African American Westward Migration
Carol Petett
Taylor Allderdice High School
Overview
Rationale
Objectives
Strategies
Classroom Activities
Annotated Bibliography/Resources
Appendices
Standards
Overview
The
history of the United States is a history of people on the move. Early explorers
came looking for wealth in the form of trade and the establishment of trade
routes. Others came seeking
adventure and wealth and claimed vast expanses of land for their king. The
ownership of land meant power and wealth to their regents in Europe.
Settlers came for religious and economic freedoms.
They cleared the land for farming and built their towns and cities along
the seacoasts and great waterways of this vast land.
As the farmland and towns along the seacoast filled with people the march
continued inland. The quest for new land and the promise of “a better day”
that came with it encouraged people to pursue their dreams and journey westward.
Mountains were crossed, land was cleared of timber, crops were planted, and new
towns were established. The frontier lands were pushed farther west, wealth land
and new transportation systems were developed to aid settlers in their conquest
of the next frontier. The barrier
was mountains, rivers and desert sometimes it was people. Two groups of people
were not included in large numbers in this westward expansion and sometimes
overlooked were, Native Americans, who stood in the way of this prosperity and
African slaves. Neither of these
groups was considered part of the quest for land ownership. Native Americans were forced from their homes to make way for
newly arriving people. The African
slave was thought to remain in his current station in life with no consideration
given to land ownership since this was to remain the domain of free men only.
However, the story of these people of color is often overlooked when
reading the history of migration in the American West. People of African descent
have been a part of western migration and settlement of this country since its
earliest beginnings and no true history of western migration can be written
without including them. This curriculum unit will look at these people and the
factors that led to their migration. This
unit will focus particular attention on Kansas and the migration of the
“exodusters” after Reconstruction.
Rationale
Section
1 of Indiana’s 1850 Constitution read: “No Negro or mulatto shall come into
or settle in the State after the adoption of this Constitution.
To
begin the study of African people in the Americas we must begin with early
explorations to the continent. The
Spanish were the first group of Europeans to arrive and stay in the Americas.
The first of these early explorers was Christopher Columbus who sailed to the
Americas in 1492. In that group
were a number of Africans, their names lost to history, who sailed with Columbus
on his explorations to the new world. Blacks
accompanied Balboa in 1513 to the Pacific and were with Cortez when he defeated
the Aztecs in Mexico. They were
also with Pizarro when he conquered Peru and they also helped build St.
Augustine, America’s oldest city.
The
best known of these Africans, was Estevanico, who accompanied Father Marcos de
Niza’s expedition to look for the Seven Cities of Gold in what is now the
American Southwest. The Indians had never seen a black person and were intrigued
by the color of his skin and thought he possessed some special powers. The
Spanish soon exploited this and encouraged the belief that Estevanico was a
medicine man. He was then able to
develop a special relationship with the natives and was usually the person
responsible for communicating with them. In his role as scout for the expedition
and chief communicator he was able to determine what roads to follow as the
expedition moved into the interior of the southwest looking for the Seven Cities
of Gold. Estevanico was sent ahead
of the expedition and told to send crosses back to the main part of the
expedition indicating how close he was to the Seven Cities of Gold.
The size of the crosses was to indicate how close he was to Cobola.
Estevanico sent the crosses back to the expedition every few days with
the size of the crosses getting bigger and bigger.
Word reached the expedition that Estevanico was being well received by
the Indians and received gifts of gold and turquoise. One day the crosses
stopped arriving at the expedition and no word came for several weeks. Finally and Indian from Estevanico’s party arrived back to
Father Marcos to say that Estevanico and all the members of his party had been
killed by another group of hostile Indians as they were nearing Cibola.
Father Marcos and his expedition left and returned to Mexico.
Cibola was never found.
Blacks
also accompanied French explorers to the new world.
In 1765, Jean Batiste Pointe du Sable, a black man educated in Paris,
came to New France and built a trading post at the mouth of the Chicago River.
This trading post included a forty foot long house, bake house, dairy and
smoke house went on to become the city of Chicago.
With
the purchase of the Louisiana Territory from the French, then President Thomas
Jefferson ordered an exploration of the territory by Lewis and Clark.
York, the personal servant and slave of Captain William Clark,
accompanied Lewis and Clark on the expedition that opened up the west for
settlement. York proved invaluable
as a hunter, explorer, trader and scout. He
also, along with Sacajawea acted as an interpreter for the party.
At the end of the two and a half year expedition York received his
freedom.
Although
the majority of blacks were slaves many who found their way into states outside
of the south were free people. These people received their freedom in a variety
of ways some escaped from bondage and made their way to free territories.
Their owners through wills manumitted some slaves, while others purchased
their freedom. Although, no longer enslaved and considered free men they did not
enjoy equal treatment under the law. Free people could not testify in court
against a white person not could they vote.
Many had obtained a skill while enslaved but found that as free men they
could not work in the skilled trades and were relegated to the lowest category
of jobs.
Some
states did not allow blacks to take up residence within their borders.
The state of Ohio, in 1807, passed a law requiring that blacks furnish a
bond in the amount of five hundred dollars as a guarantee of good conduct when
they entered the state. The state
of Illinois required blacks to post a bond of $1000.00, Indiana’s Constitution
of 1851 forbade blacks from living there. In
the state of Ohio this law was rarely enforced, nor was it always enforced in
the other states. However, once
these laws became known blacks fleeing slavery did not tarry long in these
places hoping to find whites sympathetic to them, they continued to move on
looking for some place where they could enjoy a higher degree of freedom.
Often this quest for freedom took them west.
James
Beckwourth, a black frontiersman, was considered one of the most Famous Indian
fighters of his generation. Originally
from St. Louis, he escaped slavery at age 19 and learned the life of a
frontiersman. In 1850 Beckwourth
discovered a pass through the Sierra Nevada Mountains that became an important
gateway to California during the Gold Rush.
After
the fur trappers and frontiers men came the settlers.
In 1833 a party of 385 free men, women and children left the Roanoke
River Valley of Virginia for land in Ohio. Senator John Randolph, of Virginia,
had freed his slaves and bequeathed land to them in Ohio.
However, upon reaching Ohio these newly freed people discovered that
Randolph’s heirs had swindled them of their land.
Some in the party chose to stay in Ohio with the help of white settlers
in the area, while others continued their trek west to Indiana.
For
much of the nineteenth century African Americans viewed the west as a place of
economic opportunity and a refuge from racial restrictions. In 1833, at the Third Annual Convention for the Improvement
of the Free People of Color, which met in Philadelphia, emigration to Mexican
Texas was endorsed over emigration back to Africa. The delegates subscribed to the popular belief of the time
that the west could offer a new start for anyone. (1)
As
the frontier continued to move westward, blacks moved west as well, although not
in the great numbers of other groups migrating westward. Many slaves walked
alongside their masters as they made their way west. When Mexico offered Texas
land to Americans slaveholders and their slaves followed Steven Austin.
Slaves served as cowhands and rode cattle trains to Kansas.
Other
blacks rode into Texas as free men with the promise to start life a new with the
offer of free land. Blacks also
fought in the war for Texas independence and received free land for their
services. However, once Texas
joined the Union as a slave state the black men that fought for independence
were quickly forgotten. Some of
these men lost their land, and found their rights restricted.
Their presence was no longer wanted in the land they had helped to
defend.
In
1844, a free black man by the name of George Washington Bush, who had fought at
the Battle of New Orleans with Andrew Jackson, and a group of white companions
found their way to the Columbia River Valley in the Oregon Territory.
His group soon received word that Oregon had instituted black exclusion
laws restricting the movement of blacks within and to the state.
The law stated that any black person entering Oregon Territory would be
whipped and forced to leave. Bush’s companions came to his defense and said
they would fight to protect him, as a result the law was not carried out.
Bush
and his companions became the first American settlers north of the Columbia
River. Although, the law in Oregon
forbid blacks from homesteading Bush’s friend, Colonel Michael Simmons, a
member of the Oregon Legislature had Congress pass a special act granting Bush
640 acres of land.
Bush
and his family went on to become prominent and one of the leading pioneers of
Oregon and Washington, Bush Prairie is named after him. (2)
The
California Gold Rush brought both slaves and free men into the gold fields.
Slaves were brought to help with the work in the gold fields, while
freemen came looking to strike it rich. Both
black and white prospectors worked the gold fields of California side by side
and initially encountered little difficulty.
By 1855 California’s black population had amassed enough wealth to make
it the wealthiest black community in the country.
With this wealth came churches and schools to educate and see to the
spiritual needs of its members.
The
cities of San Francisco and Sacramento became the political centers for middle
class blacks in California. These
two cities also served as seaports for blacks going into the gold fields of
California. Gold miners came to
these cities for entertainment and to retire or seek employment after their time
in the gold mines.
Blacks
served as stewards on riverboats, barbers, laundry workers, cooks and some went
into business for themselves. By
1854 in San Francisco there were two black-owned joint stock companies, four
boot and shoe stores, four clothing stores, two furniture stores, sixteen
barbershops and two bathhouses.
Middle
class blacks lived throughout the city and created institutions that brought
people of color together from all parts of the city.
Churches grew and provided both spiritual and social support for members
of the community. Out of this
institution self-help groups were formed to assist new comers and encourage
others to migrate to California.
Black
Californians held the first of four statewide Colored Conventions beginning in
1855 with the last held in 1865. These
all-male conventions were designed to present grievances and promote black
success. These conventions had
their roots in the first such convention held in Philadelphia in 1817.
By the 1830’s smaller conventions had been held in Ohio, Michigan and
Illinois. Although these California
conventions show- cased black political sophistication and success they were
convened to address problems which continued to exist in the black communities.
One of the biggest problems for the community was the testimony law.
Under this law a black person still could not prosecute a white person in
a court of law unless another white person witnessed that a crime had been
committed.
The
Conventions of 1856 and 1857 addressed the Testimony Law.
The 1857 Convention condemned the U.S. Land Office’s prohibition on
black homesteading of public lands and protested the exclusion of black children
from public schools in rural areas. When
the Democratic controlled state legislature refused to do away with the
testimony law and threatened to outlaw black migration to the state over four
hundred blacks migrated to British Columbia in 1858 in protest.
However,
black San Franciscans continued to fight for voting rights and repeal of the
testimony law. By 1862 they formed
the Franchise League that was led by Mary Pleasant, a former slave from Georgia.
The Franchise League was able to gather over five hundred signatures from
both blacks and whites opposing the testimony law. These petitions were then
submitted to the state legislature. In
1863 the California Legislature repealed the anti-black provisions of the
testimony law and had removed discriminatory barriers to education.
After
the Emancipation Proclamation was issued blacks in California’s largest cities
began to take a more visible role in the general community. (3)
Kansas
was the only other western state to have a significant number of free blacks
prior to 1865. During the 1850’s,
small groups of abolitionists from the East had set up Underground Railroad
stations. One of these men was John
Brown who lived for a brief period of time in Kansas. Brown led a group of men
called the Jayhawkers who raided for slaves in Missouri and led them to freedom
across the border. By 1865 over 12,000 blacks were living in Kansas making up 9%
of the population. Lawrence, Kansas
was the best-advertised anti-slavery town in the world.
Upon
Kansas’ admission to the Union in 1861, the state legislature selected as one
of its Senators James H. Lane, a staunch abolitionist. Lane made as his immediate goal to defend Kansas from the
secessionist state Missouri by raising a regiment of twelve hundred troops.
These troops were ordered to march in to southwest Missouri in 1861.
News of this encouraged fugitive slaves to seek out his camp near
Springfield. Without authorization
from above he enlisted fugitives into his command and ordered women and children
to Kansas to save the crop and provide fuel for the winter.
These fugitives, Lane declared as free.
When word of this spread other fugitives followed to Kansas.
By the end of the Civil War Missouri’s slave population had decreased
greatly while Kansas’ free black population had increased to over 12,000. (4)
Before
the close of the Civil War northern teachers, both black and white made their
way to the south and began the task of teaching slaves who had been denied the
right to read and write. By 1865
when southern slaves received their freedom, northern religious organizations,
along with the Freedmen’s Bureau began to organize schools in the south.
Many freedmen had gained some hold on literacy, served in the army and
wanted to enjoy the rights of free men and pushed for the right to vote. Older
people wanted to learn to read the bible. Dozens
of colleges and universities were established throughout the south in the
1860’s and 1870’s. The primary
purpose of these schools was to educate black students to become teachers so
that they could in turn educate other blacks.
The
Civil War ended with the defeat of the Confederacy and the preservation of the
Union. The Thirteenth Amendment
abolished slavery, which had existed for over two hundred fifty years, was
ratified on January 31, 1865 by twenty-seven states and declared in effect on
December 18, 1865.
By
December 1865 four million slaves were free.
What did freedom mean to them? Freedom
meant labor could produce income for the laborer not for the master.
Freedom meant that families need no longer fear being sold away from one
another. Freedom meant no more whippings.
Freedom meant land to own, live on and cultivate.
As with all other Americans in the nineteenth century, land ownership
meant economic security. But ownership of land would not come easy to former
slaves.
The
number of blacks and whites suffering extreme privations after the war was
immense. The task of providing for all these people was overwhelming.
Congress created the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned
Lands—called the Freedmen’s Bureau at the end of the war.
It was created as a temporary agency to assist freedmen to make the
transition to freedom but also gave aid to whites suffering the ravages of war.
The Bureau had never been adequately staffed to take care of the needs of
so many people. The Bureau built
temporary housing for the homeless, fed the hungry and cared for the sick and
orphans. Millions of rations were
distributed and medical care was given to people both black and white suffering
from small pox, yellow fever and cholera. There
were many people left unattended. The bureau was also given the task of helping
the freedmen obtain land; gain an education; negotiate labor contracts with
white planters; settle legal and criminal disputes involving black and white
people; provide food, medical care and transportation for both black and white
people left destitute from the war.
General
Howard took the task of land distribution quite seriously. In July 1865, General
Howard issued Circular 13 ordering agents of the Freedmen’s Bureau to set
aside forty-acre sites for freedmen. His
order, however, did not have the effect of law and so was never instituted.
In spite of that many blacks did make claims to land under squatters
rights. Their claim was based on
the belief that since they had worked the land and not enjoyed the fruits of
their labors under slavery that now as freemen they had the right to those
fruits. (5)
By
1865 it appeared that President Johnson had abandoned the freedmen and their
future would be in the hands of their former masters. Andrew Johnson became President after Lincoln’s
assassination. At the end of the
war began to pardon thousands of former Confederates and returned their land to
them. Johnson, himself a slave
owner, was convinced that blacks were inferior beings and could not govern
themselves. He had lost his enthusiasm for punishing the southern states.
In May 1865 he granted amnesty to former Confederates willing to swear
allegiance to the United States. Southern
confederates who had been leaders, prior to the Civil War, were encouraged to
return to their positions of authority. These
leaders called constitutional conventions, held elections and prepared to regain
their place in the Union. Johnson’s
only request was that each Confederate state formally accept the Thirteenth
Amendment and repudiate Confederate war debts. The Freedmen felt that this land
given to them under Special Field Order # 15 should remain theirs to keep and
cultivate since they had worked and cultivated this land under slavery with no
compensation. They also felt that
land ownership was the only way they could be free from the oppression they had
suffered under slavery.
Radical
Republicans felt that black men had to protect themselves and protect the
Republican Party in the south and the only way to do this would be through
suffrage. In 1866 Senator Lyman
Trumball a moderate Republican from Illinois introduced the first civil rights
bill in American history. This
proposal made any person born in the United States a citizen (except Indians)
and entitled them to rights protected by the U.S. government.
Black people would possess the same legal rights as white people.
The Fourteenth Amendment was passed.
Its passage forced states to accept their residents as citizens and to
guarantee that their rights as citizens be safeguarded.
By
1867 Radical Republicans had taken control of Reconstruction from President
Johnson and their policies brought black men into the political system and
political offices.
The
First Reconstruction Act was passed over Johnson’s veto in 1867.
It divided the south into five military districts, each under the command
of a general. Military personnel would protect lives and property while new
civilian governments were formed.
The
Reconstruction Act stated that all adult males in the former Confederacy were
eligible to vote except for those who had actively supported the Confederacy.
Reconstruction
after the war created a new order in the South. This new order was different
socially, politically and to a lesser extent economically for blacks in the
south. Black men not only became
involved in the political process and voted in elections they were also elected
to political office. With their
political involvement they began to think of their own interests.
Often these interests conflicted with the interests of whites in the
south. Whites who did not favor the
new order in the south set about recapturing their political power from the
Republicans. White southerners did not take kindly to the new political and
economic power of former slaves. They
could not accept blacks as having the ability to vote and participate in
government or to hold elected positions, and continued to see blacks as free
labor. Southern whites felt they could and had the right to manipulate the
political outcome in the south and revert back to the conditions prior to the
war, with blacks supplying free labor. When
the effort to control political elections failed, violence, again escalated.
To
help them return to power the former confederates held new state constitutional
conventions. These conventions gave
no consideration to blacks in the political system as stated by the newly
Amendments in the Constitution nor did these newly drafted state constitutions
guarantee their equal rights under the law.
After
the elections in the southern states and the return to office of local
officials, the legislatures of these states convened and drafted the “black
codes”. The purpose of these
black codes was to guarantee a subservient labor class, much like the old
plantation system. Blacks had to
sign labor contracts with whites for unspecified periods of time.
Black children as young as age two were to be apprenticed to whites to
age 21 years and their duties and obligations were to be spelled out in the
contracts.
In
Mississippi, State Black Codes of 1865 made it illegal to sell or lease land to
blacks.
For
the most part these newly freed men felt they were returning to the plantation
system they lived under prior to the war. Now
after the war they found that although free they had only their labor as farmers
to sustain them and they would have to return to farming to support themselves
and their families. Although they
could now enter into contracts with whites to do work the system of land usage
developed would keep them poor and guaranteed to increase their debt each year.
Undermanned
and understaffed by 1866 the Freedmen’s Bureau was encouraging blacks to sign
labor contracts with white landowners. Eventually
these labor contracts would once again put blacks under white authority with the
contracts usually referring to blacks as servants and whites as masters.
If a freedman refused to sign a contract he could be arrested.
These contracts were theoretically between two equals, however, they were
seldom fair since blacks were not considered the equal of whites.
Thus new systems of land management developed.
One was share cropping, the other was the crop lien system both of these
proved to be no better for blacks than the plantation system that existed prior
to the war. Under the system of share cropping, farmers were to work the land of
the landowner with the landowner providing the seed, and tools for the crop.
For this the sharecropper was to repay the landowner for the use of his
tools, seed and animals once the crop, usually cotton, had been gathered.
The
division of the cotton crop and the rent depended on sharing. One half of the crop went to the furnisher of the
capital—land implements, mules—and one half for the laborer. In other areas of the south especially in Mississippi the
division was based on a rough one thirds basis. One third of the crop went to the planter, one third to the
laborer, and a third to whoever furnished the implements and the mules.
The prices for cotton did not take into consideration the fluctuating
prices of cotton in the market, the price was fixed and non negotiable.
Planters usually owned stores that sold goods to farmers on credit at
higher costs and on credit. Men
were sent into the fields by the planters to determine how good the cotton crop
would be that year and set the bills owed the store based on the anticipated
cotton harvest. As a result most of
these small cotton farmers could not get out of debt.
No matter what the market price for cotton it was never paid to the
farmer. Prices remained fixed
according to custom. When the price
of cotton increased farmers did not share in the good times and never realized a
profit and could not get out of debt or put money aside to buy land. Furthermore, when the market price of cotton dropped
too much the planter simply raised the price of goods sold to the farmer from
his store that supplied the goods needed by the farmer not related to farming.
Before
the farmer could determine how much money he made for the year he had to gin his
cotton land pay for it. Rents were based on cotton being picked, ginned and
wrapped. Tenants were forced to gin
their cotton at the landlord’s gin, at the landlord’s rates.
Farmers complained that if they did attempt to have their cotton ginned
other than at the landlord’s gin for better prices they did so at risk to
their life and their family, or whipped.
In
the crop lien system, the farmer took out loans to finance his crop.
The agreement stated that money taken out in the form of a loan would be
paid back at the time the crop, usually cotton, had been harvested and ginned.
The loan maker also extended credit for other goods as well. The prices for goods to the tenant farmer were high and kept
the amount of credit extended high. The
merchant worked with the landowner to control the price paid for crop and saw
that the amount extended for credit increased.
If the tenant did not extend his own credit the store merchant would
extend it for him. If the tenant
refused or argued about his debt he would find himself in worse shape the
following year with no one willing to extend him credit at all. In this way by
keeping the costs of production up and extending credit while keeping the price
of the crop low the farmer would never get out from debt.
No matter how hard he worked.
Exorbitant
rents for land and this crop-lien system were developed to guarantee that a
cheap form of labor would to continue to exist in the south.
Cotton was still the main crop farmed in the south.
Growing cotton was extremely labor intensive a person renting land,
usually a part of the former plantation, could count only the members of his
immediate family as his work force. As
a result, the total number of acres rented was
small.
The amount paid in rent was usually figured in pounds of cotton per acre.
Fourteen
years after the end of the Civil War black landownership in Mississippi was
nearly nonexistent. The dreams of
the freedman to own his own home and land continued to exist as determined as
the freedmen were to own their own land, the southern plantation owner was as
determined that the freedmen should return to the status they held prior to the
war, a cheap form of labor under the old plantation system
This they called “Redemption” because they saw themselves redeeming
their south from Negroes. The period of “Redemption” was a long process that began
in the early 1870’s.
On
the other hand with blacks gaining citizenship, the right to vote and legal
rights freedmen began to make additional demands and expectations of government.
These freedmen demonstrated an independence and fearlessness that showed
that they knew the difference from being slaves and freedmen willing to take
care of them. These freedmen wanted
to take care of themselves and their families and act in their own interests.
Black laborers were usually paid less than their white counterparts for
the same job this led to labor unrest in the 1860’s and 1870’s with men
calling for sit-down strikes demanding same pay for same work.
Black longshoremen in Mobile, and New Orleans walked off the job in 1867.
In 1869 the Colored National Labor Union was organized for black
longshoremen.
As
freedmen became educated they would demand respect and not step aside for their
former white masters and submit to the old plantation system.
This new freedman was often seen as insolent and was dealt with by
violence. Violence continued to
escalate throughout the south with the Freedmen’s Bureau either reluctant or
unable to do anything to stop it. Most
Union troops had been removed from the south and protection of these newly freed
people was left to the local authorities, which meant that their protection
could not be guaranteed. Much of
the violence stemmed from the frustration many southerners felt by their loss of
the war and loss of a way of life based on free labor.
Now, unable to resume their life, as it had existed prior to the war they
turned their frustration into rage and directed to the cause of all their
problems—freedmen.
A
number of forces began to emerge that would lead to the “exodusters
movement”. One of these emerging
forces resulted from the frustration felt by the white planter class with blacks
who no longer knew their place. Many
former Confederates were still convinced that blacks were incapable of governing
themselves and working as wage earners. They
blamed their own fall from grace on the freedmen and were determined to return
to status quo prior to the war with blacks once again supplying a cheap form of
labor, as slaves, on plantations. The Ku Klux Klan was formed and would use
violence, intimidation, and fear to return to those days.
The
Klan was founded in Pulaski, Tennessee in 1866. Originally it was a social club
for former confederates and drew its members from all levels of southern society
from businessmen to poor farmers. Its
popularity, initially as a social group of former Confederates soon spread
across state lines. As it grew in
popularity, its philosophy changed as well and the Klan concentrated its
attention on re-establishing the old order.
The Klan emerged in rural areas where blacks were a large minority and
their vote could affect the outcome of elections. Wearing hoods and masks the Klan, or” nightriders”, used
fear to keep blacks in their place. Acts of violence, or bulldozing, usually
took place at night with Klan members in hoods, carrying torches and armed. If
fear did not work the Klan would use threats.
The burning of someone’s property often followed these threats. If
these failed the Klan would embark on a campaign of terror and violence against
supporters, both black and white, of the Republican Party.
Usually some form of corporal punishment such as a whipping, tar and
feathering, or lynching would be used. Needless to say these acts of violence
greatly reduced support for the Republicans and eliminated its leaders.
As
acts of violence by the Klan escalated laws were passed against it these laws
were difficult to enforce with many members of the local sheriff’s office and
deputies being members of the Klan. Also, since Klan members wore hoods it was
often difficult to identify them in court and because of fear and violence
people were too afraid to testify against them in court.
Blacks were not able to receive justice in the courts against the Klan.
By
the mid 1870’s both Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner are dead.
These two men had become the spokesmen for blacks in the Congress.
Also, the north was no longer interested in the Negro problem.
The north was immersed in an expanding economy, urban growth,
industrialization and the problems each brought with it. The Negro problem was
now seen as a regional problem best left to the south. After all, a war had been
fought and many died it was now time to move beyond the Negro problem and look
to healing the nation as a whole.
The
nation was not just experiencing the urban sprawl and industrialization of its
urban cities but was expanding westward as well.
With the Homestead Act of 1862, which offered 160 acres to anyone willing
to move west, and the building of the railroad into the west the country’s
concerns had grown beyond the territorial issues of the Civil War.
By
the end of the war thousands of freedmen are returning home looking for family
members who had moved from the plantations.
Two of these men go on to play prominent roles in the exodus of blacks to
Kansas. One of these men was Henry
Adams; the other was Benjamin “pap” Singleton.
Henry
Adams was from Caddo Parrish, Louisiana where he functioned as a faith healer,
“doctor”, and peddler. At the
end of the Civil War, Adams joined the army and was stationed in New Orleans,
Louisiana where he saw first hand the ill treatment blacks experienced by
whites. While in the army he
learned to read and write. Upon his
discharge from the army he returned to Shreveport, Louisiana where he found that
the conditions for blacks that existed prior to his entry into the army had not
much changed.(5)
The
fact that Adams was literate worked to his advantage within the freedmen’s
community. He and other discharged
black soldiers now could help black tenant farmers by reading over the work
contracts they had signed with whites to make sure they were not cheated out of
their wages. The fact that these
farmers now had people advocating for them did not sit well with the former
plantation owners who saw black soldiers as a threat to their attempt to return
blacks to a condition of forced labor.
After
five years of freedom and continued violence, intimidation and harassment
directed against the freedmen’s community a group of black ex soldiers,
including Henry Adams, formed a secret society called “the Council” or
“Committee”. Its’ main
purpose was to collect information on the condition of black people in
Louisiana. The Council collected information from 1870 to 1874 and by 1875
called for the federal government to aid blacks in their migration to Liberia.
The “Council” also helped freedmen vote in the election of 1870 by
distributing information on how to vote and informing freedmen of the
differences between the Republicans and Democrats.
The” Council” favored the Republican Party in the election of 1870
and made this fact well known to the freedmen.
The freedmen were educated to the fact that the old plantation masters
and members of the Confederacy belonged to the Democratic Party who saw the
freedman as slaves still, to be controlled and manipulated both politically and
economically by once again providing the south with a system of free labor.
To
counter the actions of Henry Adams’ “The Council” whites organized the
“White League” and redoubled their acts of violence against black men of
prominence. Black men were targeted
as troublemakers and targeted with death others employed in the community by
white landowners lost their jobs overnight and sometimes their property and
their lives.
The
situation in Louisiana had become so out of control that the Republican governor
in 1874, requested federal troops to help curb the violence directed against
blacks in Northern Louisiana. The
Council and Henry Adams also sent an accompanying letter along with Republican
Governor William Pitt Kellogg’s letter stating first hand acts of violence
against freedmen. The federal
troops were sent and, although, acts of violence did not completely stop their
numbers and in some cases level of violence did diminish.
In
1875 the Council with delegates from a number of states met in New Orleans.
Henry Adams accompanied a group of ministers and helped influence its direction.
Groups of delegates from Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana were argued the
case for black migration to other states. However,
Adams argued for migration to Liberia, but argued further that migration out of
the south was imperative to the survival of black people. But many at the
conference did not think enough time had passed to support such a massive
migration and felt that more time was needed to get the south accustomed to the
idea of blacks as wage earners. As a result the final outcome of this first
conference
was
for the delegates to return home and work for the election of Republicans and
blacks to political office.
The
election of 1877 was demoralizing to freedmen in the south with the Democrats
winning victory after victory and taking over the state government.
To show the degree of hopelessness rampant amongst freedmen in the south,
a petition was sent to the President of the United States asking the federal
government to either help the freedmen migrate to territories within the states
or to help provide safe passage for blacks to Liberia.
Additional correspondence from Adams and the group in Louisiana took
place with the Colonization Council, led by john H.B. Latrobe, which had helped
small numbers of people migrate back to Liberia over the years.
But by this time the people of Louisiana were not the only people
thinking of migrating from the south. The
Colonization Council received letters requesting assistance from throughout the
south asking its help for large numbers of people to leave the south and
redemption. The demand for help was
overwhelming as was the need for money. Migration
to Liberia was not to be.
Along
with the lack of money Henry Adams became ill and was no longer seen as the
central rallying point for migration to Liberia and Yellow Fever struck in one
Louisiana town after another making communication between towns impossible. The
people of Louisiana had to look for answers to their problems in the newly
redeemed south elsewhere.
Benjamin
“pap” Singleton was seventy years old in 1879 and had grown old in slavery.
He had escaped slavery and had been returned to slavery a number of times
in his youth. Eventually, he
escaped to Canada where he remained for a short time. He was never in the army
as was Henry Adams as he was too old for military service.
After the Civil War Singleton returned to Nashville, Tennessee where he
was to carry out his calling from God which he saw as leading black people out
of the former slave states.
Unlike
Adams, Singleton did not see the need for blacks to participate in voting even
though he had voted in several elections himself.
His main concern was to have black people gain economic independence
through the purchase of their own farms. He felt that through economic
independence a people could then gain and receive political might.
As early as the late 1860’s Singleton had gone on record as trying to
convince blacks to purchase their own farms, and he encouraged them to think of
Kansas as the place where those farms should be purchased.
However, in the 1860’s black people did not want to leave their homes
and families in Tennessee. After a
time it became apparent that there was very little available land in Tennessee
and that any land available was too expensive for freedmen to purchase.
In order to become economically independent it would become necessary to
buy land elsewhere, Singleton again encouraged settlements in Kansas.
By
1873, a group of families went to Kansas to look at the possibility of
homesteading there. Their report
was favorable, and Singleton himself visited Kansas in 1873 and
found that land that had been Cherokee reservations was suitable for
black homesteads. It was not until 1876 that Singleton began to make inquiries
to the governor of Kansas about blacks homesteading to Kansas. In 1877 Singleton
took out an ad in a Nashville newspaper indicating his willingness to supply
people interested in migrating to Kansas with information. In 1878 Singleton
started sending out circulars stating that if interested he would begin
escorting people to Cherokee County Kansas for the purpose of setting up
homesteads there. To
encourage further migration into Kansas he established the Edgefield Real Estate
Association and sponsored mass meetings in which he talked about the need for
blacks to become concerned with their plight both spiritually and secularly.
Throughout
1878, the Edgefield Real Estate and Homestead Association carried on its mission
of educating blacks to the advantages of migrating to Kansas.
The Association spread its word through pamphlets sent to churches,
picnics, rallies and word of mouth. The
Association also took working class black people to Kansas and incorporated the
Singleton Colony in Dunlap, Morris County Kansas in 1879.
The
exodus of blacks from the southern states of Tennessee, Louisiana and
Mississippi would grow to 40,000 people eventually.
Some of these people stayed in Kansas and established a number of
“black towns”. The oldest of
these still remaining is Nicodemus in Graham County Kansas. Other of these early “Exodusters” made there way to some
of the urban areas of Kansas. Once
in Kansas many of these homesteaders found that the good farmland had been taken
and the land left was not good for farming and so they continued to move west
with some returning to their homes in the south.
Objectives
This
paper addresses blacks as a people migrating from hardship and oppression to a
place that at least promises a better life for them.
The hope for a better life is the reason all groups of people leave their
homes whether these are groups from Eastern or Southern Europe in the nineteenth
century or “boatpeople” from Vietnam in the twentieth century all
people want the same thing which is to live in peace with his fellow man and
provide for the safety and security of his own family. By the end of this unit
students should be able to understand that the history of the United States is
also a history of the black people in this country and that the history of this
people, like the history of all Americans can not nor should it be denied or
overlooked. It is also important
that all students know of the many contributions made by people of color to the
exploration and settlement of the nation including the west.
The settlement of the nation’s west is a history that has been
romanticized, as a place of opportunity and adventure and it is important that
all students be able to share in that idea of romance, mystery and excitement
and see a face like their own looking back at them through the pages history.
Strategies
Students
will be able to define primary and secondary sources and distinguish between
primary and seconday sources. Students will also be able to evaluate primary
sources based on the criteria of time and place and bias of the source.
Critical thinking skills include the ability to define and clarify
problems, to judge information related to a problem, and to solve problems and
draw conclusions. Historical
literacy is the development of time and chronology, analyzing cause and effect,
understanding the reasons for continuity and change and recognizing history as a
common memory, with political implications. (6)
The
teacher will guide students through a general discussion what the words “
primary” and “secondary” means to them.
The teacher will lead a discussion on both primary and secondary
resources. Students will be asked to give examples of each.
The teacher will then display the definitions
of Primary and secondary resources which have been taken from the library web
site of the University of California, Berkley.(7)
In order to evaluate the sources gathered students will be given
worksheets for evaluating a source. These
worksheets will help students know what questions to ask, when grappling with
the meanings of primary sources while attempting to interpret it and place it in
its historical context.
The
questions for analyzing primary sources will include:
1.Who
is the author of the source? (name, and description if available) What are the
author’s credentials, background?
2.What
kind of source is it? Was it
created on a spur of the moment or a deliberate process?
3.Did
the recorder have firsthand knowledge of the event?
Or, did the recorder report what others saw and heard?
4.Was
the recorder a neutral party, or did the creator have opinions or interests that
might have influenced what was recorded? If
they had influences what may they have been?
5.Did
the recorder produce the source for personal use, for one or more individuals,
or for a large audience?
6.Was
the source meant to be public or private?
7.Did
the recorder wish to inform or persuade others?
(Checking the words in the source will tell you if the recorder was
trying to be objective or persuasive). Did the recorder have reasons to be
honest or dishonest?
8.When
was the source published? Was the
information recorded during the event, immediately after the event, or after
some lapse of time? How much time
elapsed? (8))
Students
may complete these questions either in groups or individually.
Once this part of the activity is completed students should return to the
list of primary sources from the University of California, Berkley list and
select primary sources of their own and evaluate them using the worksheets.
This part of the activity may also be used for evaluation.
Classroom
Activities:
After
completing the activities for analyzing primary sources through the questions
listed in the strategy section. Students
should use the computer lab and the Library of Congress American Memory
web site so they can see the original documents.
The document analysis work sheets (9), Appendix 2 and also from the
Libray of Congress, should be distributed and reviewed with the class prior to
going to the computer lab so that students are familiar with analyzing these
primary sources. They will then use
these worksheets to analyze the newspaper articles on “Bulldozing a
Postmaster”; “How Grant Killed K. K. Klanism”; “Kansas
City and Wyandotte”; and the “Report” by Major General E. R. S.
Casey Commander in Chief of the Gulf. All of these documents are found on the
“American Memory” section of the Library of Congress web site
at www.loc.gov. These
analysis sheets may be used as the basis of discussion and writing activities
and evaluation for this activity.
The
Photo Analysis Worksheets, also found in Appendix 2 should be used to analyze
the pictures from Nicodemus, Kansas. Students
should use the computer lab and the Library of Congress American Memory web site
so that students can see the original pictures along with what remains of
Nicodemus, Kansas today. Students
should also be reminded to enlarge the pictures on their computers for better
analysis. These worksheets may also
be used as the basis of discussion and writing activities as well as evaluation
for this activity.
Works Cited:
Foner,
Eric, Nothing But Freedom: Emancipation and Its Legacy (1995) Louisiana
State University Press
·
Hine, Darlene Clark, The African American Odyssey (2000) Prentice
Hall, Upper Saddle River, N.J.
·
Katz, William Loren, The Black West, (1996) Simon and Schuster
·
Katz, William Loren, Black Pioneers: An Untold Story (1998), Simon
and Schuster
·
Painter, Nell Irvin, Exodusters: Black Migration to Kansas After
Reconstruction, (1986), W. W. Norton and Company Inc
·
Quarles, Benjamin, The Negro in the Making of America, (1987),
Simon and Schuster
·
Ravage, John W., Black Pioneers: Images of the Black Experience on the
North American Frontier (1997), University of Utah Press
·
Roark, James, Masters Without Slaves: Southern Planters in the Civil
War and Reconstruction (1997), W.W. Norton and Company Inc.
·
Taylor, Quintard, In Search of the Racial Frontier: African Americans
in the American West 1528-1990 (1998) W.W. Norton and Company Inc.
·
Thompson, Era Bell, An American Daughter, (1986) Minnesota
Historical Society Press
·
http://afroamhistory.about.com/library/bllouisiana_blackcodes.htm
·
http://toptags.com/aam/docs/kkk.htm
·
www.civilwarhome.com/blackcodes.htm
·
www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/resources
·
www.arthes.com/kancrn/quindaro/nichols.html
·
http://blackhistory.harpweekly.com/7Illustrations/Reconstruction/PatenburgMassacre.htm
Notes
(1)
Hine, Darlene Clark, The African American Odyssey
(2)
Painter, Nell Irvin, Exodusters:Black Migration to Kansas After
Reconstruction
(3)
Taylor, Quintard, In Search of the Racial Frontier:African Ameicans in
the American West 1528-1990
(4)
Taylor,
Quintard, In Search of the Racial Frontier: African Americans in the American
West 1528-1990
(5)
Taylor, Quintard, In Search of the Racial
Frontier: African Americans in the American West 1528-1990
(6)
UCLA Institute on Primary Resources
http://ipr.ues.gseis.ucla.edu/classroom
(7)
The University of California, Berkley Library http://lib.Berkley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/PrimarySources.html#definitions
(8)
Questions taken from Middle Web at http://middleweb.com/index.html
(9)
Library
of Congress Learning Page www.loc.gov
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