s way by 1900 about 200,000 Negroes.]

[Footnote 51: _American Journal of Political Economy_, XXII, pp. 10,
40.]

[Footnote 52: _Ibid._, XXV, p. 1038.]

[Footnote 53: Mecklin, _Black Codes_.]

[Footnote 54: Dunning, _Reconstruction_, pp. 54, 59, 110.]

[Footnote 55: DuBois, _Freedmen's Bureau_.]

CHAPTER VII

THE EXODUS TO THE WEST

Having come through the halcyon days of the Reconstruction only to find
themselves reduced almost to the status of slaves, many Negroes deserted
the South for the promising west to grow up with the country. The
immediate causes were doubtless political. _Bulldozing_, a rather
vague term, covering all such crimes as political injustice and
persecution, was the source of most complaint. The abridgment of the
Negroes' rights had affected them as a great calamity. They had learned
that voting is one of the highest privileges to be obtained in this life
and they wanted to go where they might still exercise that privilege. That
persecution was the main cause was disputed, however, as there were cases
of Negroes migrating from parts where no such conditions obtained. Yet
some of the whites giving their version of the situation admitted that
violent methods had been used so to intimidate the Negroes as to compel
them to vote according to the dictation of the whites. It was also learned
that the _bulldozers_ concerned in dethroning the non-taxpaying
blacks were an impecunious and irresponsible group themselves, led by men
of the wealthy class.[1]

Coming to the defense of the whites, some said that much of the
persecution with which the blacks were afflicted was due to the fear of
Negro uprisings, the terror of the days of slavery. The whites, however,
did practically nothing to remove the underlying causes. They did not
encourage education and made no efforts to cure the Negroes of faults for
which slavery itself was to be blamed and consequently could not get the
confidence of the blacks. The races tended rather to drift apart. The
Negroes lived in fear of reenslavement while the whites believed that the
war between the North and South would soon be renewed. Some Negroes
thinking likewise sought to go to the North to be among friends. The
blacks, of course, had come so to regard southern whites as their enemies
as to render impossible a voluntary division in politics.

Among the worst of all faults of the whites was their unwillingness to
labor and their tendency to do mischief.[2