The Journal of Negro History Volume IV Part 8

The climate is mild and pleasant.

Winters short and require little food for stock.

Fine grazing country; stock can be grazed all winter.

The population is enterprising, towns and villages spring up rapidly and great profits arise from all investments.

Climate dry, and land free from swamps.

The money paid to doctors in less healthy regions can here be used to build up a house.

People quiet and orderly, schools and churches to be found in every neighborhood, and ample provision for free schools is made by the State.

Money, plenty, and what you raise commands a good price.

Fruits of all kinds easily grown and sold at large profits.

Railroads are being built in every direction.

The country is well watered.

Salt and coal are plentiful.

It is within the reach of every man, no matter how poor, to have a home in Kansas. The best lands are to be had at from $2 to $10 an acre, _on time_. The different railroads own large tracts of land, and offer liberal inducements to emigrants. You can get good land in some places for $1.25 an acre. The country is mostly open prairie, and level, with deep, rich soil, producing from forty to one hundred bushels of corn and wheat to the acre. The corn grows about eight or nine feet high, and I never saw better fruit anywhere than there.

The report was adopted.

The feeling of the colored people in that State in 1872 was well expressed by Hon. Robert H. Knox, of Montgomery, a prominent colored citizen, who, in addressing the convention, spoke as follows:

I have listened with great attention to the report of the commissioner appointed by authority of the State Labor Union to visit Kansas, and while I own the inducements held out to the laboring man in that far-off State are much greater than those enjoyed by our State, I yet would say let us rest here awhile longer; let us trust in G.o.d, the President, and Congress to give us what is most needed here, personal security to the laboring ma.s.ses, the suppression of violence, disorder, and kukluxism, the protection which the Const.i.tution and laws of the United States guarantee, and to which as citizens and men we are ent.i.tled.

Failing in these, it is time then, I repeat, to desert the State and seek homes elsewhere where there may be the fruition of hopes inaugurated when by the hand of Providence the shackles were stricken from the limbs of four million men, where there may be enjoyed in peace and happiness by your own fireside the earnings of your daily toil.

Benjamin Singleton, an aged colored man, now residing in Kansas, swears that he began the work inducing his race to migrate to that State as early as 1869, and that he has brought mainly from Tennessee, and located in two colonies--one in Cherokee County, and another in Lyons County, Kansas--a total of 7,432 colored people. The old man spoke in the most touching manner of the sufferings and wrongs of his people in the South, and in the most glowing terms of their condition in their new homes; and when asked as to who originated the movement, he proudly a.s.serted, "I am the father of the exodus." He said that during these years since he began the movement he has paid from his own pocket over $600 for circulars, which he has caused to be printed and circulated all over the Southern States, advising all who can pay their way to come to Kansas. In these circulars he advised the colored people of the advantages of living in a free State, and told them how well the emigrants whom he had taken there were getting on. He says that the emigrants whom he has taken to Kansas are happy and doing well. The old man insists with great enthusiasm that he is the "Whole cause of the Kansas immigration," and is very proud of his achievement.

Here, then, we have conclusive proof from the Negroes themselves that they have been preparing for this movement for many years.

Organizations to this end have existed in many States, and the agents of such organizations have traveled throughout the South.

One of these organizations alone kept one hundred and fifty men in the field for years, traveling among their brethren and secretly discussing this among other means of relief. As stated by Adams and Perry, politicians were excluded, and the movement was confined wholly to the working cla.s.ses.

The movement has doubtless been somewhat stimulated by circulars from railroad companies and State emigration societies which have found their way into the South, but these have had comparatively little effect. The following specimen of these emigration doc.u.ments, which was gotten up and circulated by Indiana Democrats, printed at a Democratic printing office, and written by a Democrat, in our judgment appeals more strongly to the imagination and wants of the Negro than any we have been able to find:

_In every county of the State there is an asylum where those who are unable to work and have no means of support are cared for at the public expense._

Laborers who work by the month or by the year make their own contract with the employer, and all disputes subsequently arising are settled by legal processes in the proper courts, _everybody being equal before the law in Indiana_. The price of farm labor has varied considerably in the last twenty years. _About $16 per month may be a.s.sumed as about the average per month, and this is understood to include board and lodging at the farm-house._ This amount is _paid in current money at the end of each month_, unless otherwise stipulated in the contract. Occasionally a tenement house is found on the larger farms, where a laborer lives with his family, and either rents a portion of the farm or cultivates it on special contract with the landlord. _With us there is no cla.s.s of laborers as such. The young man who today may be hired as a laborer at monthly wages, may in five years from now be himself a proprietor, owning the soil he cultivates and paying wages to laborers. The upward road is open to all_, and its highest elevation is attainable by industry, economy, and perseverance.

Sixteen dollars per month, with board! Everybody equal before the law! No cla.s.s of laborers as such! The hired man of today himself the owner of a farm in five years! No cheating of tenants, but everything paid in current money. And if all this will not attract the Negro he is told there is an "asylum in every county"

to which he can go when unable to support himself. The doc.u.ment also promises to everybody "free schools" in "brick or stone school-houses," and says they have "2,000,000 greater school fund than any State in the Union." These Democratic doc.u.ments have been circulated by the thousand, and doubtless many of them have found their way into the Negro cabins of North Carolina. It is not surprising that the Negro looks with longing eyes to that great and n.o.ble State.

CAUSES OF THE EXODUS

There is surely some adequate cause for such a movement. The majority of the committee have utterly failed to find it, or, if found, to recognize it. When it was found that any of their own witnesses were ready to state causes which did not accord with their theory they were dismissed without examination, as in the cases of Ruby and Stafford, and a half dozen others who were brought from Kansas, but who on their arrival here were found to entertain views not agreeable to the majority.

We regret that a faithful and honest discussion of this subject compels a reference to the darkest, bloodiest, and most shameful chapter of our political history. Gladly would we avoid it, but candor compels us to say that the volume which shall faithfully record the crimes which, in the name of Democracy, have been committed against the citizens.h.i.+p, the lives, and the personal rights of these people, and which have finally driven them in utter despair from their homes, will stand forever without a parallel in the annals of Christian civilization. In discussing these sad and shameful events, we wish it distinctly understood that we do not arraign the whole people nor even the entire Democratic party of the States in which they have occurred. The colored and other witnesses all declare that the lawlessness from which they have suffered does not meet the approval of the better cla.s.s of Democrats at the South. They are generally committed by the reckless, dissolute cla.s.ses who unfortunately too often control and dominate the Democratic party and dictate its policy.

We have no doubt there are many Democrats in the South who deeply regret this condition of things, and who would gladly welcome a change, but they are in a helpless, and we fear a hopeless, minority in many sections of that country.

The unfortunate and inexcusable feature of the case is that, however much they may deplore such lawlessness, they have never, so far as we can learn, declined to accept its fruits. They may regret the violence and crimes by which American citizens are prevented from voting, but they rejoice in the Democratic victories which result therefrom. So long as they shall continue thus to accept the fruits of crime, the criminals will have but little fear of punishment or restraint, and the lawless conduct which is depopulating some sections of their laboring cla.s.ses will go on. There is another unfortunate feature of this matter.

So long as crimes against American citizens.h.i.+p shall continue to suppress Republican majorities, and to give a "solid South" to the Democracy, there will be found enough Democrats at the North who will shut their eyes to the means by which it is accomplished, and seek to cover up and excuse the conduct of their political partisans at the South.

This is well ill.u.s.trated by the report of the majority of the committee. In the presence of most diabolic outrages clearly proven; in the face of the declaration of thousands of refugees that they had fled because of the insecurity of their lives and property at the South, and because the Democratic party of that section had, by means too shocking and shameful to relate, deprived them of their rights as American citizens; in the face of the fact that it has been clearly shown by the evidence that organizations of colored laborers, one of which numbered ninety-eight thousand, have existed for many years and extending into many States of the South, designed to improve their condition by emigration--in the face of all these facts the majority of the committee can see no cause for the exodus growing out of such wrongs, but endeavor to charge it to the Republicans of the North.

In view of this fact, it is our painful duty to point out some of the real causes of this movement. It is, however, quite impossible to enumerate all or any considerable part of the causes of discontent and utter despair which have finally culminated in this movement. To do so would be to repeat a history of violence and crime which for fifteen years have reddened with the blood of innocent victims many of the fairest portions of our country; to do so would be to read the numberless volumes of sworn testimony which have been carefully corded away in the crypt and bas.e.m.e.nt of this Capitol, reciting shocking instances of crime, crying from the ground against the perpetrators of the deeds which they record. The most which we can hope to do within the limits of this report is to present a very few facts which shall be merely ill.u.s.trative of the conditions which have driven from their homes, and the graves of their fathers an industrious, patient, and law-abiding people, whom we are bound by every obligation of honor and patriotism to protect in their personal and political rights and privileges.

We begin with the State of North Carolina because the migration from that State has been comparatively insignificant, and also because the conditions there are more favorable to the colored race than in any of the other cotton States of the South. Owing to the lack of funds, and to the time employed in the examination of witnesses called by the majority the Republican members of the committee summoned no witnesses from the State of North Carolina, and were obliged to content themselves with such facts as could be obtained from one or two persons who happened to be in this city, and such other facts as were brought out upon cross-examination of the witnesses called by the other side. By the careful selection of a few well-to-do and more fortunate colored men from that State, the majority of the committee secured some evidence tending to show that a portion of the Negroes of North Carolina are exceptionally well treated and contented, and yet upon cross-examination of their own witnesses facts were disclosed which showed that, even there, conditions exist which are ample to account for the migration of the entire colored population.

There are three things in that State which create great discontent among the colored people: First, the abridgment of their rights of self-government; second, their disadvantages as to common schools; third, discriminations against them in the courts; and, fourth, the memory of Democratic outrages. Prior to Democratic rule the people of each county elected five commissioners, who had supervision over the whole county, and who chose the judges of elections. The Democrats changed the const.i.tution so as to take this power from the people, and gave to the general a.s.sembly authority to appoint these officers. This they regard not only as practically depriving them of self-government, but, as stated by one of the witnesses, Hon. R.

C. Badger, as placing the elections, even in Republican towns.h.i.+ps, wholly under the control of the Democrats, who thereby "have the power to count up the returns and throw out the balance for any technicality, exactly as Garcelon & Co. did in Maine."

This creates much dissatisfaction, because they believe they are cheated out of their votes. The Negro values the ballot more than anything else, because he knows that it is his only means of defense and protection. A law which places all the returning boards in the hands of his political opponents necessarily and justly produces discontent.

Next to the ballot the Negro values the privileges of common schools, for in them he sees the future elevation of his race.

The prejudice even in North Carolina against white teachers of colored schools seems to have abated but little since the war.

Mr. Badger, when cross-examined on this point, said:

Q. Is there any prejudice still remaining there against white teachers of colored schools?--A. I think there is.

Q. Will you explain it?--A. I cannot explain it, except by the prejudices between the races.

Q. You mean, white persons teaching a colored school lose social status?--A. Yes, sir.

Q. Now, a white lady who comes from the North and teaches a colored school, to what extent is she tabooed?--A. I don't think she would have any acquaintances in white society.

Q. Would she be any quicker invited into white society than a colored woman?--A. Just about the same.

This fact contains within itself a volume of testimony. It shows that the Negro is still regarded as a sort of social and political pariah, whom no white person may teach without incurring social ostracism and being degraded to the level of the social outcast he or she would elevate in the scale of being. Is it surprising that the Negro is dissatisfied with his condition and desires to emigrate to some country where his children may hope for better things?

The most serious complaints, however, which are made against the treatment of colored citizens of North Carolina is that justice is not fairly administered in the courts as between themselves and the whites. On this point the evidence of Mr. R. C. Badger reveals a condition of things to which no people can long submit.

Here is his ill.u.s.tration of the manner in which justice is usually meted out as between the Negroes and the whites:

Q. How about the discrimination in the courts as between the whites and blacks?--A. That is princ.i.p.ally in matters of larceny.

In such cases the presumption is reversed as to the Negro. A white man can't be convicted without the fullest proof, and with the Negroes, in matters between themselves, such as a.s.sault and battery, they get as fair a trial as the whites. At the January term of our court Judge Avery presided. A white man and a colored woman were indicted for an affray. The woman was in her husband's barn getting out corn; they were going to move, and the white man came down there and said, "You seem to have a good time laughing here this morning," and she said, yes, she had a right to laugh.

He said, "You are getting that corn out, and you would have made more if you had stuck to your husband." She seemed to be a sort of termagant, and she said n.o.body said that about her unless you told them. He made some insulting remark, and she made something in return to him, and he took a billet of wood and struck her on the shoulder, and he pulled a pistol and beat her with it, and she went for him to kill him. _They found the man not guilty and they found her guilty_, but Judge Avery set the verdict aside and ordered the case _nolle prossed_ against her.

Q. Do you think that is a fair sample of the justice they get?--A. Yes, sir.

Q. Do you think they will convict a colored woman in order to get a chance to turn loose a white man?--A. Yes, sir.

Mr. Badger was not our witness. He was called by the majority, but he is a gentleman of high character, the son of an ex-member of this body, and thoroughly acquainted with the condition of things in his State. He puts the case just mentioned as a "fair sample" of North Carolina justice toward the Negro. It is true the judge set aside the verdict, but this does not change the fact that before a North Carolina jury the Negro has but little hope of justice.

Back of all these things lies the distrust of Democracy which was inspired during the days when the "Kuklux," the "White Brotherhood," the Universal Empire, and the "Stonewall Guard"

spread terror and desolation over the State in order to wrest it from Republicanism to Democracy. The memory of those dark days and b.l.o.o.d.y deeds, the prejudice which still forbids white ladies to teach colored schools, and denies "even-handed" justice in the courts, and the usurpations which place the returning boards all in the hands of Democrats, have inspired a feeling of discontent which has found expression in the efforts of a few to leave the State. These facts, taken in connection with the bonus of one dollar per head offered by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company (a Democratic corporation represented by a Democratic agent) to leading colored men who would secure pa.s.sengers for their road, has led to the emigration of some seven or eight hundred colored people from that State, and the only wonder is that thousands instead of hundreds have not gone.