 67, 81, 89, 101, 111 ;
Woodson, The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861, pp. 151-
178. 1 Benezet, S'hort Observations, p. 12.

Fighting it Out on Free Soil 41
actionary legislation of the South made life
intolerable for the Negroes, debasing them to
the plane of beasts, many of the free people of
color from Virginia, Maryland and Delaware
moved or escaped into Pennsylvania like a
steady stream during the next sixty years. As
these Negroes tended to concentrate in towns
and cities, they caused the supply of labor to ex
ceed the demand, lowering the wages of some
and driving out of employment a number of
others who became paupers and consequently
criminals. There set in too an intense struggle
between the black and white laborers,^ im
mensely accelerating the growth of race prej
udice, especially -when the abolitionists and
Quakers were giving Negroes industrial train
ing. The first exhibition of this prejudice was seen
among the lower classes of white people, largely
Irish and Germans, who, devoted to menial
labor, competed directly with the Negroes. It
did not require a long time, however, for this
feeling to react on the higher classes of whites
where Negroes settled in large groups. A
strong protest arose from the menace of Negro
paupers. An attempt was made in 1804 to com
pel free Negroes to maintain those that might
become a public charge.^ In 1813 the mayor,
aldermen and citizens of Philadelphia asked
5 Turner, The Negro in Pennsylvania, pp. 143-145.
6 Journal of House, 1823-24, p. 824.

42 A Century of Negro Migration
that free Negroes be taxed to support their
poor.'^ Two Philadelphia representatives in the
Pennsylvania Legislature had a committee ap
pointed in 1815 to consider the advisability of
preventing the immigration of Negroes.* One
of the causes then at work there was that the
black population had recently increased to four
thousand in Philadelphia and more than four
thousand others had come into the city since
the previous registration.
They were arriving much faster than they
could be assimilated. The State of Pennsyl
vania had about exterminated slavery by 1840,
having only 40 slaves that year and only a few
hundred at any time after 1810. Many of these,
of course, had not had time to make their way
in life as freedmen. To show how much the
rapid migration to that city aggravated the sit
uation under these circumstances one needs but
note the statistics of the increase of the free
people of color in that State. There were only
22,492 such persons in Pennsylvania in 1810,
but in 1820 there were 30,202, and in 1830 as
many as 37,930. This number increased to
47,854 by 1840, to 53,626 by 1850, and to 56,949
by 1860. The undesirable aspect of the situa
tion was that most of the migrating blacks came
in crude form.^ "On arri-ving," therefore,
says a contemporary, "they abandoned them-
7 Journal of House, 1S12-1813, pp. 481, 482.
8 Ibid., 1814-1815, p. 101.
9 United States Censuses, 1790-1860.

Fighting it Out on Free Soil 43
selves to all manner of debauchery and dissi
pation to the great annoyance of many cit
izens."" Thereafter followed a number of clashes de
veloping finally into a series of riots of a grave
nature. Innocent Negroes, attacked at first for
purposes of sport and later for sinister designs,
were often badly beaten in the streets or even
cut -with knives. The offenders were not pun
ished and if the Negroes defended themselves
they were usually severely penalized. In 1819
three white women stoned a woman of color to
death.^^ A few youths entered a Negro church
in Philadelphia in 1825 and by throwing pepper
to give rise to suffocating fumes caused a panic
which resulted in the death of several Negroes.^ ^
When the citizens of New Haven, Connecticut,
arrayed themselves in 1831 against the plan to
establish in that city a Negro manual labor col
lege, there was held in Philadelphia a meeting
which passed resolutions enthusiastically en
dorsing this effort to rid the community of the
evil of the immigration of free Negroes. There
arose also the custom of driving Negroes away
from Independence Square on the Fourth of
July because they were neither considered nor
desired as a part of the body politic.^*
10 Brannagan, Serious Remonstrances, p. 68.
11 Turner, TTie Negro in Pennsylvania, p. 145; The Phila-
delphda Gazette, June 30, 1819.
12 Democratic Press, Philadelphia Gazette, Nov. 21, 1825.
13 Turner, TTie Negro in Pennsylvania, p. 146.

44 A Century of Negro Migration
It was thought that in the state of feeling of
the thirties that the Negro would be annihilated.
De Tocqueville also observed that the Negroes
were more detested in the free States than in
those where they were held as slaves.^* There
had been such a reaction since 1800 that no posi
tions of consequence were open to Negroes,
however well educated they might be, and the
education of the blacks which was once -vig
orously prosecuted there became unpopular.^ ^
This was especially true of Harrisburg and
Philadelphia but by no means confined to large
cities. The Philadelphia press said nothing in
behalf of the race. It was generally thought
that freedom had not been an advantage to the
Negro and that instead of making progress they
had filled jails and almshouses and multiplied
pest holes to afflict the cities with disease and
crime. The Negroes of York carefully worked out in
1803 a plan to bum the city. Incendiaries set
on fire a number of houses, eleven of which were
destroyed, whereas there were other attempts
at a general destruction of the city. The au
thorities arrested a number of Negroes but ran
the risk of ha-ving the jail broken open by their
sympathizing fello-wmen. After a reigU' of ter
ror for half a week, order was restored' and
twenty of the accused were convicted of arson.
1* De Tocqueville, Democracy in America, II, pp. 292, 294.
15 Turner, The Negro in Pennsylvania, p. 148i.

Fighting it Out on Free Soil 45
In 1820 there occurred so many conflagrations
that a vigilance committee was organized.^®
Whether or not the Negroes were guilty of the
crime is not known but numbers of them left
either on account of the fear of punishment or
because of the indignities to which they were
subjected. Numerous petitions, therefore, came
before the legislature to stop the immigration of
Negroes. It was proposed in 1840 to tax all free
Negroes to assist them in getting out of the
State for colonization.^'^ The citizens of Lehigh
County asked the authorities in 1830 to expel
all Negroes and persons of color found in the
State.^* Another petition prayed that they be
deprived of the freedom of movement. Bills
embodying these ideas were frequently consid'-
ered but they were never passed.
Stronger opposition than this, however, was
manifested in the form of actual outbreaks on a
large scale in Philadelphia. The immediate
cause of this first real clash was the abolition
agitation in the city in 1834 following the excit
ing news of other such disturbances a few
months prior to this date in several northern
cities. A group of boys started the riot by de
stroying a Negro resort. A mob then proceeded
to the Negro district, where white and colored
men engaged in a fight with clubs and stones.
16 Turner, The Negro in Pennsylvania, pp. 152, 153.
IT African Repository, -VIII, pp. 125, 283 ; Journal of House,
1840, I, pp. 347, 508, 614, 622, 623, 680.
1^ Journal of Senate, 1850', I, pp. 454, 479..

46 A Century of Negro Migration
The next day the mob ruined the African Pres
byterian Church and attacked some Negroes, de
stroying their property and beating them merci
lessly. This riot continued for three days. A
committee appointed to inquire into the causes
of the riot reported that the aim of the rioters
had been to make the Negroes go away because
it was believed that their labor was depri-ving
them of work and because the blacks had
shielded criminals and had made such noise and
disorder in their churches as to make them a
nuisance. It seemed that the most intelligent
and well-to-do people of Philadelphia keenly
felt it that the city had thus been disgraced, but
the mob spirit continued.^ ^
The very next year was marked by the same
sort of disorder. Because a half--witted Negro
attempted to murder a white man, a large mob
stirred up the city again. There was a repeti
tion of the beating of Negroes and of the de
struction of property while the police, as the
year before, were so inactive as to give rise to
the charge that they were accessories to the
riot.^" In 1838 there occurred another outbreak
which developed into an anti-abolition riot, as
the public mind had been much exercised by the
discussions of abolitionists and by their close
social contact -with the Negroes, The clash came
19 This is well narrated in Turner's Negro in Pennsylvania,
p. 160, and in Du Bois's The Philadelphia Negro, p. 27,
20 Turner, Ttie Negro in Pennsylvania, pp. 161, 162,

Fighting it Out on Free Soil 47
on the seventeenth of May when Pennsylvania
Hall, the center of abolition agitation, was
burned. Fighting between the blacks and whites
ensued the following night when the Colored
Orphan Asylum was attacked and a Negro
church burned. Order was finally restored for
the good of all concerned, but that a majority of
the people sympathized with the rioters was evi
denced by the fact that the committee charged
with investigating the disturbance reported that
the mob was composed of strangers who could
not be recognized.^^ It is well to note here that
this riot occurred the year the Negroes in Penn
sylvania were disfranchised.
Following the example of Philadelphia, Pitts
burgh had a riot in 1839 resulting in the mal
treatment of a number of Negroes and the de
molishing of some of their houses. When the
Negroes of Philadelphia paraded the city in
1842, celebrating the abolition of slavery in the
West Indies, there ensued a battle led by the
whites who undertook to break up the proces
sion. Along with the beating and killing of the
usual number went also the destruction of the
New African Hall and the Negro Presbyterian
church. The grand jury charged with the in
quiry into the causes reported that the proces
sion was to be blamed. For several years there
after the city remained quiet until 1849 when
there occurred a raid on the blacks by the Killers
21 Turner, The Negro in Pennsylvania, pp. 162, 163,

48 A Century of Negro Migration
of Moyamensing, using firearms with which
many were wounded. This disturbance was
finally quelled by aid of the militia,^^
These clashes sometimes reached' farther
north than the free States bordering on the
slave commonwealths. Mobs broke up aboli
tion meetings in the city of New York in 1834
when there were sent to Congress numerous pe
titions for the abolition of slavery. This mob
even assailed such eminent citizens as Arthur
and Lewis Tappan, mainly on account of their
friendly attitude toward the Negroes.^^ On Oc
tober 21, 1834, the same feeling developed in
Utica, where was to be held an anti-slavery
meeting according to previous notice. The six
hundred delegates who assembled there were
warned to disband, A mob then organized itself
and drove the delegates from the town. That
same month the people of Palmyra, New York,
held a meeting at which they adopted resolu
tions to the effect that o-wners of houses or ten
ements in that town occupied by blacks of the
character complained of be requested to use all
their rightful means to clear their premises of
such occupants at the earliest possible period;
and that it be recommended that such pro
prietors refuse to rent the same thereafter to
any person of color whatever,^* In New York
22 Turner, TTie Negro in Pennsylvania, p. 163 ; and The
Liberator, July 4, 1885.
28 The Liberator, Oct. 24, 1834.
ulbid., October 24, 1834.

Fighting it Out on Free Soil 49
Negroes were excluded from places of amuse
ment and public conveyances and segregated
in places of worship. In the draft riots which
occurred there in 1863, one of the aims of the
mobs was to assassinate Negroes and to destroy
their property. They burned the Colored Or-
plan Asylum of that city and hanged Negroes
to lamp-posts.
The situation in parts of New England was
not much better. For fear of the evils of an
increasing population of free persons of color
the people of Canaan, New Hampshire, broke
up the Noyes Academy because it decided to
admit Negro students, thinking that many of
the race might thereby be encouraged to come to
that State.^^ When Prudence Crandall estab
lished in Canterbury, Connecticut, an academy
to which she decided to admit Negroes, the
mayor, selectmen and citizens of the city pro
tested, and when their protests failed to deter
this heroine, they induced the legislature to en
act a special law covering the case and invoked
the measure to have Prudence Crandall impris
oned because she would not desist.^^ This very
25 Jay, .471 Inquiry, pp. 28-29.
28 An Act in Addition to an Act for the Admission and Set
tlement of Inhabitants of Towns.
1. "Whereas attempts have been made to establish literary
institutions in this State for the instruction of colored people
belonging to other States and countries, which would tend to
the great increase of the colored population of the State, and
thereby to the injury of the people, therefore;

50 A Century of Negro Migration
law and the arguments upholding it justified the
drastic measure on the ground that an increase
Be it resolved that no person shall set up or establish in this
State, any school, academy, or literary institution for the
instruction or education of colored persons, who are not inhab
itants of this State, nor instruct or teach in any school, acad
emy, or other literary institution whatever in this State, or
harbor or board for the purpose of attending or being taught
or instructed in any such school, academy, or other literary
institution, any person who is not an inhabitant of any town in
this State, without the consent in writing, first obtained of a
majority of the civil authority, and also of the selectmen of the
town in which such schools, academy, or literary institution is
situated; and each an-d every person who shall knowingly do
any act forbidden as aforesaid, or shall be aiding or assisting
therein, shall for the first offense forfeit and pay to the treas
urer of this State a fine of one hundred dollars and for the
second offense shall forfeit and pay a fine of two hundred dol
lars, and so double for every offense of which he or she shall be
convicted. And all informing officers are required to make
due presentment of all breaches of this act. Provided that
nothing in this act shall extend to any district school estab
lished in any school society under the laws of this State or to
any incorporated school for instruction in this State.
2. Any colored person not an inhabitant of this State who
shall reside in any town therein for the purpose of being in
structed as aforesaid, may be removed in the manner prescribed
in the sixth and seventh sections of the act to which this is an
addition. 3. Any person not an inhabitant of this State who shall
reside in any town therein for the purpose of being instructed
as aforesaid, shall be an admissible witness in all prosecutions
under the first section of this act, and may be compelled to
give testimony therein, notwithstanding anything in this act,
or in the act last aforesaid.
4. That so much of the seventh section of this act to which
this is an addition as may provide for the infliction of cor
poral punishment, be and the same is hereby repealed. — ^See
Hurd's Law of Freedom and Bondage, II, pp. 45-46.

Fighting it Out on Free Soil 51
in the colored population would be an injury to
the people of that State.
In the new commonwealths formed out of west
ern territory, there was the same fear as to
Negro domination and consequently there fol
lowed the wave of legislation intended in some
cases not only to withhold from the Negro set
tlers the exercise of the rights of citizenship but
to discourage and even to prevent them from
coming into their territory.^''^ The question as
to what should be done -with the Negro was early
an issue in Ohio. It came up in the constitu
tional convention of 1803, and provoked some
discussion, but that body considered it sufficient
to settle the matter for the time being by merely
lea-^ng the Negroes, Indians and foreigners out
of the pale of the newly organized body politic
by conveniently incorporating the word white
throughout the constitution.^* It was soon e-n-
dfent, however, that the matter had not been
settled, and the legislature of 1804 had to give
serious consideration to the immigration of Ne
groes into that State. It was, therefore, enacted
that no Negro or mulatto should remain there
permanently, unless he could furnish a certificate
of freedom issued by some court, that all Ne
groes in that commonwealth should be regis-
27 So many Negroes working on the rivers between the slave
and free States helped fugitives to escape that there arose a
clamor for the discourage of colored employees.
28 Constitution of Ohio, article I, sections 2, 6. The Journal
of Negro History, I, p. 2.

52 A Century of Negro Migration
tered before the following June, and that no
man should employ a Negro who failed to com
ply -with these conditions. Should one be de
tected in hiring, harboring or hindering the cap
ture of a fugitive black, he was liable to a fine
of $50 and his master could recover pay for the
service of his slave to the amount of fifty cents
a day.^* As this legislature did not meet the demands
of those who desired further to discourage
Negro immigration, the Legislature of 1807 was
induced to enact a law to the effect that no Negro
should be permitted to settle in Ohio, unless he
could -within 20 days give a bond to the amount
of $500 for his good beha-vior and assurance that
he would not become a public charge. This
measure provided also for raising the fine for
concealing a fugitive from $50 to $100, one half
of which should go to the person upon the tes
timony of whom the conviction should be se-
cured.^o Negro e-vidence in a case to which a
white was a party was declared illegal. In 1830
Negroes were excluded from service in the State
militia, in 1831 they were deprived of the priv
ilege of serving on juries, and in 1838 they were
denied the right of having their children edu
cated at the expense of the State.^^
In Indiana the situation was worse than in
29 Laws of Ohio, II, p. 53.
so Laws of Ohio, V, p. 53.
31 Hitchcock, The Negro in Ohio, pp. 41, 42.

Fighting it Out on Free Soil 53
Ohio. We have already noted above how the
settlers in the southern part endeavored to make
that a slave State. When that had, after all but
being successful, seemed impossible the State
enacted laws to prevent or discourage the influx
of free Negroes and to restrict the privileges of
those already there. In 1824 a stringent law for
the return of fugitives was passed.^^ The ex
pulsion of free Negroes was a matter of concern
and in 1831 it was pro-^ded that unless they
could give bond for their behavior and support
they could be removed. Otherwise the county
overseers could hire out such Negroes to the
highest bidder.** Negroes were not allowed to
attend schools maintained at the public expense,
might not give e-^dence against a white man
and could not intermarry with white persons.
They might, however, serve as witnesses against
Negroes.** In the same way the free Negroes met dis
couragement in Illinois. They suffered from all
the disabilities imposed on their class in Ohio
and Indiana and were denied the right to
sue for their liberty in the courts. When there
arose many abolitionists who encouraged the
coming of the fugitives from labor in the South,
one element of the citizens of Illinois unwilling
to accept this unusual influx of members of an-
32 Revised Laws of Indiana, 1831, p. 278.
33 Perkins, A Digest of tTie Declaration of the Supreme Court
of Indiana, p. 590. Laws of 1853, p. 60.
34 Gravin and Hord;, Indiana Revised Statutes, 1862, p. 452.

54 A Century of Negro Migration
other race passed the drastic law of 1853 pro
hibiting the immigration. It provided for the
prosecution of any person bringing a Negro into
the State and also for arresting and fining any
Negro $50, should he appear there and remain
longer than ten days. If he proved to be unable
to pay the fine, he could be sold to any person
who could pay the cost of the trial.*®
In Michigan the situation was a little better
but, with the waves of hostile legislation then
sweeping over the new*® commonwealths, Mich
igan was not allowed to constitute altogether
an exception. Some of this intense feeling
found expression in the form of a law hostile to
the Negro, this being the act of 1827, which pro
vided for the registration of all free persons of
color and for the exclusion from the territory of
all blacks who could not produce a certificate to
the effect that they were free. Free persons of
color were also required to file bonds -with one
or more freehold sureties in the penal sum of
$500 for their good behavior, and the bondsmen
35 Illinois Statutes, 1853, sections 1-4, p. 8.
36 In 1760 there were both African and Pawnee slaves in
Detroit, 96 of them in 1773 and 175 in 1782. The usual effort
to have slavery legalized was made in 1773. There were seven
teen slaves in Detroit in 1810 held by virtue of the exceptions
made under the British rule prior to the ratification of Jay's
treaty. Advertisements of runaway slaves appeared in Detroit
papers as late as 1827. Furthermore, there were thirty-two
slaves in Michigan in 1830 but by 1836 all had died or had
been manumitted. — See Farmer, History of Detroit and Michi
gan, I, p. 344.

Fighting it Out on Free Soil 55
were expected to provide for their maintenance,
if they failed to support themselves. Failure to
comply -with this law meant expulsion from the
territory.*''^ The opposition to the Negroes immigrating
into the new West was not restricted to the en
actment of laws which in some cases were never
enforced. Several communities took the law
into their o-wn hands. During these years when
the Negroes were seeking freedom in the North
west Territory and when free blacks were be
ing established there by philanthropists, it
seemed to the southern uplanders fleeing from
slavery in the border States and foreigners
seeking fortunes in the new world that they
might possibly be crowded out of this new ter
ritory by the Negroes. Fi:equent clashes, there
fore, followed after they had passed through a
period of toleration and dependence on the ex
ecution of the hostile laws. The clashes of the
greatest consequences occurred in the Northwest
Territory where a larger number of uplanders
from the South had gone, some to escape the ill
effects of slavery, and others to hold slaves if
possible, and when that seemed impossible, to
exclude the blacks altogether.** This persecu
tion of the Negroes received also the hearty co-
37 Laws of Michigan, 1827 ; and Campbell, Political History
of Michigan, p. 246.
38 Proceedings of the Ohio Anti-Slavery Convention, 1835,
p. 19. 5

56 A Century of Negro Migration
operation of the foreign element, who, being an
undeveloped class, had to do menial labor in
competition -with the blacks. The feeling of the
foreigners was especially mischievous for the
reasons that they were, like the Negroes, at first
settled in large numbers in urban communities.
Generally speaking, the feeling was like that
exhibited by the Germans in Mercer County,
Ohio. The citizens of this frontier community,
in registering their protest against the settling
of Negroes there, adopted the foUo-wing resolu
tions :
Resolved, That we will not live among Negroes, as
we have settled here first, we have fully determined
that we will resist the settlement of blacks and mulat-
toes in this county to the full extent of our means, the
bayonet not excepted.
Resolved, That the blacks of this county be, and
they are hereby respectfully requested to leave the
country on or before the first day of March, 1847 ; and
in the case of their neglect or refusal to comply -with
this request, we pledge ourselves to remove them,
peacefully if we can, forcibly if we must.
Resolved, That we who are here assembled, pledge
ourselves not to employ or trade -with any black or
mulatto person, in any manner whatever, or permit
them to have any grinding done at our mills, after the
first day of January next.^°
'In 1827 there arose a storm of protest on the
occasion of the settling of seventy freedmen in
8» African, Repository, XXIII, p. 70.

Fighting it Out on Free Soil 57
Lawrence County, Ohio, by a philanthropic mas
ter of Pittsylvania County, Virginia.*" On
Black Friday, January 1, 1830, eighty Negroes
were driven out of Portsmouth, Ohio, at the re
quest of one or two hundred white citizens set
forth in an urgent memorial.*^ So many Ne
groes during these years concentrated at Cin
cinnati that the laboring element forced the exe
cution of the almost dead law requiring free
Negroes to produce certificates and give bonds
for their beha-vior and support.*^ A mob at
tacked the homes of the blacks, killed a number
of them, and forced twelve hundred others to
leave for Canada West, where they established
the settlement known as Wilberforce.
In 1836 another mob attacked and destroyed
there the press of James G. Birney, the editor
of the Philanthropist, because of the encourage
ment his abolitionist organ gave to the immi
grating Negroes.** But in 1841 came a decid
edly systematic effort on the part of foreigners
and proslavery sympathizers to kill off and
drive out the Negroes who were becoming too
well established in that city and who were giv
ing offense to white men who desired to deal
with them as Negroes were treated in the South.
The city continued in this excited state for about
a week. There were brought into play in the
*o Ohio State Journal, May 3, 1827.
*i Evans, A History of Soiote County, Ohio, p. 643.
*2 African Repository, V, p. 18'5.
*3 Howe, Historical Collections, pp. 225-226.

58 A Century of Negro Migration
upheaval the police of the city and the State
militia before the shooting of the Negroes and
burning of their homes could be checked. So
far as is kno-wn, no white men were punished,
although a few of them were arrested. Some
Negroes were committed to prison during the
fray. They were thereafter either discharged
upon producing certificates of nativity or giving
bond or were indefinitely held.**
In southern Indiana and Illinois the same
condition obtained. Obser-sang the situation in
Indiana, a contributor of Niles Register re
marked, in 1818, upon the arrival there of sixty
or seventy liberated Negroes sent by the society
of Friends of North Carolina, that they were a
species of population that was not acceptable to
the people of that State, "nor indeed to any
other, whether free or slaveholding, for they can
not rise and become like other men, unless in
countries where their own color predominates,
but must always remain a degraded and inferior
class of persons without the hope of much bet
tering their condition."*^
The Indiana Farmer, voicing the sentiment
of that same community, regretted the increase
of this population that seemed to be enlarging
the number sent to that territory. The editor
insisted that the community which enjoys the
4< Ibid., p. 226, and The Cin<:irvnati Daily Gazette, Sept. 14,
1841. *s Niles Register, XXX, 416.

Fighting it Out on Free Soil 59
benefits of the blacks' labor should also suffer
all the consequences. Since the people of In
diana derived no advantage from slavery, he
begged that they be excused from its inconveni
ences. Most of the blacks that migrated there,
moreover, possessed, thought he, "feelings quite
imprepared to make good citizens. A sense of
inferiority early impressed on their minds, des
titute of every thing but bodily power and hav
ing no character to lose, and no prospect of ac
quiring one, even did they know its value, they
are prepared for the commission of any act,
when the prospect of evading punishment is
favorable. ' '*^
With the exception of such centers as Eden,
Upper Alton, BelMlle and Chicago, this antag
onistic attitude was general also in the State of
Illinois. The Negroes were despised, abused and
maltreated as persons who had no rights that
the white man should respect. Even in Detroit,
Michigan, in 1833 a fracas was started by an at
tack on Negroes. Because a courageous group
of them had effected the rescue and escape of
one Thornton Blackburn and his wife who had
been arrested by the sheriff as alleged fugitives
from Kentucky, the citizens invoked the law of
1827, to require free Negroes to produce a cer
tificate and furnish bonds for their beha-sdor and
support.*'^ The anti-slavery sentiment there,
^B Niles Register, XXX, 416; African Repository, HI, p. 26.
*f Farmer, History of Detroit and Michigan, I, chap. 48.

60 A Century of Negro Migration
however, was so strong that the law was not long
rigidly enforced.*^ And so it was in several
other parts of the West which, however, were
exceptional.*® 18 There was the usual effort to have slavery legalized in
Michigan. At the time of the fire in 1805 there were six
colored men and nine colored women in the town of Detroit,
In 1807 there were so many of them that Governor Hull
organized a company of colored militia. Joseph Campan
owned ten at one time. The importation of slaves was dis
continued after September 17, 1792, by act of the Canadian
Parliament which provided also that all bom thereafter should
be free at the age of twenty-five. The Ordinance of 1787 had
by its sixth article prohibited it.
4" In 1836 a colored man traveling in the West to Cleveland
said: "I have met with good treatment at every place on my
journey, even better than what I expected under present cir
cumstances. I will relate an incident that took place on board
the steamboat, which will give an idea of the kind treatment
with which I have met. -When I took the boat at Erie, it being
rainy and somewhat disagreeable, I took a cabin passage, to
which the captain had not the least objection. When dinner
was announced, I intended not to go to the first table but the
mate came and urged me to take a seat. I accordingly did and
was called upon to carve a large saddle of beef which was
before me. This I performed accordingly to the best of my
ability. No one of the company manifested any objection or
seemed anyways disturbed by my presence." — Extract of a
letter from a colored gentleman traveling to the West, Cleve
land, Ohio, August 11, 1836. — See The Philanthropist, Oct. 21,
1S36.

CHAPTER IV
COLOOSriZATION AS A BEMEDY FOE MIGBATIOiSr
BECAUSE of these untoward circumstances
consequent to the immigration of free
Negroes and fugitives into the North, their en
emies, and in some cases their well-intentioned
friends, advocated the diversion of these ele
ments to foreign soil. Benezet and Brannagan
had the idea of settling the Negroes on the pub
lic lands in the West largely to relieve the sit
uation in the North.^ Certain anti-slavery men
of Kentucky, as we have observed, recommended
the sapie. But this was hardly advocated at all
by the farseeing white men after the close of
the first quarter of the nineteenth century. It
was by that time very clear that white men
would want to occupy all lands within the pres
ent limits of the United States. Few statesmen
dared to encourage migration to Canada because
the large number of fugitives who had al
ready escaped there had attached to that region
the stigma of being an asylum for fugitives
from the slave States. ^
The most influential people who gave thought
to this question finally decided that the coloniza
tion of the Negro in Africa was the only solu-
1 The African Repository, 'KST, p. 22.
61

62 A Century of Negro Migration
tion of the problem. The plan of African col
onization appealed more generally to the people
of both North and South than the other efforts,
which, at best, could do no more than to offer
local or temporary relief. The African coloni-
zationists proceeded on the basis that the Ne
groes had no chance for racial development in
this country. They could secure no kind of
honorable employment, could not associate with
congenial white friends whose minds and pur
suits might operate as a stimulus upon their in
dustry and could not rise to the level of the suc
cessful professional or business men found
around them. In short, they must ever be
hewers of wood and drawers of water.^
To emphasize further the necessity of emi
gration to Africa the advocates of deportation
to foreign soil generally referred to the condi
tion of the migrating Negroes as a case in e-vi-
dence. "So long," said one, "as you must sit,
stand, walk, ride, dwell, eat and sleep here and
the Negro there, he cannot be free in any part
of the country."* This idea working through
the minds of northern men, who had for years
thought merely of the injustice of slavery, be
gan to change their attitude toward the aboli
tionists who had never undertaken to solve the
problem of the blacks who were seeking refuge
2 The African Repository, X'Vl, p. 23 ; Alexander, A History
of Colonisation, p. 347,
^Ibid., X-Vt, p. 113.

Colonisation a Remedy for Migration 63
in the North. Many thinkers controlling pub
lic opinion then gave audience to the coloniza-
tionists and circles once closed to them were
thereafter opened.*
There was, therefore, a tendency toward a
more systematic effort than had hitherto char
acterized the endeavors of the colonizationists.
The objects of their philanthropy were not to
be stolen away and hurried off to an uncongenial
land for the oppressed. They were in accord
ance with the exigencies of their new situation
to be prepared by instruction in mechanic arts,
agriculture, science and Biblical literature that
some might lead in the higher pursuits and
others might skilfully serve their fellows.^
Private enterprise was at first depended on to
carry out the schemes but it soon became e-vi-
dent that a better method was necessary. Fi
nally out of the proposals of various thinkers
and out of the actual colonization feats of Paul
Cuffe, a Negro, came a national meeting for
this purpose, held in Washington, December,
1816, and the organization of the American Col
onization Society. This meeting was attended
by some of the most prominent men in the
United States, among whom were Henry Clay,
Francis S. Key, Bishop William Meade, John
Eandolph and Judge Bushrod Washington.
* Jay, An Inquiry, pp. 25, 29 ; Hodgkin, An Inquiry, p. 31.
5 The African Repository, IV, p. 276; Griffin, A Plea for
Africa, p. 65.

64 A Century of Negro Migration
The American Colonization Society, however,
failed to facilitate the movement of the free
Negro from the South and did not promote the
general welfare of the race. The reasons for
these failures are many. In the first place, the
society was all things to all men. To the anti-
slavery man whose ardor had been dampened
by the meagre results obtained by his agitation,
the scheme was the next best thing to remove
the objections of slaveholders who had said they
would emancipate their bondsmen, if they could
be assured of their being deported to foreign
soil. To the radical proslavery man and to the
northerner hating the Negro it was well
adapted to rid the country of the free persons
of color whom they regarded as the pariahs of
society.** Furthermore, although the Coloniza
tion Society became seemingly popular and the
various States organized branches of it and
raised money to promote the movement, the
slaveholders as a majority never reached the
position of parting with their slaves and the
country would not take such radical action as to
compel free Negroes to undergo expatriation
when militant abolitionists were fearlessly de
nouncing the scheme.^
The free people of color themselves were not
only not anxious to go but bore it grievously
«Jay, An Inquiry, passim; TTie Journal of Negro History,
I, pp. 276-301 ; and Stebbins, Facts and Opinions, pp. 200-201.
^ Hart, Slavery and Abolition, p. 237.

Colonisation a Remedy for Migration 65
that any one should even suggest that they
should be driven from' the country in which they
were born and for the independence of which
their fathers had died. They held indignation
meetings throughout the North to denounce the
scheme as a selfish policy inimical to the inter
ests of the people of color.^ Branded thus as
the inveterate foe of the blacks both slave and
free, the American Colonization Society effected
the deportation of only such Negroes as south
ern masters felt disposed to emancipate from
time to time and a few others induced to go. As
the industrial revolution early changed the as
pect of the economic situation in the South so
as to make slavery seemingly profitable, few
masters ever thought of liberating their slaves.
Scarcely any intelligent Negroes except those
who, for economic or religious reasons were in
terested, availed themselves of this opportunity
to go to the land of their ancestors. From the
reports of the Colonization Society we learn that
from 1820 to 1833 only 2,885 Negroes were sent
to Africa by the Society. Fiirthermore, more
than 2,700 of this number were taken from the
slave States, and about two thirds of these were
slaves manumitted on the condition that they
would emigrate.® Later statistics show the
same tendency. By 1852, 7,836 had been de-
8 The Journal of Negro History, I, pp. 284^-296; Garrison,
Thoughts on Colonization, p. 204.
^The African Repository, XXXIII, p. 117.

66 A Century of Negro Migration
ported from the United States to Liberia. 2,720
of these were born free, 204 purchased their
freedom, 3,868 were emancipated in view of
their going to Liberia and 1,044 were liberated
Africans returned by the United States Gov
ernment.^" Considering the fact that there were
434,495 free persons of color in this country in
1850 and 488,070 in 1860, the colonizationists
saw that the very element of the population
which the movement was intended to send out
of the country had increased rather than de
creased. It is clear, then, that the American
Colonization Society, though regarded as a fac
tor to play an important part in promoting the
exodus of the free Negroes to foreign soil, was
an inglorious failure.
Colonization in other quarters, however, was
not abandoned. A colony of Negroes in Texas
was contemplated in 1833 prior to the time when
the republic became independent of Mexico, as
slavery was not at first assured in that State.
The New York Commercial Advertiser had no
objection to the enterprise but felt that there
were natural obstacles such as a more expensive
conveyance than that to Monrovia, the high
price of land in that country, the Catholic re
ligion to which Negroes were not accustomed to
conform, and their lack of knowledge of the
Spanish language. The editor observed that
some who had emigrated to Hayti a few years
10 The African Repository, XXIII, p. 117.

Colonisation a Remedy for Migration 67
before became discontented because they did not
know the language. Louisiana, a slave State,
moreover, would not suffer near its borders a
free Negro republic to serve as an asylum for
refugees." The Richmond Whig saw the actual
situation in dubbing the scheme as chimerical
for the reason that a more unsuitable country
for the blacks did not exist. Socially and polit
ically it would never suit the Negroes. Already
a great number of adventurers from the United
States had gone to Texas and fugitives from
justice from Mexico, a fierce, lawless and tur
bulent class, would give the Negroes little
chance there, as the Negroes could not contend
with the Spaniard and the Creole. The editor
believed that an inferior race could never exist
in safety surrounded by a superior one despis
ing them. Colonization in Africa was then
urged and the efforts of the blacks to go else
where were characterized as doing mischief at
every turn to defeat the "enlightened plan" for
the amelioration of the Negroes. ^^
It was still thought possible to induce the Ne
groes to go to some congenial foreign land, al
though few of them would agree to emigrate to
Africa. Not a few Negroes began during the
two decades immediately preceding the Civil
War to think more favorably of African col
onization and a still larger number, in view of
11 The African Repository, IX, pp. 86-88.
12 Ibid., IX, p. 8'8.

68 A Century of Negro Migration
the increasing disabilities fixed upon their class,
thought of migrating to some country nearer to
the United States/^Much was said about Cen
tral America, but British Guiana and the West
Indies proved to be the most inviting fields to
the latter-day Negro colonizationists. This idea
was by no means new, for Jefferson in his fore
sight had, in a letter to Governor Edward Coles,
of Illinois, in 1814, sho-wn the possibilities of
colonization in the West Indies. He felt that
because Santo Domingo had become an inde
pendent Negro republic it would offer a solution
of the problem as to where the Negroes should
be colonized. In this way these islands would
become a sort of safety valve for the United
States. He became more and more convinced
that all the West Indies would remain in the
hands of the people of color, and a total expul
sion of the whites sooner or later would take
place. It was high time, he thought, that Amer
icans should foresee the bloody scenes which
their children certainly, and possibly they them
selves, would have to wade through.^*/^
13 " If something is not done, and soon done, ' ' said he, ' ' we
shall be the murderers of our own children. The ' murmura
venturos nautis prudentia ventos' has already reached us (from
Santo Domingo) ; the revolutionary storm, now sweeping the
globe will be upon us^ and happy if we make timely provision
to give it an easy passage over our land. From the present
state of things in Europe and America, the day which begins
our combustion must be near at hand; and only a single spark
is wanting to make that day to-morrow. If we had begun
sooner, we might probably have been allowed a lengthier opera-

Colonisation a Remedy for Migration 69
The movement to the West Indies was accel
erated by other factors. After the emancipation
in those islands in the thirties, there had for
some years been a dearth of labor. Desiring to
enjoy their freedom and living in a climate
where there was not much struggle for life, the
freedmen either refused to work regularly or
wandered about purposely fromi year to year.
The islands in which sugar had once played a
conspicuous part as the foundation of their in
dustry declined and something had to be done
to meet this exigency. In the forties and fifties,
therefore, there came to the United States a
number of labor agents whose aim was to set
forth the inviting aspect of the situation in the
West Indies so as to induce free Negroes to try
their fortunes there. To this end meetings were
held in Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and
tion to clear ourselves, but every day's delay lessens the time
we may take for emancipation."
As to the mode of emancipation, he was satisfied that that
must be a matter of compromise between the paeons, the
prejudices, and the real difficulties which would each have its
weight in that operation. He believed that the first chapter of
this history, which was begun in St. Domingo, and the next
succeeding ones, would recount how all the whites were driven
from- aU the other islands. This, he thought, would prepare
their minds for a peaceable accommodation between justice
and policy; and' furnish an answer to the difficult question,
as to where the colored emigrants should go. He urged that
the country put some plan under way, and the sooner it did
so the greater would be the hope that it might be per
mitted to proceed peaceably toward consummation. — ^See Ford
edition of Jefferson's Writings, VI, p. 349, VU, pp. 167, 168.

70 A Century of Negro Migration
Boston and even in some of the cities of the
South, where these agents appealed to the free
Negroes to emigrate.^*
/ Thus before the American Colonization So
ciety had got well on its way toward accomplish
ing its purpose of deporting the Negroes to
Africa the West Indies and British Guiana
claimed the attention of free people of color in
offering there unusual opportunities. After the
consummation of British emancipation in those
islands in 1838, the English nation came to be
regarded by the Negroes of the United States
as the exclusive friend of the race. The Negro
press and church -vded with each other in prais
ing British emancipation as an act of philan
thropy and pointed to the English dominions as
an asylum for the oppressed. So disturbed
were the whites by this growing feeling that
riots broke out in northern cities on occasions of
Negro celebrations of the anniversary of eman
cipation in the West Indies.^®
In -view of these facts, the colonizationists had
to redouble their efforts to defend their cause.
They found it a little difficult to make a good
case for Liberia, a land far away in an un
healthy climate so much unlike that of the West
Indies and British Guiana, where Negroes had
" Letter of Mr. Stanbury Boyce; and The African Reposi
tory. 15 Philadelphia Gazette, Aug. 2, 3, 4, 8, 1842; United States
Gazette, Aug. 2>-6, 1842; and the Pennsylvanian, Aug. 2, 3, 4,
8, 1842.

Colonisation a Remedy for Migration 71
been declared citizens entitled to all privileges
afforded by the government. The colonization
ists could do no more than to express doubt that
the Negroes would have there the opportunities
for mental, moral and social betterment which
were offered in Liberia. The promoters of the
enterprise in Africa did not believe that the
West Indian planters who had had emancipa
tion forced upon them would accept blacks from
the United States as their equals, nor that they,
far from receiving the consideration of freedi-
men, would be there any more than menials.
When told of the establishment of schools and
churches for the improvemnt of the freedmen,
the colonizationists replied that schools might
be provided, but the planters could have no in
terest in encouraging education as they did not
want an elevated class of people but bone and
muscle. As an e-vidence of the truth of this
statement it was asserted that newspapers of the
country were filled with disastroiis accounts of
the falling off of crops and the scarcity of labor
but had little to say about those forces instru
mental in the uplift of the people.^''
An effort was made also to show that there
would be no economic advantage in going to the
British dominions. It was thought that as soon
as the first demand for labor was supplied
wages would be reduced, for no new plantations
could be opened there as in a gro-wing country
18 TTie African Repository, XVI, pp. 113-115.
6

72 A Century of Negro Migration
like Liberia. It would be impossible, therefore,
for the Negroes immigrating there to take up
land and develop a class of small farmers as
they were doing in Africa. Under such circum
stances, they contended, the Negroes in the West
Indies could not feel any of the "elevating in
fluences of nationality of character," as the
white men would limit the influence of the Ne
groes by retaining practically all of the wealth
of the islands. The inducements, therefore, of
fered the free Negroes in the United States were
merely intended to use them in supplying in the
British dominions the need of men to do drudg
ery scarcely more elevating than the toil of
slaves.^'^ Determined to interest a larger number of
persons in diverting the attention of the free
Negroes from the West Indies, the colonization
ists took higher ground. They asserted that the
interests of the millions of white men in this
country were then at stake, and even if it would
be better for the three million Negroes of the
country gradually to emigrate to the British
dominions, it would eventually prove prejudicial
to the interests of the United States. They
showed how the Negroes immigrating into the
West Indies would be made to believe that the
refusal to extend to them here social and political
equality was cruel oppression and the immigrants,
therefore, would carry with them no good -will
17 The African Repository, XXI, p. 114,

Colonisation a Remedy for Migration 73
to this country. When they arrived in the West
Indies their circumstances would increase this
hostility, alienate their affections and estrange
them wholly from the United States. Taught
to regard the British as the exclusive friends of
their race, devoted to its elevation, they would
become British in spirit. As such, these Ne
groes would be controlled by British influence
and would increase the wealth and commerce of
the British and as soldiers would greatly
strengthen British power.^*
It was better, therefore, they argued, to direct
the Negroes to Liberia, for those who went there
with a feeling of hostility against the white peo
ple were placed in circumstances operating to
remove that feeling, in that the kind solicitude
for their welfare would be extended them in
their new home so as to overcome their preju
dices, win their confidence, and secure their at
tachment. Looking to this country as their
fatherland and the home of their benefactors,
the Liberians would develop a nation, taking the
religion, customs and laws of this country as
their models, marketing their produce in this
country and purchasing our manufactures. In
spite of its independence, therefore, Liberia
would be American in feeling, language and in
terests, affording a means to get rid of a class
undesirable here but desirable to us there in
18 The African Repository, XVI, p. 116.

74 A Century of Negro Migration
their power to extend American influence, trade
and commerce.^*
Negroes migrated to the West Indies in spite
of this warning and protest. Hayti, at first looked
upon with fear of ha-ving a free Negro govern
ment near slaveholding States, became fixed in
the minds of some as a desirable place for the
colonization of free persons of color.^" This was
due to the apparent natural advantages in soil,
climate and the situation of the country over
other places in consideration. It was thought
that the island would support fourteen millions
of people and that, once opened to immigration
from the United States, it would in a few years
fill up by natural increase. It was remembered
that it was formerly the emporium of the West
ern World and that it supplied both hemispheres
with sugar and coffee. It had rapidly recovered
from the disaster of the French Eevolution and
lacked only capital and education which the
United States under these circumstances could
furnish. Furthermore, it was argued that some
thing in this direction should be immediately
done, as European nations then seeking to es
tablish friendly relations -with the islands, would
secure there commercial advantages which the
United States should have and could establish
by sending to that island free Negroes especially
/

devoted to agriculture,

18 The African Repository, XVT, p. 115.
20 Ibid., XVI, p. 116.

Colonisation a Remedy for Migration 75
In 1836, Z. Kingsley, a Florida planter,^^ actu
ally undertook to carry out such a plan on a
21 Speaking of this colony Kingsley said : ' ' About eighteen
months ago, I carried my son George Kingsley, a healthy
colored man of uncoriupted morals, about thirty years of age,
tolerably well educated, of very industrious habits, and a native
of Florida, together with six prime African men, my own
slaves, liberated for that express purpose, to the northeast side
of the Island of Hayti, near Porte Plate, where we arrived in
the month of October, 1836, and after application to the local
authorities, from whom I rented some good land near the sea,
and thickly timbered with lofty woods, I set them to work
cutting down trees, about the middle of November, and returned
to my home in Florida. My son wrote to us frequently, giving
an account of his progress. Some of the fallen timber was
dry enough to burn in January, 1897, when it was cleared up,
and eight acres of corn planted, and as soon as circumstances
would allow, sweet potatoes, yams, cassava, rice, beans, peas,
plantains, oranges, and all sorts of fruit trees, were planted
in succession. In the month of October, 1837, I again set off
for Hayti, in a coppered brig of 150 tons, bought for the pur
pose and in five days and a half, from St. Mary's in Georgia,
landed my son's wife and children, at Porte Plate, together
with the wives and children of his servants, now working for
him imder an indenture of nine years; also two additional
families of my slaves, all liberated for the express purpose of
transportation to Hayti, where they were all to have as much
good land in fee, as they could cultivate, say ten acres for each
famOy, and all its proceeds, together with one-fourth part of
the net proceeds of their labor, on my son's farm, for them
selves; also victuals, clothes, medical attendance, etc., gratis,
besides Saturdays and Sundays, as days of labor for themselves,
or of rest, just at their option."
"On my arrival at my son's place, called Cabaret (twenty-
seven miles east of Porte Plate) in November, 1837, as before
stated, I found everything in the most flattering and prosperous
condition. They had all enjoyed good health, were overflowing
with the most, delicious variety and abundance of fruits and
provisions, and were overjoyed at again meeting their wives

76 A Century of Negro Migration
small scale. He established on the northeast
side of Hayti, near Port Plate, his son, George
and children; whom they could introduce into good comfortable
log houses, all nicely whitewashed, and in the midst of a pro
fuse abundance of good provisions, as they had generally cleared
five or six acres of their land each, which being very rich, and
planted with every variety to eat or to sell on their own ac
count, and had already laid up thitry or forty dollars apiece.
My son's farm was upon a larger scale, and furnished with
more commodious dwelling houses, also with store and out
houses. In nine months he had made and housed three crops
of corn, of twenty-five bushels to the acre, each, or one crop
every three months. His highland rice, which was equal to
any in Carolina, so ripe and heavy as some of it to be couched
or leaned down, and no bird had ever troubled it, nor had any
of his fields ever been hoed, or required hoeing, there being as
yet no appearance of grass. His cotton was of an excellent
staple. In seven months it had attained the height of thirteen
feet; the stalks were ten inches in circumference, and had up
wards of five hundred large boles on each stalk (not a worm
nor red bug as yet to be seen). His yams, cassava, and sweet
potatoes, were incredibly large, and plentifully thick in the
ground; one kind of sweet potato, lately introduced from Ta-
heita (formerly Otaheita) Island in the Pacific, was of peculiar
excellence; tasted like new flour and grew to an ordinary size
in one month. Those I ate at my son's place had been planted
five weeks, and were as big as our full grown Florida potatoes.
His sweet orange trees budded upon wild stalks cut off (which
every where abound), about six months before had large tops,
and the buds were swelling as if preparing to flower. My son
reported that his people had all enjoyed good health and had
labored just as steadily as they formerly did in Florida and
were well satisfied with their situation and the advantageous
exchange of circumstances they had made. They all enjoyed
the friendship of the neighboring inhabitants and the entire
confidence of the Haytian Government."
' ' I remained with my son all January, 1838 and asasted him
in making improvements of different kinds, amongst which was
a new two-story house, and then left him to go to Port au

Colonisation a Remedy for Migration 77
Kingsley, a well-educated colored man of indus
trious habits and uncorrupted morals, together
-with six "prime African men," slaves liberated
for that express purpose. There he purchased
for them 35,000 acres of land upon which they
engaged in the production of crops indigenous
to that soil.
Hayti, however, was not to be the only island
to get consideration. In 1834 two hundred col
ored emigrants went from New York alone to
Trinidad, under the superintendence and at the
expense of planters of that island. It was later
reported that every one of them found employ
ment on the day of arrival and in one or two in
stances the most intelligent were placed as over
seers at the salary of $500 per annum. No one
received less than $1.00 a day and most of them
earned $1.50. The Trinidad press welcomed
these immigrants and spoke in the highest terms
of the valuable services they rendered the coun-
tj.y.22 Others followed from year to year. One
of these Negroes appreciated so much this new
field of opportunity that he returned and in-
Prince, where I obtained a favorable answer from the President
of Hayti, to his petition, asking for leave to hold in fee simple,
the same tract of land upon which he then lived as a tenant,
paying rent to the Haytian Government, containing about
thirty-five thousand acres, which was ordered to be surveyed to
him, and valued, and not expected to exceed the sum of three
thousand dollars, or about ten cents an acre. After obtaining
this land in fee for my son, I returned to Florida in February,
in 1838. ' ' — See The African Repository, XIV, pp. 215-216.
22 Niles Register, LXVI, pp. 165, 386.

78 A Century of Negro Migration
duced twenty intelligent free persons of color
living in Annapolis, Maryland, also to emigrate
to Trinidad.^*
The New York Sun reported in 1840 that 160
colored persons left Philadelphia for Trinidad.
They had been hired by an eminent planter to
labor on that island and they were encouraged
to expect that they should have pri-vileges which
would make their residence desirable. The ed
itor wished a few dozen Trinidad planters
would come to that city on the same business
and on a much larger scale.^* N. W. Pollard,
agent of the Government of Trinidad, came to
Baltimore in 1851 to make his appeal for emi
grants, offering to pay all expenses.^^ At a
meeting held in Baltimore, in 1852, the parents
of Mr. Stanbury Boyce, now a retired merchant
in Washington, District of Columbia, were also
induced to go. They found there opportunities
which they had never had before and well estab
lished themselves in their new home. The ac
count which Mr. Boyce gives in a letter to the
writer corroborates the newspaper reports as to
the success of the enterprise.^®
The New York Journal of Commerce reported
in 1841 that, according to ad-vices received at
New Orleans from Jamaica, there had arrived
in that island fourteen Negro emigrants from
23 Niles Register, LX-VEI, p. 180.
24 The African Repository, XVI, p. 28.
25 Ibid., p. 29.
2B Letter of Mr. Stanbury Boyce.

Colonisation a Remedy for Migration 79
the United States, being the first fruits of Mr.
Barclay's mission to this country. A much
larger number of Negroes were expected and
various applications for their services had been
received from respectable parties.^'' The prod
ucts of soil were reported as much reduced from
former years and to meet its demand for labor
some freedmen from Sierra Leone were induced
to emigrate to that island in 1842.^* One Mr.
Anderson, an agent of the government of Ja
maica, contemplated visiting New York in 1851
to secure a number of laborers, tradesmen and
agricultural settlers.^^
In the course of time, emigration to foreign
lands interested a larger number of representa
tive Negroes. At a national council called in
1853 to promote more effectively the ameliora
tion of the colored people, the question of emi
gration and that only was taken up for serious
consideration. But those who desired to intro
duce the question of Liberian colonization or
who were especially interested in that scheme
were not invited. Among the persons who pro
moted the calling of this council were William
Webb, Martin E. Delaney, J. Gould Bias, Frank
lin Turner, Augustus Greene, James M. Whit
field, William Lambert, Henry Bibb, James T.
Holly and Henry M. Collins.
2T St. Lucia and Trinidad were then considered unfavorable
to the working of the new system. — See TTie African Reposi
tory, XX-VTI, p. 196.
28 Niles Register, LXIII, p. 65.
28 Ibid., LXin, p. 65.

80 A Century of Negro Migration
There developed in this assembly three
groups, one believing with Martin E. Delaney
that it was best to go to the Niger Valley in
Africa, another following the counsel of James
M. Whitfield then interested in emigration to
Central America, and a third supporting James
T. Holly who insisted that Hayti offered the
best opportunities for free persons of color de
siring to leave the United States. Delaney was
commissioned to proceed to Africa, where he
succeeded in concluding treaties with eight Af
rican kings who offered American Negroes in
ducements to settle in their respective countries.
James Eedpath, already interested in the
scheme of colonization in Hayti, had preceded
Holly there and with the latter as his coworker
succeeded in sending to that country as many as
two thousand emigrants, the first of whom
sailed from this country in 1861.*° Owing to
the lack of equipment adequate to the estab
lishment of the settlement and the unfavorable
climate, not more than one third of the emigrants
remained. Some attention was directed to Cali
fornia and Central America just as in the case
of Africa but nothing in that direction took tan
gible form immediately, and the Civil War fol
io-wing soon thereafter did not give some of
these schemes a chance to materialize.
80 Cromwell, TTie Negro in American History, pp. 43-44

CHAPTEE V
THE SIJCCE!SSFUL 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 con*-
sidered the lepers of society. The student of
history, however, must look beyond these com
ments 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 unde-
81

82 A Century of Negro Migration
siraibles, although preparation for their coming
had sometimes gone to the extent of purchasing
homes and making provision 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. Prior
to 1800 the Negroes of the North were in fair
circumstances. Until that time it was generally
believed that the whites and the 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 com
munities in that section. The intolerable legis
lation of the South, however, forced so many
free Negroes in the rough to crowd northern
cities during the first four decades of the nine
teenth century that they could not be easily re
adjusted. The number seeking employment far
exceeded the demand for labor and thus multi
plied the number of vagrants and paupers, many
of whom had already been forced to this condi
tion by the Irish and Germans then immigrating
into northern cities. At one time, as in the case
1 Cincinnati Morning Herald, July 17, 1846.
2 Woodson, The Education of tTie Negro Prior to 1861, p. 242.
3 Turner, The Negro in Pennsylvania, p. 143 ; Correspondence
of Dr. Benjamin Rush, XXXIX, p. 41.

The Successful Migrant 83
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
laboring classes and finally alienating the sup^
port of the well-to-do people and the press.
This condition obtained until 1840 in most
northern communities and until 1850 in some
places where the Negro population was consid"-
erable. We must -also take into account the critical
labor situation during these years. The north
ern people were divided as to the way the Ne
groes should be encouraged. The mechanics of
the North raised no objection to having the Ne
groes freed and enlightened but did not welcome
them to that section as competitors- in the strug
gle of life. When, therefore, the blacks, con
verted to the doctrine of training the hand to
work with skill, began to appear in northern
industrial centers there arose a formidable prej
udice against them.® Negro and white me
chanics had once worked together but during
the second quarter of the nineteenth century,
when labor became more dignified and a larger
number of white persons devoted themselves to
skilled labor, they adopted the policy of elim
inating the blacks. This opposition, to be sure,
* DuBois, The Philadelphia Negro, pp. 26-27.
5 The Journal of Negro History, I, p. 5 ; and Proceedings of
the American Convention of Abolition Societies.

84 A Century of Negro Migration
was not a mere harmless sentiment. It tendted
to give rise to the organization of labor groups
and finally to that of trades unions, the begin
nings of those controlling this country to-day.
Carrying the fight against the Negro still
further, these laboring classes used their influ
ence to obtain legislation against the employ
ment of Negroes in certain pursuits. Maryland
and Georgia passed laws restricting the priv
ileges 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 Ne
groes then migrating to the North did not re
ceive considerable aid. The fact to be noted
here is that because they were not well received
sometimes by the people of their new en-viron-
ment, the help which they obtained from friends
afar off did not suffice to make up for the defi
ciency of community cooperation. This, of
course, was an unusual handicap to the Negro,
as his life as a slave tended to make him a de
pendent rather than a pioneer.
It is evident, however, from accessible sta
tistics that wherever the Negro was adequately
encouraged he succeeded. When the urban Ne-
8 DuBoia and Dill, TTie Negro American Artisan, p. ii6.
' Jay, An Inquiry, pp. 34, 108, 109, 114,

The Successful Migrant 85
groes in northern communities had emerged
from' their crude state they easily learned from
the white men their method of sol-ving the prob
lems 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 prop
erty, built churches and established schools.
Going even further than this, some of them, tak
ing advantage of their opportunities in the busi
ness world, accumulated considerable fortunes,
just as had been done in certain centers in the
South where Negroes had been given a chance.®
In cities far north like Boston not so much dif
ference as to the result of this migration was
noted. Some economic progress among the Ne
groes 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 fre
quented some other northern communities of
this time but enough to make for that city a de
cidedly 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
8 The Journal of Negro History, I, pp. 20-22.
8 Delany, Condition of tTie Colored People, p. 106.

86 A Century of Negro Migration
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 sev
eral places in the State in 1834,^°
To relieve this situation, Gerrit Smith, an un
usually philanthropic gentleman, came forward
with an interesting plan. Ha-ving 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 to
gether 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 Eeverend Charles B. Eay,
Eeverend Theodore S. Wright and Dr. J. Mc-
Cune Smith, three Negroes of New York City,
known to be representative of the best of the
race. Upon their recommendations he deeded
unconditionally to black men in 1846 three hun
dred small farms in Franklin, Essex, Hamilton,
Fulton, Oneida, Delaware, Madison and Ulster
counties, giving to each settler beside $10.00 to
enable him to visit his farm." With these hold
ings the blacks would not only have a basis for
economic independence but would have suf
ficient property to meet the special qualifica
tions which New York by the law of 1823 re
quired of Negroes offering to vote.
10 The Liberator, July 9, 1835.
11 Hammond, Gerrit Smith, pp. 26-27.

The Successful Migrant 87
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. Peterboro, the town
opened to Negroes in this section, did maintain
a school and served as a station of the Under
ground Eailroad but the agricultural results
expected of the enterprise never materialized.
The main difficulty in this case was the impos
sibility of substituting something foreign for
individual enterprise.^^
Progressive Negroes did appear, however, in
other parts of the State. In Penyan, Western
New York, William Piatt and Joseph C. Cassey
were successful lumber merchants.^* Mr. W. H.
Topp of Albany was for several years one of
the leading merchant tailors of that city.^*
Heniy Scott, of New York City, developed a
successful pickling business, supplying most of
the vessels entering that port.^° Thomas Do-wn-
ing for thirty years ran a creditable restaurant
in the midst of the Wall Street banks, where he
made a fortune.^® Edward V. Clark conducted
12 Frothingham, Gferrit Smith, p. 73.
13 Delany, Condition of the Colored People, pp. 107-108.
i*7Z>td., p. 102.
i^Ibid., p. 102.
lelbid., pp. 103-104.
7

88 A Century of Negro Migration
a thri-ving business, handling jewelry and sil
verware." The Negroes as a whole, moreover,
had shown progress. Aided by the Government
and philanthropic white people, they had before
the Civil War a school system with primiiry, in
termediate and grammar schools and a normal
department. They then had considerable prop
erty, several churches and some benevolent in
stitutions. 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 pre
sented then the most striking example of the re
making 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 pres
ence 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 imtoward circumstances,
however, the Negroes of Philadelphia achieved
success. Negroes who had formerly been able
to toil upward were still restricted but they had
IT Delany, Condition of tTie Colored People, pp, 106^107,

The Successful Migrant 89
learnedi 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 benevo
lent 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 con
siderable property was Mr. James Forten, the
proprietor of one of the leading sail manufac
tories, constantly employing a large number of
men, black and white. Joseph Casey, a broker
of considerable acumen, also accumulated desir
able property, worth probably $75,000.^® Crowd
ed out of the higher pursuits of labor, certain
other enterprising business men of this group
organized the Guild of Caterers. This was com
posed of such men as Bogle, Prosser, Dorsey,
Jones and Minton. The aim was to elevate the
Negro waiter and cook from the plane of me
nials to that of progressive business men. Then
came Stephen Smith who amassed a large for
tune as a lumber merchant and with him Whip-
per, Vidal and Pumell. Still and Bowers were
18 DuBois, ITie PhUadelphia Negro, p, 31 ; Report of the
Condition of the Free People of Color, 1838; ibid., 1849; and
Bacon, Statistics of the Colored People of Philadelphia, 1859.
18 Delany, Condition of the Colored People, p. 95.

90 A Century of Negro Migration
reliable coal merchants, Adger a success in
handling furniture, Bowser a well-kno-wn painter,
and William H, Eiley the intelligent boot
maker.^" There were a few such successful Negroes in
other communities in the State. Mr. William
Goodrich, of York, acquired considerable inter
est in the branch of the Baltimore and Ohio
Eailroad extending tO' Lancaster.^^ Benjamin
Eichards, of Pittsburgh, amassed a large for
tune running a butchering business, buying by
contract droves 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 con
siderable wealth.^* Owen A, Barrett, of the
same city, made his way by discovering the rem
edy known as B. A. Fahnestock's Celebrated
Vermifuge, for which he was retained in the em
ploy of the proprietor, who exploited the rem-
edy.2* Mr. John Julius made himself indis
pensable to Pittsburgh by running the Concert
Hall Cafe where he served President William
Henry Harrison in 1840.^®
20 DuBois, The Philadelphia Negro, pp. 31-36.
21 Delany, Condition of the Colored People, p. 109.
22 Ibid., p. 101.
2s Ibid., p. 104.
2* Ibid., p. 105.
2sibid., p. 107.

The Successful Migrant 91
The field of greatest achievement, however,
was not in the conservative East where the peo
ple 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 those 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 espe
cially in the to-wns along the Ohio river, where
so many fugitives and free persons of color
stopped on their way from slavery to freedom.
In Steuben-ville a number of Negroes had by
their industry and good deportment made them
selves helpful to the community. Stephen Mul-
ber who had been 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 in
creasing demand for his labor.^® In Gallipolis',
26 2*^6 Journal of Negro History, 1, p. 22.

92 A Century of Negro Migration
there was another group of this class of Ne
groes, who had permanently attached them
selves to the town by the acquisition of prop
erty. They were then able not only to pro-vide
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 evi
dences of actual progress. Among the success
ful Negroes in Columbus was Da-vid Jenkins
who acquired considerable property as a
painter, glazier and paper hanger.^® One Mr.
Hill, of Chillicothe, was for several years its
leading tanner and currier.^®
It was in Cincinnati, however, that the Ne
groes 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
27 Hickok, The Negro in Ohio, p, 86.
28 Delany, Condition of tTie Colored People, p. 99.
2a Ibid., p. 101.

The Successful Migrant 93
worth of real estate. A number of their pro
gressive men had established a real estate firm
kno-wn as the "Iron Chest" company which built
houses for Negroes. One man, who had onCe
thought it un-wise 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 years 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 an
other 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 po
tential possession of two houses on which a
white lawyer had given her a mortgage to se^
cure the payment of $2,000 borrowed from this
thrifty woman. Another Negro, who was on
the auction block in 1832, had spent $2,600 pur
chasing 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.*"
so The Philanthropist, July 21> 18'40, gives these statistics in
detail.

94 A Century of Negro Migration
The Negroes of Cincinnati had as early as
1820 established schools which developed dur
ing the forties into something like a modern
system -with Gilmore's High School as a cap
stone. By that time they had also not only
several churches but had given time and means
to the organization and promotion of such as the
Sabbath School Youth's Society, the Total Ab
stinence Temperance Society and the Anti-Slav
ery Society. The worthy example set by the
Negroes of this city was a stimulus to noble en
deavor 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 se
cured 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 travel
ling 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 Inethods realize handsome incomes.
Many Negroes thus enriched purchased real es
tate and went into business in towns along the
Ohio.
31 The Philanthropist, July 21, 1840.

The Successful Migrant 95
The other force, the rise of the Negro me
chanic, was made possible by overcoming much
of the prejudice which had at first been encoun
tered. A great change 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 useful
ness to their families and to the community.
Negro mechanics were then getting as much
skilled labor as they could do. It was not un
common for white artisans to solicit employment
of colored men because they had the reputation
of being better paymasters than master work
men of the favored race. White mechanics not
only worked -with the blacks but often asso
ciated with them, patronized the same barber
shop, and went to the same places of amuse
ment.** Out of this group came some very useful Ne
groes, among whom may be mentioned Eobert
Harlan, 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 Eobert Gordon. Boyd was a Kentucky
freedman who helped to overcome the prejudice
in Cincinnati against Negro mechanics by in
venting and exploiting a corded bed, the demand
32 TTie Cincinnati Daily Gazette, Sept. 14, 1841.
83 Barber's Report on Colored People in Ohio.
34 Delany, Condition of the Colored People, pp. 97, 98.

96 A Century of Negro Migration
for which was extensive throughout the Ohio
and Mississippi valleys. He had a creditable
manufacturing business in which he employed
twenty-five men.*^
Eobert Gordon was a much more interesting
man. He was born a slave in Eichmond, Vir
ginia. 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 dol
lars 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. Kno-wing the coal busi
ness, he well established himself there after
some discouragement and opposition. He ac
cumulated 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 peo
ple 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 ad
hered to this position.*'^ In this congenial com-
35 Delany, Condition of the Colored People, p. 98.
36 These facts were obtained from his children and from
Cincinnati city directories.
37 Niles Register, LXIX, p. 357.

The Successful Migrant 97
munity prospered many a Negro family. There
were the Williams' most of whom confined them
selves to their trade of bricklaying and amassed
considerable wealth. Then there were the
Cooks, descending from Lomax B. Cook, a
broker of no little business ability. Will Marion
Cook, the musician, belongs to this family. The
De Baptistes, too, were among the first to suc
ceed in this new home, as they prospered ma
terially from their experience and knowledge
pre-viously acquired in Fredericksburg, Vir
ginia, as contractors. From this group came
Eichard De Baptiste, who in his day was the
most useful Negro Baptist preacher in the
Northwest.*® The Pelhams were no less suc
cessful in establishing themselves in the eco
nomic world. Ha-ving an excellent reputation
in the community, they easily secured the co
operation of the influential white people in the
city. Out of this family came Eobert A. Pel-
ham, 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 Eichards, another old
family, were in no sense inferior to the descend^
ants of the others. The most prominent and
the most useful to emerge from this group was
the daug^hter, Fannie M. Eichards. She was
born in Fredericksburg, Virginia, October 1,
1841. Ha-ving left that State -with her parents
38 Letters received from Miss Fannie M. Eichards of Detroit,

98 A Century of Negro Migration
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 De
troit, she went to Toronto where she studied
English, history, drawing and needlework. - In
later years she attended the Teachers' Training
School in Detroit. She became a public-school
teacher there in 1863 and after fifty years of
creditable service in this work &he 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 suc
cessful 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 devel
oped among the Negroes as weapons of de
fense.*" This progress of the Negroes in the North was
much more marked after the middle of the nine
teenth century. The migration of Negroes to
northern communities was at first checked by
38 These facts were obtained from clippings taken from De
troit newspapers and from letters bearing on Miss Bichard's
career. "o The A. M. E. Church Review, IV, p. 309 ; and XX, p. 137,

The Successful Migrant 99
the reaction in those places during the thirties
and forties. Thus relieved of the large influx
which once constituted a menace, those commu
nities 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 po
tential 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 con
ventions which began meeting first in Phila
delphia in 1830 and after some years of de
liberation 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 to the free
blacks opportunities to be trained in the me
chanic arts to equip themselves for participa
tion in the industries then springing up through
out the North. This movement, however, did
not succeed in the proportion to the efforts put
*i Censuses of the United States; and Clark, Present Condi
tion of Colored People.
42 Minutes and Proceedings of the Annual Convention of the
People of Color.

100 A Century of Negro Migration
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 favor
able to their progress than the generation be
fore. 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 pro-vided in the Fugitive Slave
Law. This repressive measure set a larger num
ber of the people thinking of the Negro as a
national problem rather than a local one. The
attitude of the North was then reflected in the
personal liberty laws as an answer to this meas
ure and in the increasing sympathy for the Ne
groes. During this decade, therefore, more was
done in the North to secure to the Negroes bet
ter treatment and to give them' opportunities
for improvement.

CHAPTEE VI
CONFUSING MOVEMENTS
THE Ci-vil War waged 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 con
dition 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 thralldom. 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 prob
lem. General Butler's action at Fortress Mon
roe in 1861, however, anticipated the policy
finally adopted by the Union forces.^ Hearing
that three fugitive slaves who were received into
1 This is well treated in John E&ton's Grant, Lincoln and the
Freedmen. See also Coffin's Boys of '61.
2 Williams, History of the Negro Troops in the War of the
Rebellion, p, 70, 101

102 A Century of Negro Migration
his lines were to have been employed in building
fortifications for the Confederate army, he de
clared 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 Or
leans. An elaborate plan for handling such fugitives
was carried out by E. S. Pierce and General
Eufus Siaxton at Port Eoyal, 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 Gen
eral Dix in Virginia, But Halleck, in his in
structions to General MoCullum, February,
1862, ordered him to put contrabands to work
to pay for food and clothing,^ Other com
manders, like General MoCook and General
Johnson, permitted the slave hunters to enter
their lines and take their slaves upon identifica
tion,® 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 pro-
3 Greely, American Conflict, I, p. 585.
*Ibid., II, p. 246.
6 Official Records of the Rebellion, "VIII, p. 628.
0 Williams, Negro Troops, p. 66 et seq.

Confusing Movements 103
test 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 cap
ture of Fort Donelson ordered the retention of
all blacks who had been used by the Confederates
in building fortifications.''^
Lincoln finally urged the necessity for with
holding fugitive slaves from the enemy, believ
ing that there could be in it no danger of servile
insurrection and that the Confederacy would
thereby be weakened.® As this op'inion soon de
veloped 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 grad
ually reached the position of -withdrawing Negro
labor from the Confederate territory. Finally
the United States Government adopted the pol
icy of withholding from the Confederates, slaves
received with the understanding that their mas
ters 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 com
ing into its camps.
In some of these cases the fugitives found
¦! Official Records of the Rebellion, VIII, p. 370; Williams,
Negro Troops, p. 75.
8 Eaton, Grant, Lincoln and the Freedmen, pp, 87, 92.
8

104 A Century of Negro Migration
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 under
stand that they were fighting to free Negroes.
The condition in which they were on arri-ving,
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 trav
ail, 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 igno
rance there developed such undesirable habits
as deceit, theft and licentiousness to aggravate
the afflictions of nakedness, famine and dis
ease." In the East large numbers of these refugees
were concentrated at Washington, Alexandria,
Fortress Monroe, Hampton, Ctaney Island and
Fort Norfolk. There were smaller groups of
them at Yorktown, Suffolk and Portsmouth.^^
8 Pierce, Freedmen of Port Royal, South Carolina, passim;
Botume, First Days Among the Contrabands, pp. 10-22; and
Pearson, Letters from Port Royal, passim.
10 Eaton, Grant, Lincoln and tTie Freedmen, p. 92.
11 Ibid., pp. 2, 3.
^ i2Eeport of the Committee of Representatives of the New
TorTc Yearly Meeting of Friends upon the Condition and Wants
of the Colored Refugees, 1862, p. 1 et seq.

Confusing Movements 105
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 as
sembled in Washington in 1862 in Duff Green's
Eow on Capitol Hill where they were organ
ized as a camp, out of which came a contraband
school, after being moved to the McClellan Bar
racks.^* Then there was in the District of Co
lumbia another group kno-wn as Freedmen 's vil
lage 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 Washing
ton fortunately became centers for the employ
ment of contrabands in the city. Those repair
ing to Fortress Monroe were distributed as
laborers among the farmers of that -vicinity."
13 Report of the Committee of Representatives, etc., p. 3.
14 At an entertainment of this school, Senator Pomeroy of
Kansas, voicing the sentiment of Lincoln, spoke in favor of a
scheme to colonize Negroes in Central America.
15 Special Report of the United States Commission of Educa
tion on the Schools of the District of Columbia, p. 215.
16 Christian Examiner, LXXVI, p. 349.

106 A Century of Negro Migration
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 commu
nities which attracted attention as places for
free labor experimentation. These were at Port
Eoyal, on the Mississippi in the neighborhood of
Vicksburg, and in Lower Louisiana and Vir
ginia. The first trial of free labor of blacks on
a large scale in a slave State was made in Port
Eoyal.^® The experiinent was generally success
ful. 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 sec
tion was doubtless due to the inferior type of
blacks in the lower cotton belt where Negroes
had been more brutalized by slavery.
In some cases, these refugees experienced
17 Eaton, Lincoln, Grant and the Freedmen, pp. 18, 30.
18 Pierce, The Freedmen of Port Royal, South Carolina, Offi
cial Reports; and Pearson, Letters from Port Royal written at
the Time of the Civil War.
10 Christian Examiner, LXX-yi, p. 354.

Confusing Movements 107
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 of the refugees
for these reasons applied for permission to re-
turui to their masters and sometimes such per
mission was granted; for, althoug'h under mil
itary authority, they were by order of Congress
to be considered as freemen. 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 freemen 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 ser-vices 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 sur-
geons.^^ What the situation in the Mississippi
20 Continental Monthly, II, p. 193.
21 Report of the Committee of Eepresentatives of the New
York Yearly Meeting of Friends, p. 12.
22 Eaton, Lincoln, Grant and the Freedmen, p. 2.

108 A Century of Negro Migration
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. Assistants
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 on
erous that he ended by doing nothing. In re
viewing 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 herded together in masses, when founded
on any expectation that they would help them
selves, often failed; they had become so com
pletely broken down in spirit, through suffering,
that it was almost impossible to arouse them. "2*
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 function
aries in Washington. After some delay this
was finally done and special officers were de-
23 Eaton, Lincoln, Grant and the Freedmen, p. 19. See also
Botume 's First Days Amongst the Contrabands. This work
vividly portrays conditions among the refugees assembled at
points in South Carolina.

Confusing Movements 109
tailed to take charge of the contrabands. 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, gin
ning, baling and remo-ving cotton on plantations
abandoned by their masters. General Grant, as
early as 1862, was making further use of them
as fatigue men in the department of the sur
geon-general, the quartermaster and the com
missary. 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 reg
iment of whom was recruited under orders is
sued by General Hunter at Port Eoyal, South
Carolina in 1862. As the arming of the slave
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 con
gested 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
2* Eaton, Grant, Lincoln and the Freedmen, p. 15.
25 Williams, Negro in the Rebellion, pp. 90-98.

110 A Century of Negro Migration
be the duty of the superintendent of contra
bands, says the order, to organize them into
working parties in 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 indi
viduals 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 officer selling such crops
would turn over to the superintendent of con
trabands the proceeds of the sale, which to
gether -vrith other earnings were used for cloth
ing and feeding the Negroes. Clothing sent by
philanthropic persons to these camps was re
ceived and distributed by the superintendent.
In no case, however, were Negroes to be forced
into the service of the United States Govern
ment or to be enticed away from their homes
except when it became a military necessity. ^^
Some order out of the chaos eventually de
veloped, for as John Eaton, one of the workers
in the West, reported: "There was no promis
cuous intermingling. Families were estab
lished by themselves. Every man took care of
his own wife and children." " One of the most
touching features of our Work," says he, "was
20 Official Records of the War of the Rebellion, VII, pp. 503,
510, 560, 595, 628, 668, 698, 699, 711, 723, 739> 741, 757, 769,
787, 801, 802, 811, 818, 842, 923, 934; -VIII, pp. 444, 445, 451,
464, 555, 556, 564, 584, 637, 642, 686, 690, 693, 825.

Confusing Movements 111
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. "2'^ " Chaplain A. S. Fiske on one occasion
married in about an hour one hundred and nine
teen couples at one service, chiefly those who
had long lived together." Letters from the
Virginia camps and from those of Port Eoyal
indicate that this favorable condition generally
obtained.^* This unusual problem in spite of additional
effort, however, would not readily admit of solu
tion. Benevolent workers of the North, there
fore, began to minister to the needs of these un
fortunate blacks. They sent considerable sums
of money, increasing quantities of clothing and
even some of their most devoted men and women
to toil among them as social workers and teach-
gj.g_29 These efforts also took organized form
in various parts of the North under the direc
tion of The Pennsylvania Freedmen's Relief
Association, The Tract Society, The American
Missionary Association, Pennsylvania Friends
Freedmen's Relief Association, Old School
Presbyterian Mission, The Reformed Presby
terian Mission, The New England Freedmen's
27 Eaton, Grant, Lincoln and the Freedmen, pp. 34-35.
28 Ames, From a New England Woman's Diary, passim; and
Pearson, Letters from Port Royal, passim.
28 Ames, From a New England Woman's Diary in 1866,
passim.

112 A Century of Negro Migration
Aid Committee, The New England Freedmen's
Aid Society, The New England Freedmen's Mis
sion, The Washington Christian Union, The
Vniversalists of Maine, The New York Freed
men's Relief Association, The Hartford Relief
Society, The National Freedmen's Relief Asso
ciation of the District of Columbia, and finally
the Freedmen's Bureau.^"
As an outlet to the congested grouping of Ne
groes and poor whites in the war camps it was
arranged to send a number of them to the loyal
States as fast as there presented themselves op
portunities for finding homes and employment.
Cairo, Illinois, in the West, became the center of
such acti-vities 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 found necessary to appoint a superintend
ent of such affairs at Cairo, for there were those
who, desiring to lead a straggling life, had to be
restrained from crime 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 travellers the number
30 Special Report of the United States Commissioner of Edu
cation on the Schools of the District of Columbia, p. 217.
» 31 Eaton, Grant, Lincoln and the Freedmen, p. 37.

Confusing Movements 113
must have been considerable. In some cases, as
in Lawrence, Kansas, there were assembled
enough freedmen to constitute a distinct
group.*2 Speaking of this settlement the editor
of the Alton Telegraph said in 1862 that al
though 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 cen
sus did not indicate such a movement. Many
slaves were freed in the North prior to 1860,
yet with all the emigration 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, an excess of 35,766
in the slave States. Frederick Starr believed
that during the Civil War there might be an in^
flux for a few months but it would not con
tinue.** 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 Eailroad to divert them
from the North.*^
32 Eaton, Grant, Lincoln and the Freedmen, p. 38.
S3 Ibid., p. 39.
34 Starr, 'PFTiat shall be done with tTie People of Color in tTie
United States, p. 25; Ward, Contrabands, pp. 3, 4.
35 It is said that Lincoln suggested colonizing the contra
bands in South America.

114 A Century of Negro Migration
There was little ground for this apprehen
sion, in fact, if their readjustment and develop
ment in the contraband camps could be consid^
ered an indication of what the Negroes would
eventually do. Taking all things into consid
eration, most unbiased observers felt that blacks
in the camps deserved well of their bene
factors.*^ According to Levi Coffin, these con
trabands 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 freedmen's -villages and
cared for, 72,500. Of these 62,300 were entirely
self-supporting, just as any industrial class any
where else, as planters, mechanics, barbers,
hackmen and draymen, conducting enterprises
on their own responsibility or working as hired
laborers." The remaining 10,200 received sub
sistence 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 sub
sistence from the first income of the crop. The
other 7,200 included the paupers, that is, all Ne
groes 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 com, 790
30 Atlantic Monthly, XH, p. 308.

Confusing Movements 115
acres of vegetables, and 1,500 acres of cotton,
besides working at wood chopping and other in
dustries. 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 con
trabands in the various branches of the service
increased are wanting, but in view of the fact
that the few thousand soldiers here given in
creased to about 200,000 before the close of the
Civil War, the other numbers must have been
considerable, if they all grew the least propor
tionately. Much industry was shown among these ref
ugees. Under this new system they acquired
the idea of ownership, and of the security of
wages and learned to see the fundamental dif
ference 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 cus
tomary 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
37 Levi CofSn, Reminiscences, p. 671.

116 A Century of Negro Migration
nicer parts. "In natural tact 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 popula
tion."** The Negroes also showed 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 com
munity and to themselves. Others entered the
service of the government as mechanics and
contractors, from the emplojrment 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 en
croached 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 cir
cumstanced. The indisposition 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 con-victions of duty."*^
38 Atlantic Monthly, XII, p. 30-9.
38 7&i(i., XII, pp. 310-311.

Confusing Movements 117
These enterprises, begun in doubt, soon
ceased to be a bare hope or possibility. They
became during the war a fruition and a con
summation, in that they produced Negroes "who
would work for a living and fight for free
dom." They were, therefore, considered
"adapted to ci-vil 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 aspiration. These qual
ities," said the observer, "when stirred, and sus
tained by the incitements and rewards of a just
society, and combining with the currents of our
continental ci-vilization, -will, under the guidance
of a benevolent Providence which forgets
neither them nor us, make them a constantly
progressive race; and secure 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 Ne
groes under favorable conditions could be easily
adjusted to a new en-vironment. When, how
ever, all Negroes were declared free there 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 fre-
i^Ibid., p. 311.

118 A Century of Negro Migration
quently changed his name, residence, employ
ment and wife, sometimes carrying with him
from the plantation the fruits of his o-wn 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 ma
terialized. 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, Ecken-
rode says that many of them roamed over the
country -without restraint.*^ "Eeleased from
their accustomed bonds," says Hall, "and filled
with a pleasing, if not vague, sense of uncon
trolled freedom, they flocked to the cities -with
little hope of obtaining remunerative work.
Wagon loads of them were brought in from the
country by the soldiers and dumped do-wn to
shift for themselves."** Eef erring to the pro
clamation of freedom, in Georgia, Thompson as
serts that their most general and universal re
sponse was to pick up and leave the home place
to go somewhere else, preferably to a to-wn. The
lure of the city was strong to the blacks, appeal
ing to their social natures, to their inherent love
•41 Hamilton, Reconstruction in North Carolina, pp. 156 157.
42 Eckenrode, Political History of Virginia during the Recon
struction, p. 42.
¦*3 Hall, Andrew Johnson, p. 258.

Confusing Movements 119
for a crowd. ' '** Da-vis 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
Ficklen, the exodus of the slaves from the neigh
boring plantations of Louisiana into Baton
Eouge, Carrollton and New Orleans was so
great as to strain the resources of the Federal
authorities to support them. Ten thousand
poured into New Orleans alone.*^ Fleming
records that upon leaving their homes the blacks
collected in gangs at the cross roads, in the vil
lages and to-wns, especially near the military
posts. The towns were filled -with crowds of
blacks who left their homes -with absolutely noth
ing, "thinking that the government would care
for them, or more probably, not thinking at
all."*^ The portrayal of these writers of this phase
of Eeconstruction history contains a general
truth, but in some cases the picture is over
drawn. The student of history must bear in
mind that practically all of our histories of that
period are based altogether on the testimony
of prejudiced whites and are written from their
point of view. Some of these -vsrriters have
aimed to exaggerate the vagrancy of the blacks
** Thompson, Reconstruction in Georgia, p. 44.
45 Davis, Reconstruction in Florida, p. 341.
46 Ficklen, History of Reconstruction in Louisiana, p. 118.
47 Fleming, The Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama,
p. 2'71.

120 A Century of Negro Migration
to justify the radical procedure of the whites in
dealing with it. The Negroes did wander about
thoughtlessly, believing that this was' the most
effective way to enjoy their freedom. But noth
ing 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, moreover, 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, moreover, an actual drain of la
borers 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 Ci-vil War, the ex
odus being from South Carolina, Georgia, Ala
bama and Mississippi to Louisiana, Arkansas
and Texas. Here was the pioneering spirit, a
going to the land of more economic opportuni
ties. This slow movement continued from about
1865 to 1875, when the development of the
numerous railway systems gave rise to land
speculators who mducgd whites and blacks to go
west and southwest. It was a migration of in-
48 Thompson, Reconstruction in Georgia, p. 69.
40 Ibid., p. 69.

Confusing Movements 121
dividuals, 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 paturally
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 im
prove 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. Sta
tistics S'how that the whites have more inclina
tion to move from State to State than the Negro.
To prove this assertion,^^ Professor William 0.
Scroggs has shown that, in 1910, 16.6 per cent
of the Negroes had moved to some other State
than that in which they were born, while during
the same period 22.4 per cent of the whites had
done the same.^^
iThe South, however, was not disposed to look
at the vagrancy of the ex-slavesi so philosoph
ically. That section had been devastated by
50 This exodus became considerable again in 1888 and 1889
and the Negro population has continued in this direction of
plentitude of land including not only. Arkansas and Texas but
Louisiana and Oklahoma, all which received in this way by
1900 about 20'0,000 Negroes.
51 American Journal of Political Economy, XXII, pp. 10, 40.
52 Ibid., XXV, p. 103S.

122 A Century of Negro Migration
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 enacted measures of vagrancy and labor so
as to reduce the Negro again almost to the sta
tus of a slave. White magistrates were given
wide discretion in adjudging Negroes va-
grants.°* Negroes had to sign contracts to work.
If without what was considered a just cause the
Negro left the employ of a planter, the former
could be arrested and forced to work and in
some sections with ball and chain. If the em
ployer 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 serv
ice of some white person, and by special laws
of South Carolina and Mississippi the Negro be
came subject to a master almost in the same
sense in which he was prior to emancipation.^*
These laws, of course, convinced the govern
ment of the United States that the South had
not yet decided to let slavery go and for that
reason military rule and Congressional Eecon
struction followed. In this respect the South
did itself a great injury, for many of the provi
sions of the black codes, especially the vagrancy
83 Mecklin, BlacTc Codes.
64 Dunning, Reconstruction, pp. 54, 59, 110.

Confusing Movements 123
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 Civil War there set in another movement,
not of a large number of Negroes but of the in
telligent class who had during years of residence
in the North enjoyed such advantages of con
tact and education as to make them desirable
and useful as leaders in the Eeconstruction of
the South and the remaking of the race. In
their tirades against the Carpet-bag politicians
who handled the Eeconstruction 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 commimities,
largely accounts for the depopulation and the
B6 DuBois, Freedmen's Bureau.

124 A Century of Negro Migration
consequent decline of certain colored communi
ties in the North after 1865.
Some of the Negroes who returned to the
South became men of national proiminence.
William J. Simmons, who prior to the Ci-vil War
was carried from South Carolina to Pennsyl
vania, returned to do religious and educational
work in Kentucky. Bishop James W. Hood, of
the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church,
went from Connecticut to North Carolina to en
gage in similar work. Honorable E. T. Greener,'^
the first Negro graduate of Harvard, went from
Philadelphia to teach in the District of Colum
bia 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. E. B.
Elliot, 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 edu
cated 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 Phila
delphia, purposely settled in Arkansas where he
served as city judge and Eegister of United
States Land Office. T. Morris Chester, of Pitts
burgh, finally made his way to Louisiana where

Confusing Movements 125
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 Chilli
cothe, Ohio, went later to Arkansas where he
served as chief clerk in the post office at Little
Eock and later as State Superintendent of
Schools. Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback,
who moved north for education and opportu
nity, returned to enter politics in Louisiana,
which honored him with several important posi
tions among which was that of Acting Governor.

CHAPTEE Vn
THE EXODUS TO THE WEST
HAVING come through the halcyon days of
the Eeconstruction only to find themselves
reduced almost to the status of slaves, many Ne
groes 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 Ne
groes' 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 miain cause was disputed, however, as
there were cases of Negroes migrating from
parts where no such conditions obtained. Yet
some of the whites gi-ving 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 bull
dozers concerned in dethroning the non-taxpay-
ing blacks were an impecunious and irrespon-
126

The Exodus to the West 127
sible 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 slav
ery. The whites, however, did practically noth
ing 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 reenslavement while the whites be
lieved that the war between the North and
South would soon be renewed. Some Negroes
thinking like-wise sought to go to the 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 di-vision in
politics. Among the worst of all faults of the whites
was their unwillingness to labor and their tend
ency to do mischief.2 As there were so many
to live on the labor of the Negroes they were re
duced to a state a little better than that of bond
age. The master class was generally unfair to
the blacks. No longer responsible for them as
slaves, the planters endeavored after the war to
1 Atlantic Monthly, LXIV, p. 222 ; Nation, XXVIII, pp. 242,
3»6. 2 Thompson, Reconstruction in Georgia, p. 69.

128 A Century of Negro Migration
get their labor for nothing. The Negroes them
selves had no land, no mules, no presses nor
cotton gins, and they could not acquire 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 con
sequent privations and want aggravated by rob
bery and murder by the Ku Klux Klan.*
The murder of Negroes was common through
out the South and especially in Louisiana. In
1875, 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 1,200 between 1868 and 1875.
Frightful massacres occurred in the parishes of
Bossier, Catahoula, Saint 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 crim
inals. 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 300 to 400. Thirteen captives
were taken from the jail and shot and as many as
twenty-five dead bodies were found burned in
the woods. There broke out in the parish of
Boissier another three-day riot during which
two hundred Negroes were massacred. More
than forty blacks were killed in the parish of
3 Williams, History of tTie Negro Race, II, p. 375.

The Exodus to the West 129
Caddo during the following month. In fact, the
number of murders, maimings and whippings
during these months aggregated over one thou
sand.* The result was that the intelligent Ne
groes were either intimidated or killed so that
the illiterate masses of Negro voters might be
ordered to refrain from voting the Eepublican
ticket to strengthen the Democrats or be sub
jected to starvation through the operation of
the mischievous land tenure 'and credit system.
What was not done in 1868 to overthrow the
Eepublican regime was accomplished by a re
newed and extended use of such drastic meas
ures 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 mi
gration. Some said it was a scheme to force
the nomination of a certain Eepublican candi
date for President in 1880. Others laid it to the
charge of the defeated white and black Eepub-
licans who had been thrown from power by the
whites upon regaining control of the recon
structed States.^ A few insisted that a speech
delivered by Senator Windom in 1879 had given
stimulus to the migration.® Many southerners
said that speculators in Kansas had adopted
4 WUliams, History of tTie Negro Race, II, p. 374.
^American Journal of Social Science, XI, p. 34.
8 Ibid., XI, p. 33.

130 A Century of Negro Migration
this plan to increase the value of their land.
Then there were other theories as to the funda
mental 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 Ee-
publicans, carpet-bag Eepublioans, or black Ee-
publicans. Impartial observers, however, were satisfied
that the movement was spontaneous to the ex
tent 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 lit
erature. But the fundamental causes of the
unrest were econo'inic, for since the Civil War
race troubles have never been sufficient to set
in motion a large number of Negroes. The dis
content resulted from' the land-tenure and credit
systems, which had restored slavery in a modi
fied 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 con
quered 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 to-wns and
cities, as it became a crime punishable by social
T Nation, XXVIII, pp. 242, 386.

The Exodus to the West 131
proscription 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 the nor
mal condition of the blacks.®
Most of the land of the South, however, al
ways remained 'as large tracts held by the plant
ers 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 con
tented save when disturbed by political move
ments. They then 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 tenant
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 Eecon
struction period was general in the cotton dis
tricts. This system threw the tenant on his own
responsibility and frequently made him the -vic
tim of his own ignorance and the rapacity of the
white man. As exorbitant prices were charged
8 WUIiams, History of tTie Negro Race, II, p. 378.

132 A Century of Negro Migration
for rent, usually six to ten dollars an acre for
land worth fifteen to thirty dollars an acre, the
Negro tenant not only did not accumulate any
thing 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 li-ving on
an advance of supplies of food, clothing or tools
during the year, secured by a lien 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 ten
ants by the mischievous credit system their
whole income before their crops could be gath
ered.^" Some planters who sympathized -with
the Negroes brought forward the scheme of pro
tecting 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, there
fore, when gathered went either to the merchant
or to the planter to pay the rent; for the mer
chant's supplies were secured by a mortgage on
the tenant's personal property and a pledge of
the growing crop. This often prevented Negro
8 Atlantic Monthly, LXIV, p. 225.
10 Ibid., p. 226.

The Exodus to the West 133
laborers in the employ of black tenants from
getting their wages at the end of the year, for,
although the laborer had also a lien on tiie grow
ing 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 mortages, covering all he owned,
his labor for the coming year and all he expected
to acquire during that twelvemonth. He paid
' ' one- third of his product for the use of the land,
he paid an exorbitant fee for recording the con
tract 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 com
missions, if any was still left to him.""
The worst of all results from' this iniquitous
system was its effect on the Negroes themselves.
It made the Negroes extravagant and unscrupu
lous. 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 -w'hich the
speculator had a mortgage, the blacks were actu
ally bound to their landlords to secure the prop
erty. It was soon e-vident that in the end the
11 Atlantic Monthly, LXIV, p. 224.

134 A Century of Negro Migration
white man himself was the loser by this evil
system. There appeared waste plaees in the
country. Improvements were wanting, land lay
idle for lack of sufficient labor, and that which
was cultivated yielded a diminishing return on
account of the ignorance and impro-vidfence of
those tilling it. These Negroes as a rule had
lost the ambition to become lando-wners, pre
ferring to invest their surplus money in per
sonal effects ; and in the few cases where the Ne
groes were induced to undertake the buying of
land, they often tired of the responsibility and
gave it up.^2
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 par
ishes in Louisiana and from counties just oppo
site them in Mississippi. It was estimated that
from five to ten thousand left their homes be
fore the movement could be checked. Persons
of influence soon busied themselves in showing
the blacks the necessity for remaining in the
South and those who had not then gone or pre
pared to go were persuaded to return to the
plantations. This lull in the excitement, how
ever, was merely temporary, for many Negroes
had merely returned home to make more ex
tensive preparations for lea-ving the following
spring. The movement was accelerated by the
12 The Atlantic Monthly, XLIV, p. 223,

The Exodus to the West 135
work of two Negro leaders of some note, Moses
Singleton, of Tennessee, the self-styled Moses
of the Exodlis ; 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 sixth of May,
1879. This body was controlled mainly by un
sympathetic but diplomatic whites. General N.
E. Miles, of Yazoo County, Mississippi, was
elected president and A. W. Crandall, of Louisi
ana, secretary. After making some meaning
less but eloquent speeches the convention ap
pointed a committee on credentials and ad
journed until the following day. On reassem
bling Colonel W. L. Nugent, chairman of the
the committee, presented a certain preamble
and resolutions citing causes of the exodus and
suggesting remedies. Among the causes,
thought he, were: "the low price of cotton and
the partial failure of the crop, the irrational sys
tem 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 mort
gage 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 ci-vil and polit-
10

136 A Century of Negro Migration
ical rights were endangered or were likely to be ;
the hurtful and false rumors diligently dissem
inated, that by emigrating to Kansas the Ne
groes would obtain lands, mules and money
from the government without cost tO' them
selves, and become independent forever."^*
Eeferring 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 planters and la
borers, landlords and tenants were identical;
that they must prosper or suffer together; and
that it was the duty of the planters and land
lords 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 ci-vil
and political rights guaranteed by the said con
stitutions 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
13 The VicTcsburg Daily Commercial, May 6, 1879.

The Exodus to the West 137
wills at the polls, which they apprehended might
result from fraud, intimidation or bulldozimg
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 citizen
ship, "i*
The committee then recommended the aboli
tion 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 Foote, 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 arbi
trate, advise, conciliate or prosecute, as each
case should demand. But un-willing to do more
than make temporary concessions, the majority
rejected Foote 's plan.^^
The whites thought also to stop the exodus
by inducing the steamboat lines not to furnish
the emigrants transportation. Negroes were
also detained by writs obtained by preferring
14 The VicTcsburg Daily Commercial, May 6, 1879.
IS Ibid., May 6', 1879.

138 A Century of Negro Migration
against them false charges. Some, who were
willing to let the Negroes go, thought of import
ing 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, how
ever, 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 remo-ving the freedmen from the
South. Becoming a national measure, therefore, the
migration evoked expressions from Frederick
Douglass and Eichard T. Greener, two of the
most prominent Negroes in the United States.
Douglass believed that the exodus was ill-timed.
He saw in it the abandonment of the great prin
ciple 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 right
ful 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 were supreme. He thought,
18 Congressional Record, 46th Congress, 2d Session, Vol. X, p.
104.

The Exodus to the West 139
therefore, that it was better for the Negroes to
stay in the South than to go North, as the South
was a better market for the black man's labor,
Douglass 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 meihbers of Congress in the South but
could not hope to exercise such power in other
parts. Douglass believed, moreover, that this
exodus did not conform to the "laws of ci-viliz-
ing 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 geo
graphic 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 Eichard T. Greener. He
did not consider it the best remedy for the law
lessness of the South but felt that it was a
salutary one. He did not expect the United States
to give the oppressed blacksi in the South the
protection they needed, as there is no abstract
17' For a detailed statement of Douglass's views, see the
American Journal of Social Science, XI, pp. 1-21.

140 A Century of Negro Migration
limit to the right of a State to do anything. He
would not encourage the Negro to lead a wan
dering 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 coun
try and the other sprang spontaneously from
the class considering itself aggrieved. " One
led out of the country to a comparative wilder
ness; the other directed to a better land and
larger opportunities." He did not see how the
migration to the North would diminish the po
tentiality of the Negro in politics, for Massa
chusetts first elected Negroes to her General
Court, Ohio had nominated a Negro representa
tive and Illinois another. He showed also that
Mr. Douglass's objection on the grounds of mi
grating 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 be
fore it would be preempted by foreigners. As
the Swedes, Norwegians, Irish, Hebrews and
others were organizing societies and raising

The Exodus to the West 141
funds to promote the migration of their needy
to these lands, why should the Negroes be de
barred? 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 Ne
groes rushed into Kansas and neighboring
States in 1879. So many came that some sys
tematic relief had to be offered. Mrs. Com-
stock, a Quaker lady, organized for this purpose
the Kansas Freedmen's Belief Association, to
raise funds and secure for them food and cloth
ing. In this work she had the support of Gov
ernor J. P. Saint John. There was much suf
fering upon arriving in Kansas but relief came
from various sources. During this year $40,000
and 500,000 pounds of clothing, bedding and the
like were used. England contributed 50,000
pounds of goods and $8,000. In 1879, the ref
ugees took up 20,000 acres of land and brought
3,000 under cultivation. The Belief Association
at first furnished them with supplies, teams and
seed, which they profitably used in the produc
tion of large crops. Desiring to establish homes,
they built 300 cabins and saved $30,000 the first
18 American Jownal of Social Science, XI, pp. 22-35.

142 A Century of Negro Migration
year. In April, 1,300 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, lea-ving
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 becom
ing self-supporting within one year after their
arrival, and few of them coming back to the Be
lief 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 them
selves -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 Saint
John, of Kansas, reported that they seemed to
be honest and of good habits, were certainly in
dustrious and anxious to work, and so far as
they had been tried had proved to be faithful
18 WUIiams, History of the Negro, II, p. 379.

The Exodus to the West 143
and excellent laborers. Gi-ving his observations
there. Sir George Campbell bore testimony to
the same report.^" 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 sought
refuge in other Western States. During these
years, Negroes gradually invaded Indian Terri
tory and increased the number already infil
trated into and assimilated by the Indian na
tions. When assured of their friendly attitude
toward the Indians, the Negroes were accepted
by them as equals, even dliring the days of slav-
20 " In Kansas City, ' ' said Sir Greorge 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 are
certainly subject to no indignity or ill usage. There the Ne
groes 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 so as to leave him under the impression that
in the States, which he called intermediate between black and
white countries the blacks evidently had no difficulty. — See
American Journal of Social Science, XI, pp. 32, 33.

144 A Century of Negro Migration
ery when the blacks on account of the cruelties
of their masters escaped to 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 these migrating Ne
groes kept records and the United States Gov
ernment has been disposed to classify all mixed
breeds in tribes as Indians. Having equal op
portunity among the red men, the Negroes easily
succeeded. A traveler in Indian Territory in
1880 found their condition unusually favorable.
The cosy homes and promising fields of these
freedmen attracted his attention as striking e-vi-
dences of their thrift. He saw new fences, ad
ditions to cabins, new barns, churches and school-
houses indicating prosperity. Given every priv
ilege 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 prom
ising 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
21 American Journal of Social Science, XI, p. 33.
22 Ibid., XI, p. 33.

The Exodus to the West 145
the law before it was declared open for set
tlement, IThe rush came with all the excite
ment 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 and bloodshed. And worst of all, with
this disorderly group there developed the fixed
policy of eliminating the Negroes entirely.
The Negro, however, was not entirely ex
cluded. Some had already come into the terri
tory and others in spite of the barriers set up
continued to come.^* With the cooperation of the
Indians, with whom they easily amalgamatedj
they readjusted themselves and acquired suf
ficient wealth to rise in the economic world. Al
though not generally fortunate, a number of
them have coal and oil lands from which they
obtain handsome incomes and a few, like Sara
Eector, have actually become rich. Dishonest
white men with the assistance of unprincipled
officials have defrauded and are still endeav
oring to defraud these Negroes of their prop
erty, lending them money secured by mortgages
and obtaining for themselves through the
courts appointments as the Negroes ' guardians.
They turn out to be the robbers of the Negroes,
2i Spectator, LX-VTI, p. 571; Dublin Review, CV, p. 187;
Cosmopolitan, Til, p. 460 ; Nation, LXVIII, p. 279.
24 According to the United States Census, of 1910, there are
137,612 Negroes in Oklahoma.

146 A Century of Negro Migration
in case they do not live in a community where
an enlightened public opinion frowns down upon
this crime.
During the later eighties and the early nine
ties 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 coun
try in sufficiently large numbers to meet the de
mand ; but when this supply became inadequate,
labor agents appealed to the blacks in the South.
Negroes then flocked to the mining districts of
Birmingham, Alabama, and to East Tennessee.
A large number also migrated from North Caro
lina 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 popula
tion of that State. West Virginia had a Negro
population of 17,980 in 1870; 25,886 in 1880;
32,690 in 1890; 43,499 in 1900; and 64,173 in
1910.25 25 See Censuses of the United States.

CHAPTEE Vin
THE MICBATION OF THE TALENTED TENTH
IN spite of these interstate movements, the
Negro still continued as a perplexing prob
lem, for the country was unprepared to grant
the race political and ci-vil rights. Nominal
equality was forced on the South at the point of
the sword and the North reluctantly removed
most of its barriers against the blacks. Some,
still thinking, however, that the two races could
not live together as equals, advocated ceding
the blacks the region on the Gulf of Mexico.^
This was branded as chimerical on the ground
that, deprived of the guidance of the whites,
these States would soon sink to African level
and the end of the experiment would be a recon-
quest and a military regime fatal to the true de
velopment of American institutions.^ Another
plan proposed was the revival of the old col
onization idea of sending Negroes to Africa, but
this exhibited still less -wisdom than the first in
that it was based on the hypothesis of deporting
a nation, an expense which no government
would be -willing to incur. There were then no
physical means of transporting six or seven mil-
1 Pike, The Prostrate State, pp. 3, 4.
2 Spectator, LXVI, p. 113. 147

148 A Century of Negro MigT-ation
lions of people, moreover, as there would be a
new born for every one the agents of coloniza
tion could deport,*
With the deportation scheme still kept before
the people by the American Colonization So
ciety, the idea of emigration to Africa did not
easily die. Some Negroes continued to emi
grate to Liberia from year to year. This policy
was also favored by radicals like Senator Mor
gan, of Alabama, who, after movements like
the Ku Klux Klan had done their work of in
timidating Negroes into submission to the dom
ination of the whites, concluded that most of the
race believed that there was no future for the
blacks in the United States and that they were
willing to emigrate. These radicals advocated
the deportation of the blacks to prevent the
recurrence of "Negro domination." This plan
was acceptable to the whites in general also,
for, unlike the consensus of opinion of today, it
was then thought that the South could get along
without the Negro.* Even newspapers like the
Charleston News and Courier, which denounced
the persecution of the Negroes, urged them to
emigrate to Africa as they could not be per
mitted to rule over the white people. The Min
neapolis Times wished the scheme success and
3 Frederick Douglass pointed out this difficulty prior to the
Civil War. — See John Lobb's Life and Times of FredericTc
Douglass, p. 250.
4 Labor was then cheap in the South because of its abimdance
and the foreign laborer had not then been tried.

Migration of the Talented Tenth 149
Godspeed and believed that the sooner it was
carried out the better it would be for the
Negroes. Most of the influential newspapers of the
country, however, urged the contrary. Citing
the progress of the Negroes since emancipation
to show that the blacks were doing their full
share toward developing the wealth of the
South, the Indianapolis Journal characterized
as barbarism the suggestion that the govern
ment should furnish them transportation to
Africa. "The ancestors of most of the Negroes
now in this country," said the editor, " have
doubtless been here as long as those of Senator
Morgan, and their descendants are as thor
oughly acclimated and have as good a right here
as the Senator himself. ' '^ This was the opinion
of all useful Negroes except Bishop H. M.
Turner, who endorsed Morgan's plan by advo
cating the emigration of one fourth of the
blacks to Africa. The editor of the Chicago
Record-Herald entreated Turner to temper his
enthusiasm with discretion before he involved
in unspeakable disaster any more of his trust
ful compatriots.
Speaking more plainly to the point, the editor
of the Philadelphia North American said that
the true interest of the South was to accommo
date itself to changed conditions and that the
6 During these years iSenator Morgan of Alabama was en
deavoring to arouse the people of the country so as to make
this a matter of national concern.

150 A Century of Negro Migration
duty of the freedmen lies in making themselves
worth more in the development of the South
than they were as chattels. Although recog
nizing the disabilities and hardships of the
South both to the whites and the blacks, he
could not believe that the elimination of the
Negroes would, if practicable, give relief.^ The
Boston Herald inquired whether it was worth
while to send away a laboring population in the
absence of whites to take its place and referred
to the misfortunes of Spain which undertook to
carry out such a scheme. Speaking the real
truth. The Milwaukee Journal said that no one
needed to expect any appreciable decrease in
the black population through any possible emi
gration, no matter how successful it might be.
"The Negro," said the editor, "is here to stay
and our institutions must be adapted to com
prehend him and develop his possibilities."
The Colored American, then the leading Negro
organ of thought in the United States, believed
that the Negroes should be thankful to Senator
Morgan for his attitude on emigration, because
he might succeed in deporting to Africa those
Negroes who affect to believe that this is not
their home and the more quickly we get rid of
such foolhardy people the better it will be for
the stalwart of the race.^
A number of Negroes, however, under the in-

Publio Opinion, X-VEII, p. 371.
Ibid., XVni, p. 371.

Migration of the Talented Tenth 151
spiration of leaders* like Bishop H. M. Turner,
did not feel that the race had a fair chance in
the United States. A few of them emigrated to
Wapimo, Mexico; but, becoming dissatisfied
with the situation there, they returned to their
homes in Georgia and Alabama in 1895. The
coming of the Negroes into Mexico caused sus
picion and excitement. A newspaper. El
Tiempo, which had been denouncing lynching
in the United States, changed front when these
Negroes arrived in that country.
Going in quest of new opportunities and de
siring to reenforce the ci-vilization of Liberia,
197 other Negroes sailed from Savannah, Geor
gia, for Liberia, March 19, 1895. Commending
this step, the Macon Telegraph referred to their
action as a rebellion against the social laws
which govern all people of this country. This
organ further said that it was the outcome of a
feeling which has grown stronger and stronger
year by year among the Negroes of the South
ern States and which -will continue to grow with
the increase of education and intelligence
among them. The editor conceded that they had
an opportunity to better their material condi
tion and acquire wealth here but contended that
they had no chance to rise out of the peasant
class. The Memphis Commercial Appeal urged
the building of a large Negro nation in Africa
as practicable and desirable, for it was "more
8 Simmons, Men of MarTc, p. 817.
11

152 A Century of Negro Migration
and more apparent that the Negro in this coun
try must remain an alien and a disturber," be
cause there was "not and can never be a future
for him in this country." The Florida Times
Union felt that this colonization scheme, like all
others, was a fraud. It referred to the Negro's
being carried to the land of plenty only to find
out that there, as everywhere else in the world,
an existence must be earned by toil and that his
own old sunny southern home is vastly the bet
ter place.*
Only a few intelligent Negroes, however, had
reached the position of being contented in the
South. The Negroes eliminated from politics
could not easily bring themselves around to
thinking that they should remain there in a state
of recognized inferiority, especially when dur
ing the eighties and nineties there were many
evidences that economic as well as political con
ditions would become worse. The exodus
treated in the previous chapter was productive
of better treatment for the Negroes and an in
crease in their wages in certain parts of the
South but the migration, contrary to the expec
tations of many, did not bcome general. Actual
prosperity was impossible even if the whites had
been willing to give the Negro peasants a fair
chance. The South had passed through a dis
astrous war, the effects of which so blighted the
hopes of its citizens in the economic world that
» Public Opinion, XVIII, pp. 370-371.

Migration of the Talented Tenth 153
their land seemed to pass>, so to speak, through
a dark age. There was then little to give the
man far do-wn when the one to whom he of neces
sity looked for employment was in his turn bled
by the merchant or the banker of the larger
cities, to whom he had to go for extensive
credits.^" iSouthern planters as a class, however, had not
much sympathy for the blacks who had once
been their property and the tendency to cheat
them continued, despite the fact that many
farmers in the course of time extricated them
selves from the clutches of the loan sharks.
There were a few Negroes -w'ho, thanks to the
honesty of certain southern gentlemen, suc
ceeded in acquiring considerable property in
spite of their handicaps." They yielded to the
white man's control in politics, when it seemed
that it meant either to abandon that field or die,
and devoted themselves to the accumulation of
wealth and the acquisition of education.
This concession, however, did not satisfy the
radical whites, as they thought that the Negro
might some day return to power. Unfortu
nately, therefore, after the restoration of the
control of the State governments to the master
class, there swept over these commonwealths a
10 Because of these conditions the last fifty years has been
considered by some writers as a "dark age," for the South.
11 The Negroes are now said to be worth more than a billion
dollars. Most of this property is in the hands of southern
Negroes.

154 A Century of Negro Migration
wave of hostile legislation demanded by the poor
white uplanders determined to debase the blacks
to the status of the free Negroes prior to the Ci-vil
War.^2 The Negroes have, therefore, been dis
franchised in most reconstructed States, de
prived of the privilege of serving in the State
militia, segregated in public conveyances, and
excluded from public places of entertainment.
They have, moreover, been branded by public
opinion as pariahs of society to be used for
exploitation but not to be encouraged to expect
that their status can ever be changed so as to
destroy the barriers between the races in their
social and political relations.
This period has been marked also by an effort
to establish in the South a system of peonage
not unlike that of Mexico, a sort of involuntary
ser-vitude in that one is considered legally bound
to serve his master until a debt contracted is
paid. Such laws have been enacted in Florida,
Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina
and South Carolina. No such distinction in law
has been able to stand the constitutional test of
the United States courts as was evidenced by
the decision of the Supreme Court in 1911 de
claring the Alabama law unconstitutional.^*
But the planters of the South, still a law unto
themselves, have maintained actual slavery in
12 American Law Review, XL, pp. 29, 52, 205, 227, 354, 381,
547, 590, 695, 768, 865, 905.
13 No. 300. — Original, October Term, 1910.

Migration of the Talented Tenth 155
sequestered districts where public opinion
against peonage is too weak to support federal
authorities in exterminating it.^* The Negroes
themselves dare not protest under penalty of
persecution and the peon concerned usually ac
cepts his lot like that of a slave. Some years
ago it was commonly reported that in trying to
escape, the persons undertaking it often fail and
suffer death at the hands of the planter or of
murderous mobs, giving as their excuse, if any
be required, that the Negro is a desperado or
some other sort of criminal.
Unfortunately this reaction extended also to
education. Appropriations to public schools
for Negroes diminished from year to year and
when there appeared practical leaders -with
their sane plan for industrial education! the South
ignorantly accepted this scheme as a desirable
subterfuge for seeming to support Negro edu
cation and at the same time directing the de
velopment of the blacks in such a way that they
would never become the competitors of the white
people. This was not these educators' idea
but the South so understood it and in effecting
the readjustment, practically left the Negroes
out of the pale of the public school systems.
Consequently, there has been added to the Ne
groes' misfortunes, in the South, that of being
unable to obtain liberal education at public ex
pense, although they themselves, as the largest
i4Hershaw, Peonage, pp. 10-11.

156 A Century of Negro Migration
consumers in some parts, pay most of the taxes
appropriated to the support of schools for the
youth of the other race.^^
The South, moreover, has adopted the policy
of a more general intimidation of the Negroes
to keep them down. The lynching of the blacks,
at first for assaults on white women and later
for almost any offense, has rapidly developed
as an institution. Within the past fifty years^®
there have been lynched in the South about 4,000
Negroes, many of whom- have been publicly
burned in the daytime to attract crowds that
usually enjoy such feats as the tourney of the
Middle Ages. Negroes who have the courage to
protest against this barbarism have too often
been subjected to indignities and in some cases
forced to leave their communities or suffer the
fate of those in behalf of whom they speak.
These crimes of white men were at first kept
secret but during the last two generations the
culprits have become known as heroes, so pop
ular has it been to murder Negroes. It has often
been discovered also that the officers of these
communities take part in these crimes and the
worst of all is that politicians like Tillman,
Blease and Vardaman glory in recounting the
noble deeds of those who deserve so well of their
countrjrmen for making the soil red -with the Ne-
16 These facts are well brought out by Dr. Thomas Jesse
Jones' recent report on Negro Education.
16 This is based on reports published annually in the Chicago
Tribune.

Migration of the Talented Tenth 157
groes' blood rather than permit the much feared
Africanization of southern institutions.^''^
In this harassing situation the Negro has
hoped that the North would interfere in his be
half, but, with the reactionary Supreme Court
of the United States interpreting this hostile
legislation as constitutional in conformity -with
the demands of prejudiced public opinion, and
with the leaders of the North inclined to take
the -view that after all the factions in the South
must be left alone to fight it out, there has been
nothing to be expected from without. Matters
too have been rendered much worse because the
leaders of the very party recently abandoning
the freedmen to their fate, aggravated the crit
ical situation by first setting the Negroes
against their former masters, whom they were
taught to regard as their worst enemies whether
they were or not.
The last humiliation the Negroes have been
forced to submit to is that of segregation. Here
the effort has been to establish a ghetto in cities
and to assign certain parts of the country to Ne
groes engaged in farming. It always happens,
of course, that the best portion goes to the
whites and the least desirable to the blacks, al
though the promoters of the segregation main
tain that both races are to be treated equally.
The ultimate aim is to prevent the Negroes of
means from figuring conspicuously in aristo-
iT This is the boast of southern men of this type when speak
ing to their constituents or in Congress.

158 A Century of Negro Migration
cratic districts where they may be brought into
rather close contact with the whites. Negroes
see in segregation a settled policy to keep them
down, no matter what they do to elevate them
selves. The southern white man, eternally
dreading the miscegenation of the races, makes
the life, liberty and happiness of indi-viduals
second to measures considered necessary to pre
vent this so-called e-vil that this en-viable ci-vili
zation, distinctly American, may not be de
stroyed. The United States Supreme Court in
the decision of the Louisville segregation case
recently declared these segregation measures
unconstitutional.^^ These restrictions have made the progress of
the Negroes more of a problem^ in that directed
toward social distinction, the Negroes have been
denied the helpful contact of the sympathetic
whites. The increasing race prejudice forces
the whites to restrict their open dealing -with
the blacks to matters of service and business,
maintaining even then the bearing of one in a
sphere which the Negroes must not penetrate.
The whites, therefore, never seeing the blacks as
they are, and the blacks never being able to
learn what the whites know, are thrown back on
their own initiative, which their life as slaves
could not have permitted to develop. It makes
little difference that the Negroes have been free
a few decades. Such freedom has in some parts
18 Report, October Term, 1917.

Map Showing the Feb Cent of Negroes in Total Population, by States: 1910.

AiOfl(r

^Tah

r~n Less than 1 lier cent. '^•'^'¦<>3^f
r^ 1 to 5 per cent.
P;??^ 5tol2ipercfnK
JgSga ISJ to 25 pcf cent.
Sa 25 to 37J iwr cent.
?^ 37i to 80 per cent.
MMM GO per cent and ovor.
Tho bfavy lima (¦-) tliow gPogn^hio Aivbiom.

l'/,';''''A'^^a.'-

(Map 2, Bulletin 129, The United States Bureau of the Census.)

Migration of the Talented Tenth 159
been tantamount to slavery, and so far as con
tact with the superior class is concerned, no
better than that condition; for under the old
regime certain slaves did learn much by close
association -with their masters.^**
For these reasons there has been since the
exodus to the West a steady migration of Ne
groes from the South to points in the North.
But this migration, mainly due to political
changes, has never assumed such large propor
tions as in the case of the more significant move
ments due to economic causes, for, as the ac
companying map shows, most Negroes are still
in the South. When we consider the various
classes migrating, however, it will be apparent
that to understand the exodus of the Negroes
to the North, this longer di'awn out and smaller
movement must be carefully studied in all its
ramifications. It should be noted that unlike
some of the other migrations it has not been
directed to any particular State. It has been
from almost all Southern States to various
parts of the North and especially to the largest
cities.^" What classes then have migrated? In the
first place, theJ£e^o_politicians, who, after the
restoration of Bourbon rule in the South, found
themselves thro-wn out_of_offijgejLndLQ.ften humil-.
19 Thia danger has been often referred to when the Negroes
were first emancipated. — ^See Spectator, LXVI, p. 113.
20 Compare the Negro population of Northern States as given
in the census of 1800 with the same in 1900.

160 A Century of Negro Migration
iated and impoverished, had to find some way
ouFc^The^^EifficuTEy; Some few have been re-
lievedTBy sympathetic leaders of the Republican
party, who secured for them federal appoint
ments in Washington. These appointments
when sometimes paying lucrative salaries have
been given as a reward to those Negroes who,
although dethroned in the South, remain in
touch with the remnant of the Republican party
there and control the delegates to the national
conventions nominating candidates for Presi
dent. Many Negroes of this class have settled
in Washington.^^ In^ some cases, the observer
-vritnesses the pitiable scene of a man once a
prominent public functionary in the South now
serving in Washington as a messenger or a
clerk. The well-established blacks, however, have
not been so easily induced to go. The Negrges
in business in the S0uth.hLave-usua.llvJ3eenjQ.ath
tojeave Jheij. p.eople among whom-the^s. can ae»
quire property, whereas, if they go to,the„Njor±h^
they have merely political freedom -with no as
surance of an opportunity in the economic
world, ^ut not a few of these have given them"
§fe"l?es"up to unrelenting toil with a view to ac
cumulating sufficient wealth to move North and
live thereafter on the income from their invest
ments. Many of this class now spend some of
their time in the North to educate their children.
21 Hart, Southern South, pp. 171, 172.

Migration of the Talented Tenth 161
But they do not like to have these children who
have been under refining influences return to
the South to suffer the humiliation which during
the last generation has been growing more and
more aggravating. Endeavoring to carry out
their policy of keeping the Negro down, south
erners too often carefully plan to humiliate the
progressive and intelligent blacks and in some
cases form mobs to drive them out, as they are
bad examples for that class of Negroes whom
they desire to keep as menials.^^
Thereare also the migrating., educated. Ng-
groes^ They have studied history, law and eco
nomics and well understand what it is to get the
right s gTiaranteed them by the constitution. The
more they know the more discontented they be
come. They cannot speak out for what they
want. No one is likely to second such a protest,
not even the Negroes themselves, so generally
have they been intimidated. The more out
spoken they become, moreover, the more neces
sary is it for them to leave, for they thereby de
stroy their chances to earn a livelihood. -White
men in control of the public schools of the South
see to it that the subserviency of the Negro
teachers employed be certified beforehand.
They dare not complain too much about equip
ment and salaries even if the per capita appro-
22 This is based on the experience of the writer and others
whomi he has interviewed.

162 A Century of Negro Migration
priation for the education of the Negroes be one
fourth of that for the whites.^*
In the higher institutions of learning, espe
cially the State schools, it is exceptional to find
a principal who has the confidence of the Ne
groes. The Negroes will openly assert that he
is in the pay of the reactionary whitesi, whose
purpose is to keep the Negro down; and the
incumbent himself wiU tell his board of regents
how much he is opposed by the Negroes because
he labors for the interests of the white race.
Out of such sycophancy it is easily explained
why our State schools have been so ineffective
as to necessitate the sending of the Negro youth
to private institutions maintained by northern
philanthropy. Yet if an outspoken Negro
happens to be an instructor in a private school
conducted by educators from the North, he has to
be careful about contending for a square deal;
for, if the head of his institution does not sug
gest to ]^n to proceed conservatively, the mob
will dispose of the complainant.^^ Physicians,
la-wyers and preachers who are not so economic
ally dependent as teachers can exercise no more
freedom' of speech in the midst of this tri
umphant rule of the lawless.
A large number of educated Negroes, there
fore, have on account of these conditions been
28 In his report on Negro education Dr. Thomas Jesse Jones
has shown this to be an actual fact.
23 Negroes applying for positions in the South have the situa
tion set before them so as to know what to expect.

Diagram Showing the Negro Population of Northern and
Western Cities in 1900 and the Extent to which it
increased bt 1910.
Thousands
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

I

T
L_
¦¦
]
P
r"
In
»
¦ 1
k
1
1
c
r
I
¦H
[
1
1900
1910
Migration of the Talented Tenth 163
compelled Jo leave the„^Quth._ Finding JILthe
Nor"tEr~howeyer, practically nothing in their
line__to_do, because of the proscription by race"
prejudice and trades unions, many of them
l§ad'"^TBe~Tife^of memals, servigg^lfs' -waiteFs,
porlersTDutlers and chauffeui^s. "'™WEare"'"in
Chicago, not long ago, the writer was in the
office of a graduate of a colored southern col
lege, who was showing his former teacher the
picture of his class. In accounting for his
classmates in the various walks of life, he re
ported that more than one third of them were
settled to the occupation of Pullman porters.
The largest number of Negroes who have
gone North during this period, however, belong
to the intelligent laboring class. Some of them
have become discontented for the very same
reasons that the higher classes have tired of op
pression in the South, _butihe. larger munherjQf
&gm^ have_gaJByB--J^£th_-t(L JPipr-Qve their eco-
upmic^ condition. Most of these have migrated
to the large cities in the East and Northwest,
such as Philadelphia, New York, Indianapolis,
Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Columbus, Detroit and
Chicago. To understand this problem in its
urban aspects the accompanying diagram show
ing the increase in the Negro population of
northern cities during the first decade of this
century -will be helpful.
Some of these Negroes have migrated after
careful consideration; others have just hap-
12

164 A Century of Negro Migration
pened to go north as wanderers; and a still
larger number on the many excursions to the
cities conducted by railroads during the summer
months. Sometimes one excursion brings to
Chicago two or three thousand Negroes, two
thirds of whom never go back. Thej^do not
often follow the higher pur^its jof^La^^or in the
North but_they earnjnore jnoneyjhanjhey have
been accustomed to earn in .the South. They
aTe attracted also by the liberal attitude of some
whites, which, although not that of social
equality, gives the Negroes a liberty in northern
centers which leads them to think that they are
citizens of the country.^*
This shifting in the population has had an
unusually significant effect on the black belt.
Frederick Douglass ad-vised the Negroes in
1879 to remain in the South where they would be
in sufficiently large numbers to have political
power,^^ but they have gradually scattered
from the black belt so as to diminish greatly
their chances ever to become the political force
they formerly were in this country. The Ne
groes once had this possibility in South Caro
lina, Greorgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisi
ana and, had the process of Africanization
prior to the Civil War had a few decades longer
to do its work, there would not have been any
doubt as to the ultimate preponderance of the
24 The American Journal of Political Economy, XXV, p. 1040.
25 The Journal of Social Science, XI, p. 16.

Counties in the Southern States having at
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I j 50 TO 75 PER CENT ^^j 75 PER CENT AND OVER
(Maps ?. ami 1, Bulletin 129, IT. S. Bureau of the Census.)
least .50 Per Cent or their Population Negro.
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(Maps 5 and 6, Bulletin 129, IT. S. Bureau of the Census.)

CHAPTER IX
THE :^XODirS DUEING THE! WOBLD WAE
WITHIN the last two years there has been a
steady stream of Negroes into the North
in such large numbers as to overshadow in its
results all other movements of the kind in the
United States. These Negroes have come
largely from Alabama, Tennessee, Florida,
Georgia, Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky,
South Carolina, Arkansas and Mississippi. The
given causes of this migration are numerous and
complicated. Some untruths centering around
this exodus have not been unlike those of other
migrations. Again we hear that the Negroes'
are being brought North to fight organized
lab or, ^ and to carry doubtful States for the
Republicans.^ These numerous explanations
themselves, however, give rise to doubt as to the
fundamental cause.
Why then should the Negroes leave the South?
It has often been spoken of as the best place for
them. There, it is said, they have made unusual
strides forward. The progress of the Negroes
in the South, however, has in no sense been gen
eral, although the land owned by Negroes in the
1 New TorTc Times, Sept. 5, 9, 28, 1916.
2 Ibid., Oct. 18, 28; Nov. 5, 7, 12, 15; Dec. 4, 9, 1916.
167

168 A Century of Negro Migration
country and the property of thrifty persons of
their race in urban communities may be exten
sive. In most parts of the South the Negroes
are still unable to become landowners or suc
cessful business men. Conditions^ and customs
have reserved these spheres for the whites.
Grenerally speaking, the Negroes are still de
pendent on the white people for food and
shelter. Although not exactly slaves, they are
yet attached to the white people as tenants,
servants or dependents. Accepting this as their
lot, they have been content to wear their lord's
cast-off clothing, and live in his ramshackled
barn or cellar. In this unhappy state so many
have settled down, losing all ambition to attain
a higher station. The world has gone on but
in their sequestered sphere progress has passed
them by.
What then is the cause? There have been
bulldozing, terrorism, maltreatment and what
not of persecution ; but the Negroes have not in
large numbers wandered away from the land of
their birth. What the migrants them'selves
think about it, goes to the very heart of the
trouble. Some say that they left the South on
account of injustice in the courts, unrest, lack
of privileges, denial of the right to vote, bad
treatment, oppression, segregation or lynching.
Others say that they left to find employment, to
secure better wages, better school facilities, and
8 The New Orleans Times Picayune, Maxch 26, 1914.

Exodus during the World War 169
better opportunities to toil upward.® Southern
white newspapers unaccustomed to give the Ne
groes any mention but that of criminals have
said that the Negroes are going North because
they have not had a fair chance in the South
and that if they are to be retained there, the at
titude of the whites toward them must be
changed. Professor William 0. Scroggs, of
Louisiana State University, considers as causes
of this exodus "the relatively low wages paid
farm labor, an unsatisfactory tenant or crop-
sharing system, the boll weevil, the crop failure
of 1916, lynching, disfranchisement, segrega
tion, poor schools, and the monotony, isolation
and drudgery of farm life." Professor
Scroggs, however, is wrong in thinking that
the persecution of the blacks has little to do
with the migration for the reason that during
these years when the treatment of the Negroes
is decidedly better they are leaving the South.
This does not mean that they would not have
left before, if they had had economic opportuni
ties in the North. It is highly probable that the
Negroes would not be leaving the South today,
if they were treated as men, although there
might be numerous opportunities for economic
improvement in the North. ^^
iThe immediate cause of this movement was
the suffering due to the floods aggravated by
» The Crisis, July, 1917.
10 Am,erican Journal of Political Economy, XXX, p. 1040.

170 A Century of Negro Migration
the depredations of the boll weevil. Although
generally mindful of our welfare, the United
States Government has not been as ready to
build levees against a natural enemy to prop
erty as it has been to provide fortifications for
warfare. It has been necessary for local com
munities and State governments to tax them
selves to maintain them. The national govern
ment, however, has appropriated to the purpose
of facilitating inland navigation certain sums
which have been used in doing this work, espe
cially in the Mississippi Valley. There are now
1,538 miles of levees on both sides of the Mis
sissippi from Cape Girardeau to the passes.
These levees, of course, are still inadequate to
the security of the planters against these inun
dations. Carrying 406 million tons of mud a
year, the river becomes a dangerous stream sub
ject to change, abandoning its old bed to cut for
itself a new channel, transferring property from
one State to another, isolating cities and leaving
once useful levees marooned in the landscape
like old Indian mounds or overgrown intrench-
ments.^ This valley has, therefore, been frequently
visited with disasters which have often set the
population in motion. The first disastrous
floods came in 1858 and 1859, breaking many of
the levees, the destruction of which was prac
tically completed by the floods of 1865 and 1869.
There is an annual rise in the stream, but since
3 The World's WorTc, XX, p. 271.

Exodus during the World War 171
1874 this river system has fourteen times de
vastated large areas of this section with de
structive floods. The property in this district
depreciated in value tO' the extent of about 400
millions in ten years. Farmers from this sec
tion, therefore, have at times moved west with
foreigners to take up public lands.
The other disturbing factor in this situation
was the boll weevil, an interloper from Mexico
in 1892. The boll wee-vil is an insect about one
fourth of an inch in length, varying from one
eighth to one third of an inch -with a breadth of
about one third of the length. When it first
emerges it is yellowish, then becomes gray
ish bro-wn and finally assumes a black shade.
It breeds on no other plant than cotton and
feeds on the boll. This little animal, at first
attacked the cotton crop in Texas. It was not
thought that it would extend its work into the
heart of the South so as to become of national
consequence, but it has, at the rate of forty to
one hundred sixty miles annually, invaded all
of the cotton district except that of the Caro-
linas and Virginia. The damage it does, varies
according to the rainfall and the harshness of
the winter, increasing -with the former and de^
creasing -with the latter. At times the damage
has been to the extent of a loss of 50 per cent.
of the crop, estimated at 400,000 bales of cotton
annually, about 4,500,000 bales since the inva
sion or $250,000,000 worth of cotton.* The out-
* The World's WorTc, XX, p. 272.

172 A Century of Negro Migration
put of the South being thus cut off, the planter
has less income to pro-vdde supplies for his black
tenants and, the prospects for future production
being dark, merchants accustomed to give them
credit have to refuse. This, of course, means
financial depression, for the South is a borrow
ing section and any limitation to credit there
blocks the wheels of industry. It was fortunate
for the Negro laborers in this district that there
was then a demand for labor in the North when
this condition began to obtain.
This demand was made possible by the cut
ting off of European immigration by the World
War, which thereby rendered this hitherto un
congenial section an in-viting field for the Negro.
The Negroes have made some progress in the
North during the last fifty years, but despite
their achievements they have been so handi
capped by race prejudice and proscribed by
trades unions that the uplift of the race by eco
nomic methods has been impossible. The Euro
pean immigrants have hitherto excluded the Ne
groes even from the menial positions. In the
midst of the drudgery left for them, the blacks
have often heretofore been debased to the status
of dependents and paupers. Scattered through
the North too in such small numbers, they have
been unable to unite for social betterment and
mutual improvement and naturally too weak
to force the community to respect their wishes
as could be done by a large group -with some

Exodus during the World War 173
political or economic power. At present, how
ever, Negro laborers, who once went from city
to city, seeking such employment as trades
unions left to them, can work even as skilled
laborers throughout the North.^ Women of
color formerly excluded from domestic service
by foreign maids are now in demand. Many
mills and factories which Negroes were pro
hibited from entering a few years ago are now
bidding for their labor. Railroads cannot find
help to keep their property in repair, con
tractors faU short of their plans for failure to
hold mechanics dra-wn into the industrial boom
and the United States Government has had to
advertise for men to hasten the preparation for
war. Men from afar went south to tell the Negroes
of a way of escape to a more congenial place.
Blacks long since unaccustomed to venture a
few miles from home, at once had -visions of a
promised land just a few hundred miles away.
Some were told of the chance to amass fabulous
riches, some of the opportunities for education
and some of the hospitality of the places of
amusement and recreation in the North. The
migrants then were soon on the way. Railway
stations became conspicuous with the presence
of Negro tourists, the trains were crowded to
full capacity and the streets of northern cities
5 New TorTc Times, March 29, April 7, 9, May 30 and 31,
1917.

174 A Century of Negro Migration
were soon congested -with black laborers seeking
to realize their dreams in the land of unusual
opportunity. Employment agencies, recently multiplied to
meet the demand for labor, find' themselves un
able to cope -with the situation and agents sent
into the South to induce the blacks by offers of
free transportation and high wages to go north,
have found it impossible to supply the demand
in centers where once toiled the Poles, Italians
and the Greeks formerly preferred to the Ne
groes.® In other words, the present migration
differs from others in that the Negro has op
portunity awaiting him in the North whereas
formerly it was necessary for him to make a
place for himself upon arri-ving among enemies.
The proportion of those returning to the South,
therefore, will be inconsiderable.
Becoming alarmed at the immensity of this
movement the South has undertaken to check it.
To frighten Negroes from the North southern
newspapers are carefully circulating reports
that many of them are returning to their native
land because of unexpected hardships.'^ But
ha-ving failed in this, southerners have com
pelled employment agents to cease operations
there, arrested suspected employers and, to pre-
8 Survey, XXXVII, pp. 569-571 and XXXVIII, pp. 27, 226,
331, 428; Forum, LVII, p. 181; The World's WorTc, XXXIV,
pp. 135, 314-319; OutlooTc, CXYl, pp. .520-521; Independent,
XCI, pp. 53-54.
7 The Crisis, 1917.

Exodus during the World War 175
vent the departure of the Negroes, imprisoned
on false charges those who appear at stations to
leave for the North. This procedure could not
long be effective, for by the more legal and clan
destine methods of railway passenger agents the
work has gone forward. Some southern com
munities have, therefore, advocated drastic
legislation against labor agents, as was sug
gested in Louisiana in 1914, when by operation
of the Underwood Tariff Law the Negroes
thro-wn out of employment in the sugar district
migrated to the cotton plantations.®
One should not, however, get the impression
that the majority of the Negroes are leaving
the South. Eager as these Negroes seem to go,
there is no unanimity of opinion as to whether
migration is the best policy. The sycophant,
toady class of Negroes naturally advise the
blacks to remain in the South to serve their
white neighbors. The radical protagonists of
the equal-rights-for-all element urge them' to
come North by all means. Then there are the
thinking Negroes, who are still further divided.
Both di-visions of this element have the interests
of the race at heart, but they are unable to agree
as to exactly what the blacks should now do.
Thinking that the present war -will soon be over
and that consequently the immigration of for
eigners into this country will again set in and
force out of employment thousands of Negroes
who have migrated to the North, some of the

176 A Century of Negro Migration
most representative Negroes are advising their
fellows to remain where they are. The most
serious objection to this transplantation is that it
means for the Negroesi a loss^ of land, the rapid
acquisition of which has long been pointed to as
the best evidence of the ability of the blacks
to rise in the economic world. So many Ne
groes who have by dint of energy purchased
small farms yielding an increasing income from
year to year, are now disposing of them at
nominal prices to come north to work for wages.
Looking beyond the war, however, and thinking
too that the depopulation of Europe during this
upheaval -will render immigration from that
quarter for some years an impossibility, other
thinkers urge the Negroes to continue the mi
gration to the North, where the race may be
found in sufficiently large numbers to wield eco
nomic and political power.
Great as is the dearth of labor in the South,
moreover, the Negro exodus has not as yet
caused such a depression as to unite the whites
in inducing the blacks to remain in that section.
In the first place, the South has not yet felt the
worst effects of this economic upheaval as that
part of the country has been unusually aided by
the millions which the United States Govern
ment is daily spending there. Furthermore, the
poor whites are anxious to see the exodus of
their competitors in the field of labor. This
leaves the capitalists at their mercy, and in

Exodus during the World War 111
keeping with their domineering attitude, they
¦will be able to handle the labor situation as they
desire. As an evidence of this fact we need but
note the continuation of mob rule and lynching
in the South despite the preachings against it
of the organs of thought which heretofore
winked at it. iThis terrorism has gone to an un
expected extent. Negro farmers have been
threatened -vrith bodily injury, unless they leave
certain parts.
The southerner of aristocratic bearing will
say that only the shiftless poor whites terrorize
the Negroes. This may be so, but the truth
offers little consolation when we observe that
most white people in the South are of this class ;
and the tendency of this element to put their
children to work before they secure much educa
tion does not indicate that the South will soon
experience that general enlightenment neces
sary to exterminate these survivals of barbar
ism. Unless the upper classes of the whites
can bring the mob around to their way of
thinking that the persecution of the Negro is
prejudicial to the interests of all, it is not likely
that mob rule will soon cease and the migration
to this extent will be promoted rather than re^
tarded. It is unfortunate for the South that the grow
ing consciousness of the Negroes has culminated
at the very time they are most needed. Finally
heeding the ad-vice of agricultural experts to re-

178 A Century of Negro Migration
construct its agricultural system, the South has
learned in the school of bitter experience to de
part from the plan of producing the single cot
ton crop. It is now raising food-stuffs to make
that section self-supporting without reducing
the usual output of cotton. With the increasing
production in the South, therefore, more labor
is needed just at the very time it is being drawn
to centers in the North. The North being an in
dustrial and commercial section has usually at
tracted the immigrants, who will never fit into
the economic situation in the South because
they will not accept the treatment given Ne
groes. The South, therefore, is now losing the
only labor which it can ever use under present
conditions. Where these Negroes are going is still more
interesting. The exodus to the west was mainly
directed to Kansas and neighboring States, the
migration to the Southwest centered in Okla
homa and Texas, pioneering Negro laborers
drifted into the industrial district of the Ap
palachian highland during the eighties and nine
ties and the infiltration of the discontented tal
ented tenth affected largely the cities of the
North. But now we are told that at the very
time the mining districts of the North and West
are being'filled -with blacks the western planters
are supplying their farms -with them and that
into some cities have gone sufficient skilled and
unskilled Negro workers to increase the black

Exodus during the World War 179
population more than one hundred per cent.
Places in the North, where the black population
has not only not increased but even decreased in
recent years, are now receiving a steady influx
of Negroes. In fact, this is a nation-wide mi
gration affecting all parts and all conditions.
Students of social problems are now wonder
ing whether the Negro can be adjusted in the
North. Many perplexing problems must arise.
This movement -will produce results not unlike
those already mentioned in the discussion of
other migrations, some of which we have evi
dence of today. There will be an increase in
race prejudice leading in some communities to
actual outbreaks as in Chester and Youngstown
and probably to massacres like that of East St.
Louis, in which participated not only well-
known citizens but the local officers and the State
militia. The Negroes in the North are in com
petition with white men who consider them not
only strike breakers but a sort of inferior indi-
¦viduals unworthy of the consideration which
white men deserve. And this condition obtains
even where Negroes have been admitted to the
trades unions.
Negroes in seeking new homes in the North,
moreover, invade residential districts hitherto
exclusively white. There they encounter prej
udice and persecution until most whites thus
disturbed move out determined to do whatever
they can to prevent their race from suffering
13

180 A Century of Negro Migration
from further depreciation of property and the
disturbance of their community life. Lawless
ness has followed, showing that violence may
under certain conditions develop among some
classes anywhere rather than reserve itself for
vigilance committees of primitive communities.
It has brought out too another aspect of lawless
ness in that it breaks out in the North where
the numbers of Negroes are still too small to
serve as an excuse for the terrorism and lynch
ing considered necessary in the South to keep
the Negroes do-wn.
*" The maltreatment of the Negroes will be na
tionalized by this exodus. The poor whites of
both sections -will strike at this race long stig
matized by servitude but now demanding eco
nomic equality. Race prejudice, the fatal weak
ness of the Americans, will not so soon abate
although there -will be advocates of fraternity,
equality and liberty required to reconstruct our
government and rebuild our civilization in con
formity with the demands of modern efficiency
by placing every man regardless of his color
wherever he may do the greatest good for the
greatest number.
The Negroes, however, are doubtless going to
the North in sufficiently large numbers to make
themselves felt. If this migration falls short of
establishing in that section Negro colonies large
enough to wield economic and political power,
their state in the end will not be any better than

Exodus during the World War 181
that of the Negroes already there. It is to these
large numbers alone that we must look for an
agent to counteract the development of race
feeling into riots. In large numbers the blacks
-will be able to strike for better wages or con
cessions due a rising laboring class and they
will have enough votes to defeat for reelection
those officers who wink at mob -violence or treat
Negroes as persons beyond the pale of the law.
The Negroes in the North, however, -will get
little out of the harvest if, like the blacks of Re
construction days, they unwisely concentrate
their efforts on soMng all of their problems by
electing men of their race as local officers or by
sending a few members even to Congress as is
likely in New York, Philadelphia and Chicago
within the next generation. The Negroes have
had representatives in Congress before but they
were put out because their constituency was un
economic and politically impossible. There was
nothi^j^ but the mere letter of the law behind
the Reconstruction Negro officeholder and the
thus forced political recognition against public
opinion could not last any longer than natural
forces for some time thrown out of gear by un
natural causes could resume the usual line of
procedure. It would be of no advantage to the Negro race
today to send to Congress forty Negro Repre
sentatives on the pro rata basis of numbers,
especially if they happened not to be exception-

182 A Century of Negro Migration
ally well qualified. They would remain in Con
gress only so long as the American white people
could devise some plan for eliminating them as
they did during the Reconstruction period.
Near as the world has approached real democ
racy, history gives no record of a permanent
government conducted on this basis. Interests
have always been stronger than numbers. The
Negroes in the North, therefore, should not on
the eve of the economic revolution follow the
advice of their misguided and misleading race
leaders who are diverting their attention from
their actual welfare to a specialization in pol
itics. To concentrate their efforts on electing a
few Negroes to office wherever the blacks are
found in the majority, would exhibit the nar
rowness of their oppressors. It would be as un
wise as the policy of the Republican party of
setting aside a few insignificant positions like
that of Recorder of Deeds, Register of the
Treasury and Auditor of the Navy as segre
gated jobs for Negroes. Such positions have
furnished a nucleus for the large, worthless,
office-seeking class of Negroes in Washington,
who have established the going of the people of
the city toward pretence and sham.
The Negroes should support representative
men of any color or party, if they stand for a
square deal and equal rights for all. The new
Negroes in the North, therefore, will, as so
many of their race in New York, Philadelphia

Exodus during the World War 183
and Chicago are now doing, ally themselves
with those men who are fairminded and consid
erate of the man far down, and seek to embrace
their many opportunities for economic progress,
a foundation for political recognition, upon
which the race must learn to build. Every race
in the universe must aspire to becoming a factor
in politics; but history shows that there is no
short route to such success. Like other despised
races beset -with the prejudice and militant op
position of self-styled superiors, the Negroes
must increase their industrial efficiency, improve
their opportunities to make a li-ving, develop the
home, church and school, and contribute to art,
literature, science and philosophy to clear the
way to that political freedom of which they
cannot be deprived.
The entire country will be benefited by this
upheaval. It will be helpful even to the South.
The decrease in the black population in those
communities where the Negroes outnumber the
whites -will remove the fear of Negro domina
tion, one of the causes of the backwardness of
the South and its peculiar ci-vilization. Many
of the expensive precautions which the southern
people have taken to keep the Negroes down,
much of the terrorism incited to restrain the
blacks from self-assertion will no longer be con
sidered necessary; for, ha-ving the excess in num
bers on their side, the whites -will finally rest as
sured that the Negroes may be encouraged -with-

184 A Century of Negro Migration
out any apprehension that they may develop
enough power to subjugate or embarrass their
former masters.
iThe Negroes too are very much in demand in
the South and the intelligent whites -will gladly
give them larger opportunities to attach them to
that section, knowing that the blacks, once con
scious of their power to move freely throughout
the country wherever they may improve their
condition, will never endure hardships like those
formerly inflicted upon the race. The South is
already learning that the Negro is the most de
sirable laborer for that section, that the perse
cution of Negroes not only drives them out but
makes the employment of labor such a problem
that the South will not be an attractive section
for capital. It will, therefore, be considered
the duty of business men to secure protection
to the Negroes lest their ill-treatment force them
to migrate to the extent of bringing about a
stagnation of their business.
The exodus has driven home the truth that the
prosperity of the South is at the mercy of the
Negro. Dependent on cheap labor, which the
bulldozing whites will not readily furnish, the
wealthy southerners must finally reach the posi
tion of regarding themselves and the Negroes
as having a community of interests which
each must promote. "Nature itself in those
States," Douglass said, "came to the rescue of
the Negro. He had labor, the South wanted it,

Exodus during the World War 185
and must have it or perish. Since he was free
he could then give it, or -withhold it ; use it where
he was, or take it elsewhere, as he pleased. His
labor made him a slave and his labor could, if
he would, make him free, comfortable and inde
pendent. It is more to him than either fire,
sword, ballot boxes or bayonets. It touches the
heart of the South through its pocket. "^^
Knowing that the Negro has this silent weapon
to be used against his employer or the commu
nity, the South is already giving the race better
educational facilities, better railway accommo
dations, and -wUl eventually, if the advocacy of
certain southern newspapers be heeded, grant
them political pri-^leges. Wages in the South,
therefore, have risen even in the extreme south
western States, where there is an opportunity to
import Mexican labor. Reduced to this ex
tremity, the southern aristocrats have begun to
lose some of their race prejudice, which has not
hitherto yielded to reason or philanthropy.
Southern men are telling their neighbors that
their section must abandon the policy of treat
ing the Negroes as a problem and construct a
program for recognition rather than for repres
sion. Meetings are, therefore, being held to
find out what the Negro wants and what may be
done to keep them contented. They are told that
the Negro must be elevated not exploited, that
to make the South -w^hat it must needs be, the co-
11 American Jownal of Social Science, XI, p. 4.

186 A Century of Negro Migration
operation of all is needed to train and equip the
men of all races for efficiency. The aim of all
then must be to reform or get rid of the unfair
proprietors who do not give their tenants a fair
di-vision of the returns from their labor. To
this end the best whites and blacks are urged to
come together to find a working basis for a sys
tematic effort in the interest of all.
To say that either the North or the South can
easily become adjusted to this change is entirely
too sanguine. The North -will have a problem.
The Negroes in the northern city -will have much
more to contend with than when settled in the
rural districts or small urban centers. Forced
by restrictions of real estate men into congested
districts, there has appeared the tendency to
ward further segregation. They are denied so
cial contact, are sagaciously separated from
the whites in public places of amusement and
are clandestinely segregated in public schools
in spite of the law to the contrary. As a con
sequence the Negro migrant often finds him
self with less friends than he formerly had. The
northern man who once denounced the South on
account of its maltreatment of the blacks grad
ually grows silent when a Negro is brought next
door. There comes -with the movement, there
fore, the difficult problem of housing.
Where then must the migrants go. They are
not wanted by the whites and are treated -with
contempt by the native blacks of the northern

Exodus during the World War 187
cities, who consider their brethren from the South
too criminal and too vicious to be tolerated.
In the average progressive city there has hereto
fore been a certain increase in the number of
houses through natural growth, but owing to the
high cost of materials, high wages, increasing
taxation and the inclination to invest money in
enterprises gro-wing out of the war, fewer houses
are now being built, although Negroes are pour
ing into these centers as a steady stream. The
usual Negro quarters in northern centers of this
sort have been filled up and the overflow of the
black population scattered throughout the city
among white people. Old warehouses, store
rooms, churches, railroad cars and tents have
been used to meet these demands.
A large per cent of these Negroes are located
in rooming houses or tenements for several
families. The majority of them cannot find in
dividual rooms. Many are crowded into the
same room, therefore, and too many into the
same bed. Sometimes as many as four and five
sleep in one bed, and that may be placed in the
basement, dining-room or kitchen where there
is neither adequate light nor air. In some cases
men who work during the night sleep by day in
beds used by others during the night. Some of
their houses have no water inside and have toilets
on the outside without sewerage connections.
The cooking is often done by coal or wood
stoves or kerosene lamps. Yet the rent runs

188 A Century of Negro Migration
high although the houses are generally out of
repair and in some cases have been condemned
by the municipality. The unsanitary conditions
in which many of the blacks are compelled to
live are in violation of municipal ordinances.
Furthermore, because of the indiscriminate
employment by labor agents and the dearth of
labor requiring the acceptance of almost all
sorts of men, some disorderly and worthless Ne
groes have been brought into the North. On
the whole, however, these migrants are not lazy,
shiftless and desperate as some predicted that
they would be. They generally attend church,
save their money and send a part of their sav
ings regularly to their families. They do not
belong to the class going North in quest of
whiskey. Mr. Abraham Epstein, who has written
a valuable pamphlet setting forth his researches
in Pittsburgh, states that the migrants of that
city do not generally imbibe and most of those
who do, take beer only.^^ Out of four himdred
and seventy persons to whom he propounded
this question, two hundred and ten or forty-four
per cent of them were total abstainers. Sev
enty per cent of those having families do not
drink at all.
With this congestion, however, have come
serious difficulties. Crowded conditions give
rise to vice, crime and disease. The prevalence
of vice has not been the rule but tendencies,
12 Epstein, TTie Negro Migrant in Pittsburgh.,

Exodus during the World War 189
which better conditions in the South restrained
from developing, have under these undesirable
conditions been given an opportunity to grow.
There is, therefore, a tendency toward the
crowding of dives, assembling on the corners
of streets and the commission of petty offences
which crowd them into the police courts. One
finds also sometimes a congestion in houses of
dissipation and the carrying of concealed weap
ons. Law abiding on the whole, however, they
have not experienced a wave of crime. The
chief offences are those resulting from the
saloons and denizens of -vice, which are fur
nished by the community itself.
Disease has been one of their worst enemies,
but reports on their health have been exag
gerated. On account of this sudden change of
the Negroes from one climate to another and the
hardships of more unrelenting toil, many of
them have been unable to resist pneumonia,
bronchitis and tuberculosis. Churches, rescue
missions and the National League on Urban
Conditions Among Negroes have offered re
lief in some of these cases. The last-named or
ganization is serving in large cities as a sort of
clearing house for such activities and as means
of interpreting one race to the other. It has
now eighteen branches in cities to which this mi
gration has been directed. Through a local
worker these migrants are approached, prop
erly placed and supervised until they can adjust

190 A Century of Negro Migration
themselves to the community without apparent
embarrassment to either race. The League has
been able to handle the migrants arriving by ex
tending the work so as to know their movements
beforehand. The occupations in which these people engage
will throw further light on their situation.
About ninety per cent of them do unskilled
labor. Only ten per cent of them do semi-skilled
or skilled labor. They serve as common la
borers, puddlers, mold-setters, painters, car
penters, bricklayers, cement workers and ma
chinists. 'What the Negroes need then is that
sort of freedom which carries -with it industrial
opportunity and social justice. This they can
not attain until they be permitted to enter the
higher pursuits of labor. Two reasons are
given for failure to enter these: first, that Ne
gro labor is unstable and inefficient; and sec
ond, that white men -will protest. Organized
labor, however, has done nothing to help the
blacks. Yet it is a fact that accustomed to the
easy-going toil of the plantation, the blacks have
not shown the same efficiency as that of the
whites. Some employers report, however, that
they are glad to have them because they are
more indi-vidualistic and do not like to group.
But it is not true that colored labor cannot be
organized. The blacks have merely been neg
lected by organized labor. Wherever they
have had the opportunity to do so, they have

Exodus during the World War 191
organized and stood for their rights like men.
The trouble is that the trades unions are gen
erally antagonistic to Negroes although they
are now accepting the blacks in self-defense.
The policy of excluding Negroes from these
bodies is made effective by an evasive pro
cedure, despite the fact that the constitutions of
many of them specifically provide that there
shall be no discrimination on account of race or
color. Because of this tendency some of the repre
sentatives of trades unions have asked why Ne
groes do not organize unions of their own. This
the Negroes have generally failed to do, think
ing that they would not be recognized by the
American Federation of Labor, and knowing
too that what their union would have to contend
-with in the economic world would be diametri
cally opposed to the -wishes of the men from
whom they would have to seek recognition. Or
ganized labor, moreover, is opposed to the
powerful capitalists, the only real friends the
Negroes have in the North to furnish them
food and shelter while their lives are often be
ing sought by union members. Steps toward
organizing Negro labor have been made in vari
ous Northern cities during 1917 and 1918.^^
The objective of this movement for the present,
however, is largely that of employment.
Eventually the Negro migrants will, no doubt,
13 Epstein, The Negro Migrant in Pittsburgh.

192 A Century of Negro Migration
without much difficulty establish themselves
among law-abiding and industrious people of
the North where they will receive assistance.
Many persons now see in this shifting of the
Negro population the dawn of a new day, not in
making the Negro numerically dominant any
where to obtain political power, but to secure
for him freedom of movement from section to
section as a competitor in the industrial world.
They also observe that while there may be an in
crease of race prejudice in the North the same
will in that proportion decrease in the South,
thus balancing the equation while gi-ving the
Negro his best chance in the economic world
out of which he must emerge a real man with
power to secure his rights as an American
citizen.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
As the public has not as yet paid very much attention to
Negro History, and has not seen a volume dealing primarily
with the migration of the race in America, one could hardly
expect that there has been compiled a bibliography in this
special field. With the exception of what appears in Still's
and Siebert 's works on the Underground Railroad and the
records of the meetings of the Quakers promoting this move
ment, there is little helpful material to be found in single
volumes bearing on the antebellum period. Since the CSvil
War, however, more has been said and written concerning the
movements of the Negro population. E. H. Botume 's Fi/rst
Days Among tTie Contrabands and John Eaton's Grant, Lincoln
and the Freedmen cover very well the period of rebellion. This
is supplemented by J. 0. Knowlton's Contrabands in the Uni
versity Quarterly, Volume XXI, page 307, and by Edward L.
Pierce's TTie Freedmen at Port Royal in the Atlantic Monthly,
-Volume XII, page 291. The exodus of 1879 is treated by J.
B. Eunnion in the Atlantic Monthly, Volume XLIV, page 222;l
by Frederick Douglass and Eichard T. Greener in the American
Journal of Social Science, Volume XI, page 1; by F. E. Guern
sey in the International Review, Volume VII, page 373; by E.
L. Godkin in the Nation, Volume XXVIII, pages 242 and 386;
and by J. C. Hartzell in the Methodist Quarterly, Volume
XXXIX, page 722. The second volume of George W. Wil
liams's History of the Negro Race also contains a short chapter
on the exodus of 1879. In Volume XVIII,' page 370, of Public
Opinion there is a discussion of Negro Emigration and Depor
tation as advocated by Bishop H. M. Turner and Senator Mor
gan of Alabama during the nineties. Professor William' O.
Scroggs of Louisiana University has in the Journal of Political
Economy, Volume XXV, page 1034, an article entitled Inter
state Migration of Negro Population. Mr. Epstein has pub
lished a helpful pamphlet. The Negro Migrant in Pittsburgh.
193

194 A Century of Negro Migration
Most of the material for this work, however, was collected from
the various sources mentioned below.
BOOKS OF TEA-VEL
Beissot db Warville, J. P. New Travels in the United States
of America: including the Commerce of America with
Europe, particularly with Great Britain and France. Two
volumes. (London, 1794.) Gives general impressionSj few
details.
Buckingham, J. S. America, Historical, Statistical, and De
scriptive. Two volumes. (New Tork, 1841.)
 Eastern and Western States of America. Three volumes.
(London and Paris, 1842.) Contains useful information.
Olmsted, Feederick Law. A Journey in the Seaboard Slave
States, with RemarTcs on their Economy. (New Tork,
1859.)
 ' A Journey in the BacTc Country. (London, 1860.)
 ' Journeys and Explorations in tTie Cotton Kingdom. (Lon
don, 1861.) Olmsted was a New Tork farmer. He re
corded a few important facts about the Negroes imme
diately before the Civil War.
Woolman, John. Journal of John Woolman, with an Intro
duction by John G. Whittier. (Boston, 1873.) Woolman
traveled' so extensively in the colonies that he probably
knew more about the Negroes than any other Quaker of
his time.
LETTEBS
Boyce, Stanbury. Letters on the Emigration of the Negroes
to Trinidad.
jEPrEESON, Thomas. Letters of Thomas Jefferson to AbbS
Gregoire, M. A, Julien, and Benjamin BanneTcer. In Jef
ferson's WorTcs, Memorial Edition, xii and xv. He com
ments on Negroes' talents.
Madison, James. Letters to Frances Wright. In Madison's
WorTcs, vol. iii, p. 396. The emancipation of Negroes is
discussed.
Mat, Samuel Joseph. Th^ Right of the Colored People to
Education. (Brooklyn, 1883.) A collection of public let
ters addressed to Andrew T. Judson, remonstrating on the
unjust procedure relative to Miss Prudence Crandall.

Bibliography 195
McDoNOOH, John. "A Letter of John McDonogh on African
Colonization addressed to the Editor of tTie New Orleans
Commercial Bulletin." McDonogh was interested in the
betterment of the colored people and did much to promote
their mental development. BIOGEAPHIES
Birney, Wiluam. James G. Birney and Eis Times. (New
York, 1890.) A sketch of an advocate of Negro uplift.
BowEN, Clarence W. Arthur and Lewis Tappan. A paper
read at the fiftieth, anniversary of the New York Anti-
Slavery Society, at the Broadway Tabernacle, New York
City, October 2, 1883» An honorable mention of two
friends of the Negro.
Drevt, Benjamin. A North-side View of Slavery, The Refu
gee: or the Narratives of Fugitive Slaves in Canada. Be
lated by themselves, with an Account of the History and
Condition of tTie Colored Population of Upper Canada.
(New York and Boston, 1866.)
Frothingham, O. B. Gerritt Smith: A Biography. (New
York, 1878'.)
Garrison, Francis and Wendell P. William Lloyd Garrison,
1805-1879. TTie Story of Us Life told by his Children.
Four volumes. (Boston and New York, 1894.) Includes
a brief account of what he did for the colored people.
Hammond, C. A. Gerritt Smith, The Story of a Noble Man's
Life, (Geneva, 1900.)
Johnson, Oliver. William Lloyd Garrison and his Times.
(Boston, 1880. New edition, revised and enlarged, Bos
ton, 1881.)
MoTT, A. Biographical STcetcTies and Interesting Anecdotes
of Persons of Color; with a Selection of Pieces of Poetry.
(New York, 1826.) Some of these sketches show how
ambitious Negroes succeeded in spite of opposition.
Simmons, W. J. Men of MarTc; Eminent, Progressive, and
Rising, with an Introductory STceteh of the Author by
Reverend Henry M. Turner. (Cleveland, Ohio, 1891.) Ac
counts for the adverse circumstances under which many
antebellum Negroes made progress.
14

196 A Century of Negro Migration
AUTOBIOGEAPHIES
Coffin, Levi. Reminiseences of Levi Coffin, reputed President
of the Underground Railroad. Second edition. '(Cin
cinnati, 1880.) Contains many facts concerning Negroes.
Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of FredericTc
Douglass, as an American Slave. Written by himself.
(Boston, 1845,) Gives several cases of secret Negro
movements for their own good.
 1 TTie Life and Times of FredericTc Douglass from 1817 to
188S. (London, 188i2.) Written by himself. With an
Introduction by the Eight Honorable John Bright, M.P.
Edited by John Loeb, F.B.G.'S., of the Christian Age.
Editor of Uncle Tom's Story of his Life.
HISTOBIES
Bancroft, George. History of tTie United States. Ten
volumes. (Boston, 1857-1864.)
Brackett, Jeffrey E. TTie Negro in Maryland. Johns Hop
kins University Studies. (Baltimore, 18S9.)
Collins, Levtis. Historical STcetcTies of KentucTcy. (Mays-
ville, Ky., and Cincinnati, Ohio, 1847.)
Dunn, J. P. Indiana; A redemption from Slavery. (In the
American Commonwealths, vols. XII, Boston and New
York, 1888.)
Evans, W. E. A History of Scioto County together with a
Pioneer Record of Southern Ohio. (Portsmouth, 1903.)
Farmer, Silas. The History of Detroit and Michigan or the
Metropolis Illustrated. A chronological encyclopedia of
the past and the present including a full record of terri
torial days in Michigan and the annals of Wayne County.
Two volumes. (Detroit, 1899.)
Harris, N. D. The History of Negro Servitude in Ulinois and
of the Slavery Agitation in that State, 1719-1864. (Chi
cago, 1904.)
Hart, A. B. The American Nation; A History, etc. Twenty-
seven volumes. (New Tork, 1904-1908'.) The volumes
which have a bearing on the subject treated in this mono
graph are W. A. Dunning 's Reconstruction, F. J. Turner's
Rise of the New West, and A. B. Hart 's Slavery and Aboli
tion.

BiUiography 197
Hinsdale, B. A. The Old Northwest; with a view of the thir
teen colonies as constituted by the royal charters. (New
York, 1888'.)
Howe, Henet. Historical Collections of Ohio. Contains a
collection of the most interesting facts, traditions, bio
graphical sketches, anecdotes, etc., relating to its general
and local history with descriptions of its counties, prin
cipal towns and villages. (Cincinnati, 1847.)
Jones, Chaeles Coloock, Jr. History of Georgia. (Boston,
1883.)
MoMastbe, John B. History of the United States. Six
volumes. (New York, 1900.)
Ehodes, j. F. History of the United States from the Com
promise of 1850 to tTie Final Restoration of Home Rule in
the South. (New York and London, MacmUlan & Com
pany, 1892t-190'6.)
Steiner, B. C. History of Slavery in Connecticut. (Johns
Hopkins University Studies, 1893.)
Stuvb, Bebnard, and Alexander Davidson. . A Complete His
tory of Illinois from 1673 to 1783. (Springfield, 1874.)
Teemain, Mary M. A. Slavery in tlie District of Columbia.
(University of Nebraska Seminary Papers, April, 1892.)
History of Brown County, Ohio. (Chicago, 1883.)
ADDEESSBS
Gaeeison, William Llotd. An Address Delivered before the
Free People of Color in Philadelphia, New TorTc and other
Cities dwing the Month of June, 1831. (Boston, 1831.)
Griffin, Edward Dorb. A Plea for Africa. (New Tork,
1817.) A Sermon preached October 26, 1817, in the First
Presbyterian Church in the City of New York before the
Synod of New York and New Jersey at the Eequest of the
Board of Directors of the African School established by
the Synod. The aim was to arouse interest in colonization.
EEPOETS AND STATISTICS
Special Report of the Commissioner of Education on the Im
provement of Public Schools in tTie District of Columbia,
containing M. B. Goodwin's "History of Schools for the

198 A Century of Negro Migration
Colored Population in the District of Columbia. ' ' (Wash
ington, 1871.)
Report of the Committee of Representatives of the New TorTc
Tearly Meeting of Friends upon the condition and wants
of the Colored Refugees, 186'2.
Clarke, J. F. Present Condition of the Free Colored People
of the United States. (New York and Boston, the Ameri
can Antislavery Society, 1859.) Published also in the
March number of the Christian Examiner.
Condition of the Free People of Color in Ohio. With interest
ing anecdotes. (Boston, 1839.)
Institute for Colored Touth. (Philadelphia, 1860-1865.) Con
tains a list of the officers and students.
Jones, Thomas Jesse. Negro Education: A study of the
private and higher schools for colored people in tTie 'United
States. Prepared in cooperation with tTie Phelps-StoTces
Fund. In two volumes. (Bureau of Education, Washing
ton, 1917.)
Official Records of tTie War of Rebellion.
Report of the Condition of the Colored People of Cincinnati,
1835. (Cincinnati, 1835.)
Report of a Committee of the Pennsylvania Society of Aboli
tion on Present Condition of the Colored People, etc., 1838.
(Philadelphia, 183®.)
Statistical Inquiry into the Condition of the People of Color of
the City and Districts of Philadelphia. (Philadelphia,
1849.)
Statistics of the Colored People of Philadelphia in 1859, com
piled by Benj. C. Bacon. (Philadelphia, 1859.)
^^Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1898. Prepared by
the Bureau of Statistics. (Washington, D. C, 1899.)
Statistical View of the Population of the United States, A
1790-1830. (Published by the Department of State in
1835.)
Trades of the Colored People. (Philadelphia, 1838>.)
United States Censuses.
A Brief Statement of the Rise and Progress of tTie Testimony
of Friends against Slavery and the Slave Trade. Published
by direction of the Yearly Meeting held in Philadelphia in
the Fourth Month, 1843. Shows the action taken by
various Friends to elevate the Negroes.

Bibliography 199
A Collection of the Acts, Deliverances and Testimonies of the
Supreme Judicatory of the Presbyterian Church, from its
Origin in America to the Present Time. By Samuel J.
Baird. (Philadelphia, 1866.)
American Convention of Abolition Societies. Minutes of
tTie Proceedings of a Convention of Delegates from, tTie
Abolition Societies established in different Parts of the
United States. From 1794-1828'.
ITie Annual Reports of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery
Societies, presented at New TorTc, May 6, 1847, with tTie
Addresses and Resolutions. Prom 1847-1861.
The Annual Reports of the American Anti-Slavery Society.
Fromi 1834 to I860'.
The Third Annual Report of the Managers of the New England
Anti-Slavery Society presented June S, 1835. (Boston,
1835.)
Annual Reports of the Massachusetts (or New England) Anti-
Slavery Society, 1831-end.
Reports of the National Anti-Slavery Convention, liZZ-end.
Reports of the American Colonization Society, 1818-1832.
Report of the New TorTc Colonization Society, October 1, 1823.
(New York, 1823.)
The Seventh Annual Report of the Colonization Society of tTie
City of New TorTc. (New York, 1839.)
Proceedings of the New TorTc State Colonization Society, 1831.
(Albany, 1831.)
The Eighteenth Annual Report of the Colonization Society of
the State of New TorTc. (New York, 1850.)
Minutes and Proceedings of the First Annual Convention of
the People of Color. Held by Adjournment in the City of
Philadelphia, from the sixth to the eleventh of June, in-
elusive, 1831. (Philadelphia, 1831.)
Minutes and Proceedings of the Second Annual Convention for
tTie Improvement of the Free People of Color in these
United States. Held by Adjournments in the City of
Philadelphia, from tTie 4th to the 13th of June, inclusive,
1S32. (Philadelphia, 1832.)
Minutes and Proceedings of the Third Annual Convention for
the Improvement of the Free People of Color in these
'United States. Held by Adjournments in tTie City of

200 A Century of Negro Migration
Philadelphia, in 1833. (New York, 1833.) These pro
ceedings were published also in the New TorTc Commercial
Advertiser, April 27, 1833.
Minutes and Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Convention for
the Improvement of the Free People of Color in tTie
United States. Held by Adjournments in the Asbu/ry
Church, New TorTc, from the 2d to the 12th of June, 1834.
(New York, 1834.)
Proceedings of the Convention of the Colored Freedmen of
Ohio at Cincinnati, January 14, 185S. (Ciacumati, Ohio,
1852.) MIS.0ELLANBOUS BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS
Adams, Alice Dana. The Neglected Period of Anti-Slavery
in America. Eadeliffe College Monographs No. 14. (Bos
ton and London, 1908.) Contains some valuable facts
about the Negroes during the first three decades of the
nineteenth century.
Agricola (pseudonym) . An Impartial View of the Real State
of the BlacTc Population in the United States. (Philadel
phia, 1824.)
Alexander, A. A History of Colonization on the Western
Continent of Africa. (Philadelphia, 1846.)
Ames, Mart. From a New England Woman's Diary in 1865.
(Springfield, 1906.)
An Address to the People of North Carolina on the Evils of
Slavery, by the Friends of Liberty and Equality, 1830.
(Greensborough, 1830.)
An Address to the Presbyterians of KentucTcy proposing a Plan
for the Instruction and Emancipation of tTieir Slaves 'by
a Committee of the Synod of KentucTcy. (Newburyport,
1836.)
Baldwin, Ebenezee. Observations on tTie Physical and Moral
Qualities of our Colored Population with RemarTcs on the
Subject of Emancipation and Colonization. (New Haven,
1834.)
Bassett, j. S. Slavery and Servitude in tTie Colony of North
Carolina. (Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical
and Political Science. Fourteenth, Series, iv-v. Balti
more, 1896.)

Bibliography 201
 Slavery in the State of North Carolina. (Johns Hopkins
Uitiversity Studies in Historical and Political Science.
Series XVII., Nos. 7-8. Baltimore, 1899.)
 ' Anti-Slavery Leaders of North Carolina. (Johns Hop
kins University Studies in Historical and Political Science.
Series XVI., No. 6. Baltimore, 189Si.)
Benezet, Anthony. A Caution to Great Britain and Her
Colonies in a Short Representation of the calamitous State
of tTie enslaved Negro in the British Dominions. (Phila
delphia, 1784.)
 The Case of our Fellow-Creatures, the oppressed Africans,
respectfully recommended to the serious Consideration of
the Legislature of Great Britan, by the People called
QuaTcers. (London, 1783.)
 Observations on the enslaving. Importing and PurcTiasing
of Negroes; with some Advice thereon, extracted from the
Epistle of the T early-Meeting of the People called QuaTcers,
held at London in the Tear 1748. (Gennantown, 1760.)
 TTie Potent Enemies of America laid open: being some
Account of the baneful Effects attending the Use of dis
tilled spirituous Liquors, and tlie Slavery of the Negroes.
(^Philadelphia.)
 A STiort Account of that Part of Africa, inhabited by the
Negroes. With respect to the Fertility of the Country;
the good Disposition of many of the Natives, and the
Manner by which the Slave Trade is carried on. (Phila
delphia, 17921.)
 Short Observations on Slavery, introductory to Some Ex
tracts from tTie Writings of the Abbe Raynal, on the Im
portant Subject.
 Some Historical Account of Guinea, its Situation, Pro
duce, and tTie General Disposition of its Inhabitants. With
an Inquiry into tTie Rise and Progress of the Slave Trade,
its Nature and Lamentable Effects. (London, 1788.)
Bieney, James G. The American Churches, the BulwarTcs of
American Slavery, by an American. (Newburyport, 1842.)
BiRNET, William. James G. Birney and his Times. The
Genesis of tTie Republican Party, with Some Account of
the Abolition Movements in the South before 1828. (New
York, 1890.)

202 A Century of Negro Migration
Brackett, Jeffeey E. TTie Negro in Maryland. A Study of
the Institution of Slavery. (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins
University, 1889.)
Brannagan, Thomas. A Preliminary Essay on the Oppres
sion of the Exiled Sons of Africa, Consisting of Animad
versions on the Impolicy and Barbarity of the Deleterious
Commerce and Subsequent Slavery of the Human Species.
(Philadelphia: Printed for the Author by John W. Scott,
1804.)
Brannagan, T. Serious Remonstrances Addressed to the Citi
zens of the Northern States and their Representatives,
being an Appeal to their Natural Feelings and Common
Sense; Consisting of Speculations and Animadversions, on
the Recent Revival of the Slave Trade in the American
Republic. (Philadelphia, 1805.)
Campbell, J. V. Political History of Michigan. (Detroit,
1S76.)
Code Noir ou Recueil d' edits, decla/rations et arrets concemant
la Discipline et le commerce des esclaves Negres des isles
francaises de I'Amerique (in Recueils de reglemens, edits,
declarations et arrets, concemant le commerce, I'adminis-
tration de la justice et la police des colonies frangaises de
I'Amerique, et les engages avec le Code Noir, et I'addition
audit code. (Paris, 1745.)
Coffin, Joshua. An Account of Some of the principal Slave
Insurrections and others which have occurred or been
attempted in the United States and elsewTiere during the
last two Centuries. With various RemarTcs. Collected from
various Sources. (New York, 1860.)
Columbia University Studies in History, Economics and Public
Law. Edited by the faculty of political science. The
useful volumes of this series for this field are:
W. L. Fleming's Civil War and Reconstruction in Ala
bama, 1905.
W. W. Davis's The Civil War and Reconstruction in
Florida, 1913.
Clara Mildred Thompson's Reconstruction in Georgia,
Economic, Social, Political, 1915.
J. G. de E. Hamilton's Reconstruction in North Caro
lina, 1914.

Bibliography 203
C. W. EamsdeU. Reconstruction in Texas, 1910.
Connecticut, Public Acts passed by the General Assembly of.
Ceomwell, J. W. The Negro in American History: Men and
Women Eminent in the Evolution of the American of
African Descent. (Washington, 1914.)
Davidson, A., and Stowe, B. A Complete History of Illinois
from 1673 to 1873. (Springfield, 1874.) It embraces the
physical features of the country, its early explorations,
aboriginal inhabitants, the French and British occupation,
the conquest of Virginia, territorial condition and subse
quent events.
Delany, M. E. The 'Condition, Elevation, Emigration and
Destiny of tTie Colored People of the United States: polit
ically considered. (Philadelphia, 1852.)
DuBois, W. E. B. The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study.
Together with a special report on domestic service by
Isabel Eaton. (Philadelphia, 1899.)
 Atlanta University Publications, The Negro Common
School. (Atlanta, 1901.)
 The Negro Church. (Atlanta, 1903.)
 and Dill, A. G. The College-Bred Negro American.
(Atlanta, 1910.)
 ' The Negro American Artisan. (Atlanta, 1912.)
De Toqueville, Alexis Charles Henri Maueice Cleeel de.
Democracy in America. Translated by Henry Eeeve.
Four volumes. (London, 1835, 1840.)
Eaton, John. Grant, Lincoln and the Freedmen: reminis
cences of the Civil War with special reference to the worTc
for the Contrabands, and the Freedmen of the Mississippi
Valley. (New York, 1907.)
Epstein. The Negro Migrant in Pittsburgh. (Pittsburgh,
1917.)
Exposition of the Object and Plan of the American Union for
the Relief and Improvement of the Colored Race. (Boa-
ton, 1835.)
Fee, John G. Anti-Slavery Manual. (MaysvUle, 1848.)
Feetig, James Waltee. ITie Secession and Reconstruction of
Tennessee. (iChicago, 1898.)
Feost, W. G. "Appalachian America." (In vol. i of The
Americana.) (New York, 1912.)

204 A Century of Negro Migration
Garnett, H. H. TTie Past and Present Condition and the Des
tiny of the Colored Race. (Troy, 1848.)
Greely, Hoeacb. The American Confliot. A history of the
great rebellion in the United States of America, 1860-64,
its causes, incidents and results: intended to exhibit espe
cially its moral and political phases, with the drift of
progress of American opinion respecting human slavery
from 1776 to the close of the war for its union. (Chicago,
1864.)
Hammond, M. B. The Cotton Industry : an Essay in American
Economic History. It deals with the cotton cultuie and
the cotton Trade. (New York, 1897.)
Haet, a. B. The Soutiiern South. (New York, 1906.)
Henson, Josiah. TTie Life of Josiah Henson. (Boston,
1849.)
Heeshaw, L. M. Peonage in the United States. This is one
of the American Negro Academy Papers. (Washington,
1912.)
Hickok, Charles Thomas. The Negro in Ohio, 180H-1870.
(Cleveland, 1896.)
Hodgkin, Thomas A. Inquiry into the Merits of tTie American
Colonization Society and Reply to the Charges brought
against it with an Account of the British African Coloniza
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Bibliography 205

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L-tnch, John E. The Facts of Reconstruction. (New York,
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Mat, S. j. Sorne Recollections of our Anti-Slavery Conflict,
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206 A Century of Negro Migration
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Bibliography 207
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 American Internal Slave Trade; with Reflections on the
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15

208 A Century of Negro Migration
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 The Anti-Slavery Sentiment in the South; with Unpub
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 History of the Negro Race in the United States from
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Bibliography 209
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210 A Century of Negro Migration
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Bibliography 211
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Ihe New Tork Daily Advertiser.
The New Tork Tribune.
The New Tork Times.

INDEX

Adams, Henry, leader of the
exodus to Kansas, 135
Akron, friends of fugitives in,
30
Alton Telegraph, comment of,
113
Anderson, promoter of settling
of Negroes in Jamaica, 79
Anti-slavery, leaders of the
movement, became more
(helpful to the refugees,
34, 35
Anti-slavery sentiment, of
two kinds, 3
American Federation of La
bor, attitude of, toward Ne
gro labor, 191
Appalachian highland, settlers
of, aided fugitives, 31-34;
exodus of Negroes to, 146
Arkansas, drain of laborers
to, 120
Ball, J. P., a contractor, 95
Ball, Thomas, a contractor, 95
Barclay, interest of, in the
sending of Negroes to Ja
maica, 79
Barrett, Owen A., discoverer
of a remedy, 90
Bates, owner of slaves at St.
Genevieve, 7
Beauvais, owner of slaves,
Upper Louisiana, 7
Benezet, Anthony, plan of, to
colonize Negroes in West,
9; interest of, in settling
Negroes in the West, 61
Berlin Cross Eoads, Negroes
of, 24
Bibb, Henry, interest of, in
colonization, 79

Birney, James G., promoter
of the migration of the Ne
groes, 35j press of, de
stroyed by mob in Cincin
nati, 57
Black Friday, riot of, in
Portsmouth, 57
Blackburn, Thornton, a fugi
tive claimed in Detroit, 59-
60
Boll weevil, a cause of migra
tion, 169
Boston, friends of fugitives
dn, 31
Boyce, Stanbury, went with
his father t» Trinidad in
the fifties, 78
Boyd, Henry, a successful me
chanic iu Cincinnati, 95
Brannagan, Thomas, advocate
of colonizing the Negroes
in the West, 10; interest
of, in settling Negroes in
the West, 61
Brissot de Warville, observa
tions of, on Negroes in the
West, 12
British Guiana, attractive to
free Negroes, 68
Brooklyn, Hinois, a Negro
community, 30
Brown, John, in the Appa
lachian highland, 33-34
Brown County, Ohio, Negroes
in, 25
Buffalo, friends of fugitives
in, 30
Butler, General, holds Ne
groes as contraband, 107;
poUcy of, followed by Gen
eral Wood and Greneral
Banks, 102

212

Index

213

Cairo, IlUnois, an outlet for
the refugees, 112
Calvin Township, Cass Coun
ty, Michigan, a Negro com
munity, 28'-29; note on
progress of, 29
Campbell, Sir G«orge, com
ment on condition of Ne
groes in Kansas City, 143
Canaan, New Hampshire,
break-up of school of, ad
mitting Negroes, 49
Canada, the migration of Ne
groes to, 35; settlements in,
36
Canadians, supply of slaves
of, 13; prohibited the im
portation of slaves, 14
Canterbury, people of, im
prison Prudence Crandall
because she taught Ne
groes, 49
Cardoza, F. L., return of
from Edinburgh to South
Carolina, 124
Cassey, Joseph C, a lumber
merchant, 87
Cassey, Joseph, a broker in
Philadelphia, 89
Chester, T. Morris, went from
Pittsljurgh to settle in
Louisiana, 124
Cincinnati, friends of fugi
tives in, 30; mobs, 56-58;
successful Negroes of, 92-
95
dark, Edward V., a jeweler,
88
Clay, Henry, a colonization
ist, 63
Code for indentured servants
in West, note, 14r-16
Coffin, Levi, comment on the
condition of the refugees,
114
Coles, Edward, moved to Illi
nois to free his slaves, 2i9;
correspondence with Jeffer
son on slavery, 68^80
Colgate, Eichard, master of

James Wenyam who escaped
to the West, 11
CoUins, Henry M,, interest of,
in colonization, 79; a real
estate man in Pittsburgh,
90
Corbin, J. C, return of, from
ChUlicothe to Arkansas, 125
Colonization proposed as a
remedy for migration, 4;
in the West, 4, 10; organ
ization of society of, 63;
faUure to remove free Ne
groes, 64^65, 66; opposed
by free people of color, 65-
66; meetings of, in the in
terest of the "West Indies,
69-70; impeded by the ex
odus to the West Indies, 70 ;
a remedy for migration, 61-
80
Colonization Society, organiza
tion of, 68; renewed ef
forts of, 148
Colonizationists, opposition of,
to the migration to the
West Indies, 70-74
Columbia, Pa, friends of fu
gitives in, 30
Compagnie de 1 'Occident in
control of Louisiana, 6
Condition of fugitives in con
traband camps, 103, 104,
107-108, 109-110, 114, 115
Congested districts in the
North, 188-189
Connecticut exterminated slav
ery, 2; law of, against
teaching Negroes, 49^50
Conventions of Negroes, 99^
100
Cook, Forman B., a broker,
97
Crandall, A. W., interest in
checking the exodus to Kan
sas, 135
Crandall, Prudence, imprisoned
because she taught Negroes,
49

214

Index

Credit system, a cause of un
rest, 132, 133, 134
Crozat, Antoine, as Governor
of Louisiana, 6
Cuffe, Paul, an actual coloni
zationist, 63

Davis, comment on freedmen 's
vagrancy, 119
De Baptiste, Eichard, father
of, in Detroit, 28, 97
Debasement of tlie blacks
after Eeconstruction, 154
Delany, Martin E., interest
of, in colonization, 79-80
De Tocqueville, observation
of, on the condition of free
Negroes in the North, 44
Delaware, disfranchisement of
Negroes in, 39
Detroit, Negroes in, 27
friends of fugitives in, 30
a gateway to Canada, 35
the Negro question in, 54-
55; mob of, rises against
Negroes, 59-60 ; successful
Negroes of, 96
Dinwiddle, Governor, Fears
of, as to servile insurrec
tion, 12
Diseases of Negroes in the
North, 189
Distribution of intelligenit
blacks, 36-38
Douglass, Frederick, the lead
ing Negro journaUst, 98;
advice of, on staying in the
South to retain political
power, 164; comment of, on
exodus to Kansas, 138-139
Downing, Thomas, owner of
a restaurant, 87
Drain of laborers to Missis
sippi and Louisiana, 120;
to Arkansas and Texas, 120
Eaton, John, work of, among
the refugees, 110-111
Economic opportunities for

the Negro in the North,
183-184; economic oppor
tunities for Negroes in the
South, 184-185
Educational faciUties, the
lack of, 155
Elizabethtown, friends of fu
gitives in, 30
EUiot, E. B., return of, from
Boston to South Carolina,
124
Elmira, friends of fugitives
in, 30
Emancipation of the Negroes
in the West Indies, the ef
fect of, 68-71
Epstein, Abraham, an author
ity on the Negro migrant
in Pittsburgh, 188
Exodus, the, during the World
War, 167-192; causes, 167-
171, 172-176; efforts of the
South to check it, 172; Ne
groes divided on it, 175;
whites divided on it, 176;
unfortunate for the South,
177; probable results, 179-
180; will increase political
power of Negro, 180-181;
exodus of the Negroes to
Kansas, 134^136
Fear of Negro domination to
cease, 183
Ficklen, comment on freed
men's vagrancy, 119
Fiske, A. S., work of, among
the contrabands, 111
Fleming, comment of, on
freedmen's vagrancy, 119
Floods of the Mississippi, a
cause of migration, 167-
169
Foote, Ex-Governor of Mis
sissippi, liberal measure of,
presented to Vicksburg con
vention, 137
Fort Chartres, slaves of, 6
Forten, James, a wealthy Ne
gro, 89

Index

215

Freedman 's relief societies,
aid of, 111-112
Free Negroes, opposed to
American Colonization So
ciety, 65-66; interested in
African colonization, 67-
68; National Council of, 79
French, departure of, ftrom
West to keep slaves, 7;
welcome of, to fugitive
slaves of the English col
onies, 11; good treatment
of, 12
Friends of fugitives 30
Fugitive Slave Law, a de
stroyer of Negro settle
ments, 82
Fugitives coming to Pennsyl
vania, 41
GalUpolis, friends of fugi
tives in, 30
Georgia, laws of, against Ne
gro mechanics, 84; slavery
considered profitable in, 2
Germans antagonistic to Ne
groes, 41; favorable to fu
gitives in mountains, 31;
opposed Negro settlement
in Mercer County, Ohio, 26-
27; their hatred of Negroes,
82
Gibbs, Judge M. W., went
from PhUadelphia to Ar
kansas, 124
Gilmore's High School, work
of, in Cincinnati, 94
Gist, Samuel, settled his Ne
groes in Ohio, 25
Goodrich, WiUiiam, owner of
railroad stock, 90
Gordon, Eobert, a successful
coal dealer in Cincinnati,
95-96
Grant, General U. S., pro
tected refugees in his camp,
103; retained them at Fort
Donelson, 103; his use of
the refugees, i09
Grreener, E. T., comment of,

on the exodus to Kansas,
139-141; went from PhUa
delphia to South Carolina,
124
Gregg, Theodore H., sent his
manumitted slaves to Ohio,
27
Gulf States, proposed Negro
commonwealths of, 147
Guild of Caterers, in PhUa
delphia, 89
HaUeck, General, excluded
slaves from his Unes, 102
Harlan, Eobert, a horseman,
95
Harper, John, sent his slaves
to Mercer County, Ohio, 26
Harrisburg, Negroes in, 24;
reaction against Negroes in,
44
Harrison, President WiUiam
H., accommodated at the
cafe of John Julius, a Ne
gro, 90
Hayden, a successful clothier,
85
Hayti, the exodus of Negroes
to, 74-76, 79-80
Henry, Patrick, on natural
rights, 1
Hill of Chillicothe, a tanner
and currier, 92
HoUy, James T., interest of,
in colonization, 79
Hood, James W., went from
Connecticut to North Caro
lina, 124
Hunter, General, dealing with
the refugees in South Caro
lina, 109
Hlinois, the attitude of, to
ward the Negro, 54; race
prejudice in, 50; slavery
question in the organiza
tion of, 14; effort to make
the constitution proslavery,
15

216

Index

Immigration of foreigners,
cessation of, a cause of the
Negro migration, 172-173
Indian Territory, exodus of
Negroes to, 143
Indiana, the attitude of, to
ward the Negro, 53; coun
ties of, receivicg Negroes
from slave states, 24;
slavery question in the or
ganization of, 14; effort to
make constitution of pro-
slavery, 15; race prejudice
in, 58; protest against the
settlement of Negroes there,
58-59
Indians, attitude of, toward
the Negroes, 144, 145, 146
Infirmary Farms, for refugees,
106
Intimidation, a cause of mi
gration, 156
Irish, antagonistic to Negroes,
41 ; their hatred of Negroes,
82
Jamaica, Negroes of the
United States settled in,
78'-79
Jay's Treaty, 8
Jefferson, Thomas, his plan
for general education in
cluding the slaves, 9; plan
to colonize Negroes in the
West, 9-10; natural rights
theory of, 1; an advocate
of the colonization of the
Negroes in the West Indies,
68^69
Jenkins, David, a paper
hanger and glazier, 92
Johnson General, permitted
slave hunters to seek their
slaves in his lines, 102
Julius, John, proprietor of a
eaf6 in which he entertained
President WUliam^ H. Har
rison, 90
Kansas Freedmen's Relief As

sociation, the work of, 141
Kansas refugees, condition of,
142; treatment of, 142-143
Kaokia, slaves of, 6
Kaskaskia, slaves of, 6
Keith, George, interested in
the Negroes, 20
Kentucky, disfranchisement of
Negroes in, 39; aboUtion
society of, advocated the
colonization of the blacks
in the West, 10
Key, Francis S., a coloniza
tionist, 63
Kingsley, Z., a master, settled
his son of color in Hayti,
75-77
Ku Klux Klan, the work of,
12S
Labor agents promoting the
migration of Negroes, 173-
174
Lambert, William, interest of,
in the colonization of Ne
groes, 79
Land tenure, a cause of un
rest, 131, 133, 134; after
Eeconstruction, 131—132
Langston, John M., returned
from Ohio to Virginia, 124
Lawrence County, Ohio, Ne
groes immigrated into, 57
Liberia, freedmen sent to, 22
Lincoln, Abraham, urged with
holding slaves, 103,
Louis XIV, slave regulations
of, 7
Louisiana, drain of laborers
to, 120; exodus from, 134;
refugees in, 106
Lower Camps, Brown County,
Negroes of, 25
Lower Louisiana, conditions
of, 7; conditions of slaves
in, 7
Lundy, Benjamin, promoter
of the migration of Ne
groes, 35

Index

217

Lynching, a cause of migra
tion, 128-129, 156; number
of Negroes lynched, 156
McCook, General, permitted
slave hunters to seek their
Negroes in his lines, 102
Maryland, disfranchisement of
Negroes in, 39; passed laws
against Negro mechanics,
84; reaction in, 2
Massachusetts exterminated
slavery, 2
Meade, Bishop William, a
colonizationist, 63
Mercer County, Ohio, success
ful Negroes of, 93; resolu
tions of citizens against Ne
groes, 56
Miami County, Eandolph 's
Negroes sent to, 27
Michigan, Negroes trans
planted to, 27; attitude of,
toward the Negro, 54
Migration, the, of the talented
tenth, 147-166; handicaps
of, 165, 166; of politicians
to Washington, 160 ; of edu
cated Negroes, 161; of the
intelligent laboring class,
162; effect of Negroes'
prospective political power,
163; to northern cities, 85,
163
MUes, N. E., interest in stop
ping the exodus to Kansas,
136
Mississippi, drain of laborers
to, 130; exodus from, 134;
refugees in, 106; slaves
along, 6
Morgan, Senator, of Alabama,
interested in sending the
Negroes to Africa, 148
Movement of the blacks to the
western territory, 18; pro
moted by Quakers, 18
Movements of Negroes during
the CivU War, 101-124; of
poor whites, 101

Mulber, Stephen, a contractor,
91
Murder of Negroes in the
South, 128-129
Natural rights, the effect of
the discussion of, on the
condition of the Negro, 1-2
Negro journalists, the number
of, 98
Negroes, condition of, after
Eeconstruction, 126-129 ; es
caped to the West, 11;
those having wealth tend to
remain in the South, 160;
migration of, to Mexico,
151 ; exodus of, to Liberia,
167; no freedom of speech
of, 165; not migratory, 121;
leaders of Eeconstruction,
largely from the North, 123 ;
mechanics in Cincinnati, 94-
95; servants on Ohio river
vessels, 94
New Hampshire, exterminated
slavery, 2
New Jersey, abolished slavery,
2
New Tork, abolition of slavery
in, 2 ; friends of fugitives
in, 31; mobs of, attack Ne
groes, 48; Negro suffrage
in, 40; restrictions of, on
Negroes, 48-49
North Carolina, Negro suf
frage in, 39-40; Quakers
of, promoting the migration
of the Negroes, 18-19, 21,
22 ; reaction in, 2
North, change in attitude of,
toward the Negro, 100; di
vided in its sentiment as to
method of helping the Ne
gro, 83; favorable senti
ment of, 3; trade of, with
the South, 3; fugitives not
generally welcomed, 3; its
Negro problem, 186; hous
ing the Negro in, 186-18'_7;
criminal class of Negroes in,

218

Index

188, 189; loss of interest
of, in the Negro, 157; not
a place of refuge for Ne
groes, 16
Northwest, few Negroes in, at
first, 17; hesitation to go
there because of the ordi
nance of 1787, 17
Noyes Academy broken up be
cause it admitted Negroes,
49
Nugent, Colonel W. L., inter
est iu' stopping the exodus
to Kansas, 135
Occupations of Negroes in the
North, 190-191
Ohio, Negro question in con
stitutional convention of,
51; in the legislature of
1804, 51; black laws of,
51-53'; protest against Ne
groes, 57
Oklahoma, Negroes in, 144;
discouraged by early settlers
of, 144^145
Ordinance of 1784 rejected, 4
Ordinance of 1787 passed, 4;
meaning of sixth article of,
4, 5; reasons for the pas
sage of, 5; did not at first
disturb slavery, 8; construc
tion of, 8-9, 13
Otis, James, on natural rights,
1
Pacific Eailroad, proposal to
build, with refugee labor,
113
Palmyra, race prejudice of,
42
Pelham, Eobert A., father of,
moved to Detroit, 27, 97
Penn, WilUam, advocate of
emancipation, 20
Pennsylvania, effort in, to
force free Negroes to sup
port their dependents, 42;
effort to prevent immigra
tion of Negroes, 42; in

crease in the population of
free Negroes of, 42; peti
tions to rid the State of
Negroes by colonization, 45 ;
era of good feeling in, 40;
exterminated slavery, 2; the
migration of freedmen JErom
North Carolina to, 21; Ne
gro suffrage in, 40; passed
laws against Negro me
chanics, 84; successful Ne
groes of, 88-90
Peonage, a cause of migra
tion, 154
Philadelphia, Negroes rush to,
24; race friction of, 44;
woman of color stoned to
death, 44; Negro church
disturbed, 44 ; reaction
against Negroes, 44; riots
in, 45—48; successful Ne
groes of, 88-90; property
owned by Negroes, 89
Pierce, E. S., plan for hand
ling refugees in South Car
olina, 102
Pinchback, P. B. S., return
of, from Ohio to Louisiana
to enter politics, 125
Pittman, Philip, account of
West, of, 7
Pittsburgh, friends of fugi
tives in, 30; Negro of, mar
ried to French woman, 12;
kind treatment of refugees,
12 ; respectable mulatto
woman married to a sur
geon of Nantes, 12; riot in,
47
Piatt, William, a lumber mer
chant, 87
Political power, not to be the
only aim of the migrants,
181; the mistakes of such
a policy, 181-183
Politics, a cause of unrest,
153
Pollard, N. W., agent of the
Government of Trinidad,

Index

219

sought Negroes in the
United States, 78
Portsmouth, friends of fugi
tives of, 30
Portsmouth, Ohio, mob of,
drives Negroes out, 57;
progressive Negroes of, 92
Prairie du Eocher, slaves of, 6
Pxess comments on sending
Negroes to Africa, 148-150
Puritans, not much interested
in the Negro, 19
Quakers, promoted the move
ment of the blacks to West
ern territory, 18-38; in the
mountains assisted fugi
tives, 34
Eace prejudice, the effects of,
82-83 ; among laboring
classes, 82-84
Eandolph, John, a coloniza
tionist, 63; sought to settle
his slaves in Mercer County,
Ohio, 26
Eeaction against the Negro,
20
Eeconstruction, promoted to
an extent bv Negro natives
of North, l23
Eedpath, James, interest of,
in colonization. 80
Eefueees assembled in camps,
105-106; in West, 106; in
Washington, 156; in South,
106; exodus of, to the
North, 112; fear that they
would overrun the North,
113; development of, 116;
vagrancy at close of war,
117-118
Eenault, Philip Francis, im
ported slaves, 6
Eesolutions of the Vicksburg
Convention bearing on the
exodus to Kansas, 136-137
Ehode Island exterminated
slavery, 2

Eichards, Benjamin, a wealthy
Negro of Pittsburgh, 90
Eichard, Fannie M., a success
ful teacher in Detroit, 97-
98
EUey, William H., a well-to-
do bootmaker, 90
Eingold, Thomas, advertise
ment of, for a slave in the
West, 11
Eochester, friends of fugi
tives in, 30
Saint John, Governor^ aid of,
to the Negroes in Kansas,
141
Sandy Lake, Negro settlement
in, 24
Saunders of Cabell County,
Virginia, sent manumitted
slaves to Cass County, Mich
igan, 28
Saxton, General Eufus, plan
for handling refugees in
South Carolina, 102
Scotch-Irish Presbyterians,
favorable to fugitives, 31
Scott, Henry, owner of a pick
ling business, 87
Scroggs, Wm. O., referred to
as authority on interstate
migration, 121
Segregation, a cause of migra
tion, 167
Shelby County, Ohio, Negroes
in, 24
Sierra Leone, Negroes of, set
tled in Jamaica, 79
Simmons, W. J., returned
from Pennsylvania to Ken
tucky, 124
Singleton, Moses, leader of the
exodus from Kansas, 135
Sixth Article of Ordinance of
1787, 4-5
Slave Code in Louisiana, 7
Slavery in the Northwest, 5,
6, 7; slavery in Indiana, 5;
slavery of whites, 5

220

Index

Slaves, mingled freely with
their masters in early West,
7
Smith, Gerrit, effort to col
onize Negroes in New York,
8'6-87
Smith, Stephen, a lumber mer
chant, 89
South Carolina, slavery con
sidered profitable there, 2
South, change of attitude of,
toward the Negro, 185;
drastic laws against vag
rancy, 121-123
Southern States divided on
the Negro, 32-33
Spears, Noah, sent his manu
mitted slaves to Greene
County, Ohio, 27
Starr, Frederick, comment of,
on the refugees, 113
Steubenville, successful Ne
groes of, 91
Still, William, a coal mer
chant, 89-90
St. Philippe, slaves of, 6
Success of Negro migrants,
8'1-101
Suffrage of the Negroes in the
colonies, 39-^0
Tappan, Arthur, attacked by
New Tork mob, 41
Tappan, Lewis, attacked by
New Tork mob, 48
Terrorism, a cause of migra
tion, 177
Texas, drain of laborers to,
120; proposed colony of
Negroes there, 66
Thomas, General, opened farms
for refugees, 106
Thompson, A. V., a taUor, 96
Thompson, C. M., comment on
'freedmen's vagrancy, 118
Topp, W. H., a merchant
tailor, 82
Trades unions, attitude of, to
ward Negro labor, 190-192

Trinidad, the exodus of Ne
groes to, 77-88; Negroes
from Philadelphia settled
there, 78
Turner, Bishop H. M., inter
ested in sending Negroes to
Africa, 157
Upper and Lower Camps of
Brown County, Ohio, Ne
groes of, 25
Upper Louisiana, conditions
of, 7; conditions of slaves
in, 7
Unrest of the Negroes in the
South after Eeconstruction,
126-130; causes of, 127-129,
130; credit system a cause,
132; land system a cause,
131 ; further unrest of in
telligent Negroes, 152, 153
Utica, mob of, attacked anti-
slavery leaders, 48
Vagrancy of Negroes after
emancipation, 117-119; dras
tic legislation against, 121-
123
Vermont, exterminated slav
ery, 2
Vicksburg, Convention of, to
stop the Exodus, 135
Viner, M., mentioned slave
settlements in West, 6
Virginia, disfranchisement of
Negroes in, 39 ; Quakers of,
promoting the migration of
the Negroes, 18-19; reac
tion in, 2; refugees in, 106
Vorhees, Senator D. W., of
fered a resolution in Senate
inquiring into the exodus
to Kansas, 138
Washington, Judge Bushrod,
a colonizationist, 63
Washington, D,. C, refugees
in, 105; the migration of
Negro politicians to, 160

Index

221

-wattles, Augustus, settled with
Negroes in Mercer County,
Ohio, 25-26
Watts, steam engine and the
industrial revolution, 2
Wayne County, Indiana, freed
men settled in, 23
Webb, William, interest of,
in colonization, 79
Wenyam, James, ran away to
the West, 11
West Indies, attractive to free
Negroes, 68
West Virginia, exodus of Ne
groes to, 146
White, David, led a company
of Negroes to the North
west, 22-23
White, J. T., left Indiana to
enter politics in Arkansas,
124

-Whites of South refused to
work, 127-128
Whitfield, James M., interest
of, in colonization, 79
Whitney's cotton gin and the
industrial revolution, 2
-Wickham, executor of Samuel
Gist, settled Gist's Negroes
in Ohio, 25
Wilberforce University estab
lished at a slave settlement,
27
Wilcox, Samuel T., a mer
chant of Cincinnati, 95
Tankees, comment of, on Ne
gro labor, 115-116
Tork, Negroes of, 24; trouble
with the Negroes of, 44

3 9002 00461 3262

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