oblem.

4. _Counter-Reaction: The Negro Exodus_

The Negro Exodus of 1879 was partially considered in connection with our
study of Liberia; but a few facts are in place here.

After the withdrawal of Federal troops conditions in the South were
changed so much that, especially in South Carolina, Mississippi,
Louisiana, and Texas, the state of affairs was no longer tolerable.
Between 1866 and 1879 more than three thousand Negroes were summarily
killed.[1] The race began to feel that a new slavery in the horrible
form of peonage was approaching, and that the disposition of the men in
power was to reduce the laborer to the minimum of advantages as a free
man and to none at all as a citizen. The fear, which soon developed into
a panic, rose especially in consequence of the work of political mobs
in 1874 and 1875, and it soon developed organization. About this the
outstanding fact was that the political leaders of the last few years
were regularly distrusted and ignored, the movement being secret in its
origin and committed either to the plantation laborers themselves or
their direct representatives. In North Carolina circulars about Nebraska
were distributed. In Tennessee Benjamin ("Pap") Singleton began about
1869 to induce Negroes to go to Kansas, and he really founded two
colonies with a total of 7432 Negroes from his state, paying of his own
money over $600 for circulars. In Louisiana alone 70,000 names were
taken of those who wished to better their condition by removal; and by
1878 98,000 persons in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Texas were
ready to go elsewhere. A convention to consider the whole matter of
migration was held in Nashville in 1879. At this the politician managed
to put in an appearance and there was much wordy discussion. At the same
time much of the difference of opinion was honest; the meeting was
on the whole constructive; and it expressed itself as favorable to
"reasonable migration." Already, however, thousands of Negroes were
leaving their homes in the South and going in greatest numbers to
Kansas, Missouri, and Indiana. Within twenty months Kansas alone
received in this way an addition to her population of 40,000 persons.
Many of these people arrived at their destination practically penniless
and without prospect of immediate employment; but help was afforded by
relief agencies in the North, and they themselves showed remarkable
sturdiness in adapting themselves to the new conditions.