Exodusters of Kansas

Exodusters of Kansas - Page 2

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At various points in the South, conventions of African-American men were held to discuss the exodus. One of these met at New Orleans on April 17, 1879, and of the 200 delegates, about one-third were preachers. It was a turbulent meeting, but finally adopted a resolution "that it is the sense of this convention that the colored people of the South should migrate," and closed with an appeal to the people for material aid. Another convention, at Vicksburg, Mississippi on May 5, 1879, asserted the right of African-Americans to emigrate where they pleased, but urged those who were thinking of migrating "to proceed in their movements as reasonable human beings, providing in advance by economy the means for transportation and settlement, sustaining their reputation for honesty and fair-dealing by preserving intact, until completion, contracts for labor-leasing which have already been made."

The convention also deplored the circulation of false reports to the effects that lands, mules and money were awaiting the emigrants in Kansas and elsewhere "without labor and without price." Two days after the Vicksburg Convention, a large number of black men assembled at Nashville, Tennessee, with a number of African-Americans from the Northern states present.

There were a number of all black communities settled in Kansas,

but Nicodemus is the only one that survives today. It is now a

National Historic Site.

This image available for photographic prints and downloads HERE!

The resolutions of this convention were extremely radical, demanding social and political equality for black people; opposing separate schools for the races; recommending the several state legislatures to enact laws providing for compulsory education; and asking Congress to make an appropriation of $500,000 to defray the expenses of the African-Americans of the South "to those states and territories where they can enjoy all rights which are guaranteed by the laws and constitution of the United States."

By the close of the year 1879, several thousand people had found their way into Kansas. On April 1, 1880, Henry King, then postmaster at Topeka, wrote to Scribner's Magazine:

"There are, at this writing, from 15,000 to 20,000 colored people in Kansas who have settled there during the last twelve months -- 30 percent of them from Mississippi; 20 percent from Texas; 15 percent from Tennessee; 10 percent from Louisiana; 5 percent each from Alabama and Georgia, and the remainder from the other Southern states. Of this number, about one-third are supplied with teams and farming tools, and maybe expected to become self-sustaining in another year. . . The area of land bought or entered by the freedmen during their first year in Kansas is about 20,000 acres, of which they have plowed and fitted for grain-growing 3,000 acres. They have built some 300 cabins and dugouts, counting those which yet lack roofs and floors; and in the way of personal property, their accumulations, outside of what has been given to them, will aggregate perhaps $30,000. It is within bounds to say that their total gains for the year, the surplus proceeds of their efforts, amount to $40,000, or about $2.25 per capita."

This is what had been accomplished by one-third of the emigrants; of the other two-thirds, about half of them were congregated in the towns and the other half had found employment as farm hands in various parts of the state, but only about one out of every twenty had become the owners of small homesteads.

In 1880, the U.S. Senate appointed a committee of five to investigate the causes of the exodus. Testimony was taken to make a volume of nearly 1,700 printed pages. The majority report held to the idea that the exodus had been brought about for the purpose of colonizing the blacks in some of the Northern states for political purposes, though the evidence would hardly bear out that theory.

Go To Kansas An effort was made to show that Governor John P. St John had been instrumental in inducing many of the blacks to locate in Kansas, but one of the colored witnesses, formerly of Texas, produced a letter from the governor, in which he said: "If your people are desirous of coming to Kansas, I advise you to come in your private conveyances and bring your household goods and plows. . . But I want to impress this one fact on your people who are coming to Kansas, that you must not expect anything, as we hold out no inducements to whites or blacks."

The exodus continued into 1880, and the failure of crops in South Carolina in 1881 caused a number of blacks to leave the state in the fall of that year, a few of them coming to Kansas. Another migration occurred in 1886, but it was insignificant when compared to 1879.

Compiled and edited by Kathy Weiser/Legends of Kansas, updated April, 2010.

Also See:

Nicodemus - A Black Pioneer Town

About the Article: The majority of this historic text was published in Kansas: A Cyclopedia of State History, Volume I; edited by Frank W. Blackmar, A.M. Ph. D.; Standard Publishing Company, Chicago, IL 1912. However, the text that appears on these page is not verbatim, as additions, updates, and editing have occurred.

The Nicodemus Town Hall continues to stand today, Kathy Weiser, September, 2006.

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