Black Exodus of 1879 - Research Paper Example

? Black Exodus of 1879 Introduction “When I landed on the soil, I looked on the ground and I says this is free ground. Then I looked on the heavens, and I says them is free and beautiful heavens. Then I looked within my heart, and I says to myself I wonder why I never was free before?”1 The Black Exodus of 1879, often referred to as the Exoduster Movement, took place in late nineteenth century US, where there was a large-scale migration of the black Americans from southern states (primarily from regions adjoining the Mississippi River) to Kansas.2 This was the first movement of the black Americans (in large numbers) away from South, after end of the US Civil War.3 At this time, there were increasing instances of racial strife that led to widespread violence and brutal murders (of both black and white community members) in the southern states. The protection accorded to the black slaves by the Reconstruction era under Federal Bureau, disappeared with the end of Reconstruction, and with the start of the next phase known as Redemption, the former slaves became more vulnerable and were again at the mercy of their former owners.4 After the 1876 election, many of the former slaves felt unsafe and decided to migrate to other regions that were deemed safer. While some migrated towards the abolitionists states in the north-eastern regions, there were large-scale movements towards Kansas (held under Republicans and the famous John Brown). The black Americans that moved to Kansas in 1879 came to be known as the Exodusters, and their movement created a great deal of worry for the southerners and led to significant debate amongst the southern and northern states. In the black exodus of 1879, Benjamin "Pap" Singleton played a prominent role.5 During this movement, nearly forty thousand Exodusters migrated from the South and went to live in Colorado Oklahoma, and Kansas.6  The term Kansas Fever Exodus refers to the immigration of nearly six thousand former slaves to Kansas, from the southern states of Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi.7 Benjamin Singleton, at the time of the exodus, was residing in Kansas (Morris country), and he had started the demand for rights to black immigration immediately after the end of the civil war, and owing to his deep involvement in the movement he is also known as the “Father of Exodus.” There are various speculations as regards the actual cause for this sudden exodus of the black Americans from the Mississippi region towards Kansas in such large numbers. Some authors contend that this movement was primarily owing to the feeling of insecurity arising from the sudden fall in political ascendancy of the black community, after the Reconstruction era ended. Other writers feel that some of the crafty northern politicians lured these former slaves in order to garner support in the forthcoming elections. Some authors also claim that agricultural failure in 1878, a subsequent fall in labor prices, and various other external causes led to discontent amongst the black population, which ultimately made them move northwards, and search for a better and a more stable livelihood.8 Another strong influence that made many of the black Americans move to Kansas or to other parts in the north and western regions, were the news and letters detailing the prosperous conditions of some of the former slaves who had already migrated and settled in these regions, right after the civil war. In this context, the paper will now discuss the Black Exodus of 1879, and will examine the reasons and causes behind the movement. It will explore the effects of this movement, as in change of black population demographics. The paper will include notable figures that were involved in the movement while examine the opinions of various African Americans of that era about this movement. Discussion The era of reconstruction After the end of the US Civil War in 1865, the period of Reconstruction started which lasted until around 1877, when there were large-scale efforts to rebuild South on new lines and reconstruct a new image for these states. On 3rd March 1865, after passing of the Freedman Bureau’s bill, a Federal Bureau, better known as the Freedman’s Bureau, was formed in order to safeguard the rights of the black Americans and white Union loyalists. The activities of this Bureau revolved primarily around providing clothing, shelter, food, and helping in the contract negotiations for black labor, while some authors say that the bureau also promised the former slaves with “forty acres and a mule” as they ventured into their new free lives.9 There were tremendous responses from the black community towards this effort, and the former slaves used their newfound freedom to seek out their families that had been broken during the era of slave trade. Since slave marriages were not encouraged or acknowledged in the south prior to the Civil War, many from the black community now came forward to register their marriages with the Bureau. During Reconstruction, various opportunities were created for the African Americans, and soon there were a large number of thriving businesses that were owned by members from the black community. At the same time, many black oriented educational institutions were established, while there was a strong move towards political participation amongst the black American community.10 The first African American senator was elected in 1870 as the right to vote was enacted, and by 1871, there were five black American members within the House of Representatives, while in 1872, we find that P.B.S. Pinchback was elected as the first Louisiana governor with an African American descent.11 At about the same time when the Federal government was imposing the era of Reconstruction on the southern states, in 1865, the enraged southerners started retaliating against the progress observed amongst the members of the black community. This manifested into the “Black Codes,” which were legal clauses preventing the black Americans from voting, hold offices, acting as juries, carrying arms and ammunitions, owning land properties, marrying whites, along with various other similar restrictions.12 These codes had vagrancy laws under which the blacks could be arrested when perceived to be seen as sitting idle, and could be sent to work as a laborer to toil in a plantation. Here the labor laws were complex and more in favor of the white population. This is evident when we read that the white “master had the use of the apprentice's labor and the power to inflict corporal punishment to ensure work. The law allowed masters to pursue runaways and levied heavy fines against persons who interfered with apprentice obligations.”13 However, the Freedman’s bureau felt that the Black Codes were biased against the black population, and the Codes were stopped from being actually enforced. Although the Black Codes were never implemented they had a large effect on the “Jim Crow” laws that came into existence at a later stage and which had a significant role in the exodus of the black people in 1879 from the southern states. The Federal Civil Rights Act of 1866 was the last effort made by the Federal Congress to protect the rights of the former slaves. The act deemed citizenship rights to all people born in the country, irrespective of their color or race, thus allowing the blacks to own, sell and inherit properties, sign contracts, and even stand as witness in courts. The act also stated that people who did not follow the directives as set by it, could be prosecuted by the authorities under act of criminality, and would be likely to face a fine, imprisonment, or both. However, the act proved to be futile and failed to protect the blacks from attacks by terror organizations like Ku Klux Klan, and was removed in 1896, when it was appealed against and fell in the case hearing of Plessy vs. Ferguson.14 At the time of reconstruction, it was surmised that hundreds and thousands of black Americans (former slaves) were ruthlessly killed, maimed and wounded by the white southerners.15 The black women were especially unsafe during these times, and many women underwent violent sexual assaults by white men. They were unable to prove rape charges against these men, due to the prevalent social norms that viewed black women as being sexually promiscuous.16 Start of era of Redemption: After the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the Federal stand against south weakened considerably under Andrew Johnson, and southern states were made a part of the Union and they were not obliged to adhere to the basic Union principals, a criterion which had been obligatory under Lincoln’s administration for returning into the Union folds.17 Furthermore, Johnson gave the southern states complete freedom to rebuild along their own created lines, which made him unpopular amongst the northerners for obvious reasons, while this move also made the Blacks extremely vulnerable. Under the Federal Freedman’s Bureau Act of 1865, large areas of land confiscated by the Union Army and kept for distribution among former slaves and Union loyalists, were now given back to the original plantation owners (white), and soon the Union was announced to have become one whole country, as it was prior to the Civil War. By 1870, the era of Reconstruction was over, and the Union army and all federal presence were removed, and along with it were gone the protection that the slaves were enjoying after the Civil War. After this, the next phase was known as “Redemption” (a term coined by the southerners signifying an attempt to go back to their former way of living), where the whites again gained supremacy over their former black slaves.18 Soon the southern states started bringing in their own laws that flouted all norms that had been earlier created by the Federal bureau for the protection of the rights of the former slaves. At this time, the episode of ‘Jim Crow’ started in the southern states, which formulated laws for division, based on race and color, along with an unauthorized set of punishment codes. The provisions for Jim Crow initiated in Mississippi where a disfranchisement code was integrated within the constitution, and soon any act created for racial segregation and to perpetuate abuse on the blacks, were aggregated under the Jim Crow laws and their applications.19 These laws, like the Black codes, brought in a stringent control over all kinds of rights that existed for the Blacks, and in some of the states, the blacks were not allowed to own lands or even grow crops, while some states did not allow them to reside within towns and cities. For working in positions other than a domestic help or an agricultural laborer, it was necessary for the blacks to obtain a special permission from a judge. Blacks had to travel separately on buses and trains, and could not avail themselves of the same restrooms used by the whites. Blacks and whites were not allowed to marry, stay together, or even enter the same park. Blacks that did not obey the codes as outlined by the Jim Crow laws, were tracked down and punished, and even randomly killed.20 Lynching was widespread, and many innocent blacks were brutally murdered at this time, while the Ku Klux Klan started their terror activities at around the same time, where they killed blacks without any justification, thus, initiating a reign of complete terror. Fig 1: Attack of Ku Klux Klan on an unsuspecting black family in the south.21 The most infamous incident was that of the Memphis lynching, where a white mob forcibly entered the prison grounds and lynched three black traders being held there, even though it was later learnt that all accusations against the three black traders having shot white men, were untrue.22 After this incident within a timeframe of two months, nearly six thousand African Americans moved away from Memphis and went to Kansas. In this context, Ida B. Wells, a famous black journalist of that era, said, “Sometimes I wish I could gather my people in my arms and fly away West.”23 The Black Exodus: With rising incidences of racial bias, murders, lynching and violence against them, the black population decided to shift from the southern states and move further to the northern and western regions. After Kansas became an abolitionist state, the black community migrated in large number to this region in order to settle and start a new life. However, in the process of black exodus, where the black community settled in Kansas was an irony in itself, as the government in allowing the black Americans to settle, discriminated against and displaced the native residents of that region, the Indians. The land that was given to the former slaves, was actually the land reserved for Indians, which was initially decreased in 1859 to 80,000 acres (from 256,000 acres) and later, to accommodate the incoming rush of the black Americans, all Indians were forcibly displaced from their own land.24 Here Finkelman gives us estimate of the change in population demographics in the black exodus of 1879 that lasted for exactly one year. He states, “The black population in Kansas had grown to forty three thousand in 1880 from seventeen thousand in 1870.”25 The black population, which came here mainly due to worsening social conditions in the south and with dreams of a happy and free life, however put a great deal of pressure on the natural and governmental resources and on other charitable institutions, leading to a condition where many of them turned into bonded laborers while some even became destitute.26 Within one year, in 1880, the exodus ended abruptly, primarily owing to news trickling back home of the plight of the exodusters, while the Kansas government also made efforts at discouraging any further immigration from the southern states. Even though the southern Democrats in their report to the Senate blamed the Republicans and land promoters for this sudden exodus, the primary reason behind the exodus was the terrible social, political and economic pressure put on the blacks through the Jim Crow laws that forced them to flee the southern states.27 Fig 2: The Black Exodus.28 Various reports form this time revealed that women formed to be the main power behind this black exodus of 1879. This is evident in a statement issue by the state senator of Louisiana John Burch where he said, “The women have had more to do with it than all the politics and the men.” 29 Most of these women had faced terrible oppression at the hands of their former white masters or had their husbands killed by the Ku Klux Klan or other white racists. This sudden exodus surprised the white southerners and they desperately tried to block the migration, as they were worried of losing their workers. They tried various means of stopping the immigrants, starting from blocking the Mississippi river, to threatening to drown the boats used by the blacks as they moved to Kansas, but failed to stem the movement. Benjamin Pap Singleton: One of the most important figures in the exodus of 1879 Benjamin pap Singleton was an activist of African American origin and a merchant. He was famous for the role he played in assisting many of the former slaves move away to Kansas where he helped in the formation of black community settlements. A fugitive slave from the southern state of Tennessee, he managed to escape in 1846 and went first to Ontario and then to Michigan. He was a well-known abolitionist figure and active member of the black-American civil rights group. Singleton believed that the African Americans would gain real freedom and economic stability only if they managed to own lands, and hence his interest in getting the former slaves to a place where they could own their lands. He was the committee President of a group that urged the black community to move away from the violent and oppressive atmosphere of the south, and come to the "Sunny Kansas." His told the black Americans residing in the southern states: "Hyar you all is potterin' around in politics, tryin' to git into offices that you aint fit for, and you can't see that these white tramps from the North is simply usin' you for to line their pockets, and when they git through with you they'll drop you, and the rebels will come into power, and then whar'll you be?"30 Benjamin Singleton along with prominent black community members established the Homestead Association and Edgefield Real Estate in Tennessee in 1874, which worked towards helping the blacks arriving in Kansas to get the best areas for settling down. He aimed at creating a well-organized and well-chalked-out shifting of the black Americans to Kansas. However, the extremely disorganized and the large-scale nature of the 1879 exodus completely defeated all his well-meaning efforts, and at a later stage he was forced to move out of the entire operation of helping the needy blacks. Fig 3: Benjamin Pap Singleton along with some of the exodusters (in the background).31 Some of the African American civil rights activists were not in favor of the exodus. The most notable figure in this regards was, Frederick Douglass, who did not approve of the black community’s moving away from the south.32 Douglass supported the basic principles behind their moving away, but maintained that the entire process was extremely ill-managed and it did not take place at the right time.33 Conclusion It is evident from the above discussion that the Black Exodus that took place in 1879 was primarily due to widespread violence perpetuated by the white southerners at that time, under the legal sanctity accorded by the Jim Crow’s laws. Racial tension, brutal murders, economic instability, lack of freedom, and a desire to have a better future in the land of the sun (Kansas), all combined to give rise to this phenomenon that led to almost 40000-50000 black Americans shifting from southern states to Kansas. However, the state’s natural and governmental resources could not withstand the pressure put in by this sudden incoming rush, and many of the former slaves who came in with a great deal of dreams, were highly disappointed and later forced to work as laborers while living in abject poverty. As news of their plight slowly trickled back home, the exodus slowed down and within a year, we find that the Black Exodus which initiated in 1879, stop completely by 1880. References Belz, H. Abraham Lincoln, constitutionalism, and equal rights in the Civil War era. New York: Fordham University Press, 1998. Benjamin Pap Singleton and the EXODUSTERS, retrieved from http://whgbetc.com/revolutionaries-little-known.pdf [Accessed 6th February 2012] Duster, A., (ed.). Crusade for justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970. Finkelman, P. Encyclopedia of African American history, 1619-1895: from the colonial period to the age of Frederick Douglass, Volume 2. Oxford: OUP, 2006. Hunter, T. To 'Joy My Freedom: Southern Black Women's Lives and Labors after the Civil War. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997. Johnson, D., and Campbell, R. Black Migration in America: A Social Demographic History. Durham: Duke University Press, 1981. Legends of Kansas, Exodusters of Kansas, 2012, retrieved from http://www.legendsofkansas.com/exodusters.html [accessed 7th February 2012] Lemann, N. Redemption: The Last Battle of the Civil War. New York: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 2006. Litwack, L. Been In the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery. New York: Random House, Inc., 1979. Moneyhon, C. “Black codes,” Handbook of Texas Online, Texas State Historical association, nd., retrieved from http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/jsb01 [accessed 5th February 2012] Painter, I. Exodusters: Black Migration to Kansas after Reconstruction, Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1986. Plessy V. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896). Romero, P., (ed.). I Too am America: Documents from 1619 to the Present. Cornwells Heights, PA: Publishers Agency, 1968. Schurz, C. Report on the Condition of the South, 1829-1906, retrieved from http://infomotions.com/etexts/gutenberg/dirs/etext05/cnsth10.htm [accessed 6th February 2012] Sernett, M. Bound for the Promised Land: African American Religion and the Great Migration. Durham: Duke University Press, 1997. Sterling, D. Black Foremothers. New York: The Feminist Press, 1988. The African American mosaic, Western migration and homesteading, retrieved from http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/african/images/leaders.jpg [accessed 7th February 2012] The Mark E. Mitchell collection of African American history, Jim Crow, retrieved from http://www.africanamericancollection.com/jim_crow.htm [accessed 6th February 2012] Van Deusen, J. The Exodus of 1879.  Journal of Negro History 21(2), April 1936, 111-29. Willis, J. Forgotten Time: The Yazoo-Mississippi Delta after the Civil War. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2000. Read More