Chapter IV: Front Matter (4)

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 asserted, "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 classes.

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
documents, 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 assumed 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 class 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 class 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 document
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 documents 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 noble 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 citizenship, 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
class of Democrats at the South. They are generally committed by
the reckless, dissolute classes 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 classes
will go on. There is another unfortunate feature of this matter.
So long as crimes against American citizenship 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 illustrated 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 basement 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 illustrative 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
constitution so as to take this power from the people, and gave
to the general assembly 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
townships, 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 illustration 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 principally 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 assault 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 nobody 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 bloody 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 passengers 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.

LOUISIANA AND MISSISSIPPI

The States of Louisiana and Mississippi have furnished the larger
portion of the migration to Kansas, and as the conditions which
caused the exodus are the same in both of these States, we may
speak of them together. No single act of wrong has inspired this
movement, but a long series of oppression, injustice, and
violence, extending over a period of fifteen years. These people
have been long-suffering and wonderfully patient, but the time
came when they could endure it no longer and they resolved to go.
We can convey no adequate idea of what they endured before
adopting this desperate resolve, but will mention a few facts
drawn from well authenticated history, from sworn public
documents, and from the evidence taken by the Exodus
Investigating Committee. Writing under date of January 10, 1875,
General P. H. Sheridan, then in command at New Orleans, says:

Since the year 1866 nearly thirty-five hundred persons, a great
majority of whom were colored men, have been killed and wounded
in this State. In 1868 the official records show that eighteen
hundred and eighty-five were killed and wounded. From 1868 to the
present time no official investigation has been made, and the
civil authorities in all but a few cases have been unable to
arrest, convict or punish the perpetrators. Consequently there
are no correct records to be consulted for information. There is
ample evidence, however, to show that more than twelve hundred
persons have been killed and wounded during this time on account
of their political sentiments. Frightful massacres have occurred
in the parishes of Bossier, Caddo, Catahoula, Saint Bernard,
Saint Landry, Grant, and Orleans.

He then proceeds to enumerate the political murders of colored
men in the various parishes, and says:

"Human life in this State is held so cheaply that when men are
killed on account of political opinions, the murderers are
regarded rather as heroes than criminals in the localities where
they reside."

This brief summary is not by a politician, but by a distinguished
soldier, who recounts the events which have occurred within his
own military jurisdiction. Volumes of testimony have since been
taken confirming, in all respects, General Sheridan's statement,
and giving in detail the facts relating to such murders, and the
times and circumstances of their occurrence. The results of the
elections which immediately followed them disclose the motives
and purposes of their perpetrators. These reports show that in
the year 1868 a reign of terror prevailed over almost the entire
State. In the parish of Saint Landry there was a massacre from
three to six days, during which between two and three hundred
colored men were killed. "Thirteen captives were taken from the
jail and shot, and a pile of twenty-five dead bodies were found
burned in the woods." The result of this Democratic campaign in
the parish was that the registered Republican majority of 1,071
was wholly obliterated, and at the election which followed a few
weeks later not a vote was cast for General Grant, while Seymour
and Blair received 4,787.

In the parish of Bossier a similar massacre occurred between the
20th and 30th of September, 1868, which lasted from three to four
days, during which two hundred colored people were killed. By the
official registry of that year the Republican voters in Bossier
parish numbered 1,938, but at the ensuing election only _one_
Republican vote was cast.

In the parish of Caddo during the month of October, 1868, over
forty colored people were killed. The result of that massacre was
that out of a Republican registered vote of 2,894 only one was
cast for General Grant. Similar scenes were enacted throughout
the State, varying in extent and atrocity according to the
magnitude of the Republican majority to be overcome.

The total summing-up of murders, maimings, and whippings which
took place for political reasons in the months of September,
October and November, 1868, as shown by official sources, is over
one thousand. The net political results achieved thereby may be
succinctly stated as follows: The official registration for that
year in twenty-eight parishes contained 47,923 names of
Republican voters, but at the Presidential election, held a few
weeks after the occurrence of these events but 5,360 Republican
votes were cast, making the net Democratic gain from said
transactions 42,563.

In nine of these parishes where the reign of terror was most
prevalent out of 11,604 registered Republican votes only 19 were
cast for General Grant. In seven of said parishes there were
7,253 registered Republican votes, but not one was cast at the
ensuing election for the Republican ticket.

In the years succeeding 1868, when some restraint was imposed
upon political lawlessness and a comparatively peaceful election
was held, these same Republican parishes cast from 33,000 to
37,000 Republican votes, thus demonstrating the purpose and the
effects of the reign of murder in 1868. In 1876 the spirit of
violence and persecution, which in parts of the State had been
partially restrained for a time, broke forth again with renewed
fury. It was deemed necessary to carry that State for Tilden and
Hendricks, and the policy which had proved so successful in 1868
was again invoked and with like results. On the day of general
election in 1876 there were in the State of Louisiana 92,996
registered white voters and 115,310 colored, making a Republican
majority of the latter of 22,314. The number of white Republicans
was far in excess of the number of colored Democrats. It was,
therefore, well known that if a fair election should be made the
State would go Republican by from twenty-five to forty thousand
majority. The policy adopted this time was to select a few of the
largest Republican parishes and by terrorism and violence not
only obliterate their Republican majorities, but also intimidate
the Negroes in the other parishes. The testimony found in our
public documents, and records shows that the same system of
assassinations, whippings, burnings, and other acts of political
persecution of colored citizens which had occurred in 1868 was
again repeated in 1876 and with like results.

In fifteen parishes where 17,726 Republicans were registered in
1876 only 5,758 votes were cast for Hayes and Wheeler, and in one
of them (East Feliciana), where there were 2,127 Republicans
registered, but one Republican vote was cast. By such methods the
Republican majority of the State was supposed to have been
effectually suppressed and a Democratic victory assured. And
because the legally constituted authorities of Louisiana, acting
in conformity with law and justice, declined to count some of the
parishes thus carried by violence and blood, the Democratic
party, both North and South, has ever since complained that it
was fraudulently deprived of the fruits of victory, and it now
proposes to make this grievance the principal plank in the party
platform.

On the 6th of December, 1876, President Grant in a message to
Congress transmitted the evidence of these horrible crimes
against the colored race, committed in the name and in the
interest of the Democracy. They are not mere estimates nor
conjectures, but the names of the persons murdered, maimed and
whipped, and of the perpetrators of the crimes, the places where
they occurred, and the revolting circumstances under which they
were committed, are all set forth in detail. This shocking record
embraces a period of eight years, from 1868 to 1876, inclusive,
and covers ninety-eight pages of fine type, giving an average of
about one victim to each line. We have not counted the list, but
it is safe to say that it numbers over four thousand.

These crimes did not end in 1876 with the accession of the
Democracy to control of the State administration. The witnesses
examined by your committee gave numerous instances of like
character which occurred in 1878. Madison Parish may serve as an
illustration. This parish, which furnished perhaps the largest
number of refugees to Kansas, had been exceptionally free from
bull-dozing in former years. William Murrell, one of the
witnesses called by the committee, states the reasons for the
exodus from that parish as follows:

You have not read of any exodus yet as there will be from that
section this summer, and the reason for it is that, for the first
time since the war in Madison Parish last December, we had
bull-dozing there. Armed bodies of men came into the parish--not
people who lived in the parish, but men from Ouachita Parish and
Richland Parish; and I can name the leader who commanded them. He
was a gentleman by the name of Captain Tibbals, of Ouachita
Parish, who lives in Monroe, who was noted in the celebrated
massacre there in other times. His very name among the colored
people is sufficient to intimidate them almost. He came with a
crowd of men on the 28th of December into Madison Parish, when
all was quiet and peaceable. There was no quarrel, no excitement.
We had always elected our tickets in the parish, and we had put
Democrats on the ticket in many cases to satisfy them. There were
only 238 white voters and about 2,700 colored registered voters.

Mr. Murrell says that David Armstrong, who was president of third
ward Republican club, a man who stood high in the community, and
against whom no charge was made except that of being a
Republican, made the remark:

"What right have these white men to come here from Morehouse
Parish, and Richland Parish, and Franklin Parish to interfere
with our election?" And some white men heard of it and got a
squad by themselves and said, "We'll go down and give that nigger
a whipping." So Sunday night, about ten o'clock, they went to his
house to take him out and whip him. They saw him run out the back
way and fired on him. One in the crowd cried out, "Don't kill
him!" "It is too late, now," they said, "he's dead." The Carroll
Conservative, a Democratic newspaper, published the whole thing;
but the reason they did it was because we had one of their men on
our ticket as judge, and they got sore about it, and we beat him.
They killed Armstrong and took him three hundred yards to the
river, in a sheet, threw him in the river, and left the sheet in
the bushes.

Proceeding with the account of that transaction, Mr. Murrell
swears that the colored people had heard that the bulldozers were
coming from the surrounding parishes, and that he and others
called on some of the leading Democrats in order to prevent it,
but all in vain. He says:

We waited on Mr. Holmes, the clerk of the court, and we said to
him, "Mr. Holmes, it is not necessary to do any bulldozing here;
you have the counting machinery all in your hands, and we would
rather be counted out than bulldozed; can't we arrange this
thing? I made a proposition to him and said, "You know I am
renominated on the Republican ticket, but I will get out of the
way for any moderate Democrat you may name to save the State and
district ticket. We will not vote for your State ticket; you
cannot make the colored people vote the State ticket; but if you
will let us have our State ticket we will give you the local
offices." We offered them the clerk of the court, not the
sheriff, and the two representatives. We told him we would not
give them the senator, but the district judge and attorney. After
this interview Holmes sent us to Dr. Askew, ex-chairman of the
Democratic committee, and he said to me, "Now, Murrell, there is
no use talking, I advise you to stand from under. When these men
get in here we can't control them. We like you well enough and
would not like to see you hurt. I will see you to-night at Mr.
Holmes." We had an interview with Mr. Holmes and made this
proposition, and Holmes asked me this question: "Murrell, you
know damned well the niggers in this parish won't vote the
Democratic ticket--there is no use to tell me you will give us
the clerk of the court, you know the niggers won't do it. You
can't trust the niggers in politics; all your eloquence and all
the speeches you can make won't make these niggers vote this
ticket or what you suggest, even if we was to accept it. _No, by
God, we are going to carry it._ Why," said he, "_there is more
eloquence in double-barreled shot-guns to convince niggers than
there is in forty Ciceros_." I said to him, "Well, do you suppose
the merchants and planters will back you up," and he said, "O, by
God, they have got nothing to do with it. We have charge of it.
_We three men, the Democratic committee, have full power to
work._"

The result of this "work" was, as stated by the witness, and not
disputed by any one before the committee, that in this parish,
containing 2,700 registered Republican voters, and only 238
Democrats, the Democrats returned a majority of 2,300. The
witness, who was a candidate on the Republican ticket, swears
that not more than 360 votes were cast. Democratic shot-gun
eloquence did its "work," as prophesied by Mr. Askew, ex-chairman
of the Democratic committee, but it also served as a wonderful
stimulus to migration from Madison Parish.

We cite this case for two reasons: First, because it has been
said that the Negroes have not emigrated from bulldozed parishes;
and, secondly, because it serves as an illustration of the many
similar cases which were given to the committee.

We desire also to invite attention to the evidence of Henry
Adams, a colored witness from Shreveport, La. Adams is a man of
very remarkable energy and native ability. Scores of witnesses
were summoned by the majority of the committee from Shreveport
but none of them ventured to question his integrity or
truthfulness. Though a common laborer, he has devoted much of his
time in traveling through Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas,
working his way and taking notes of the crimes committed against
his race. His notes, written in terse and simple language,
embraced the names of six hundred and eighty-three colored men
who have been whipped, maimed or murdered within the last eight
years, and his statement of these crimes covers thirty-five pages
of closely printed matter in the report. We are sure no one can
read it without a conviction of its truthfulness, and a feeling
of horror at the barbarous details he relates. Adams is the man
who has organized a colonization council, composed of laboring
colored people, and rigidly excluding politicians, which numbers
ninety-eight thousand who have enrolled themselves with a view to
emigration from that country as early as possible. He details the
character and the purpose of the organization and the efforts it
has made to obtain relief and protection for its members.
"First," he says, "we appealed to the President of the United
States to help us out of our distress, to protect us in our
rights and privileges. Next, we appealed to Congress for a
territory to which we might go and live with our families.
Failing in that," says he, "our other object was to ask for help
to ship us all to Liberia, Africa, somewhere where we could live
in peace and quiet. If that could not be done," he adds, "_our
idea was to appeal to other governments outside of the United
States to help us to get away from the United States and go and
live there under their flag_." What a commentary upon our own
boasted equality and freedom! Finding no relief in any direction,
they finally resolved to emigrate to some of the Northern States.
He says they had some hope of securing better treatment at home
until 1877, when "we lost all hopes and determined to go anywhere
on God's earth, we didn't care where; we said we was going if we
had to run away and go into the woods." Perhaps we can best
summarize the condition of affairs in Louisiana and the causes of
the exodus from that State, as the Negroes themselves regarded
them, by quoting a brief extract from the report of the business
committee to the colored State convention held in New Orleans on
the 21st of April, 1879:

NEW ORLEANS, April 21, 1879.

_Mr. President_: Your committee on business have the honor to
submit this their final report. Discussing the general and
widespread alarm among the colored people of Louisiana, including
so potent a fear that in many parishes, and in others perhaps
largely to follow, there is an exodus of agricultural labor which
indicates the prostration and destruction of the productive, and
therefore essentially vital, interests of the State. _The
Committee find that the primary cause of this lies in the absence
of a republican form of government to the people of Louisiana.
Crime and lawlessness existing to an extent that laughs at all
restraint, and the misgovernment naturally induced from a State
administration itself the product of violence, have created an
absorbing and constantly increasing distrust and alarm among our
people throughout the State. All rights of freemen denied and all
claims to a just recompense for labor rendered or honorable
dealings between planter and laborer disallowed, justice a
mockery, and the laws a cheat, the very officers of the courts
being themselves the mobocrats and violators of the law, the only
remedy left the colored citizens in many of parishes of our State
today is to emigrate. The fiat to go forth is irresistible. The
constantly recurring, nay, ever-present, fear which haunts the
minds of these our people in the turbulent parishes of the State
is that slavery in the horrible form of peonage is approaching;
that the avowed disposition of men in power to reduce the laborer
and his interest to the minimum of advantages as freemen and to
absolutely none as citizens has produced so absolute a feat that
in many cases it has become a panic. It is flight from present
sufferings and from wrongs to come._

Here are the reasons for the exodus as stated by the colored
people themselves. In view of the facts which we have stated, and
of the terrible history which we cannot here repeat, does any one
believe their statement of grievances is overdrawn? Is there any
other race of freemen on the face of the earth who would have
endured and patiently suffered as they have? Is there any other
government among civilized nations which would have permitted
such acts to be perpetrated against its citizens?

We will not dwell upon the conditions which have driven these
people from Mississippi. It would be but a repetition of the
intolerance, persecutions, and violence which have prevailed in
Louisiana. The same Democratic "shot-gun eloquence" which was so
potent for the conversion of colored Republicans in the one has
proven equally powerful in the other. The same "eloquence" which
wrested Louisiana from Republicans also converted Mississippi.
And in both the same results are visible in the determination of
the colored people to get away.

Nearly all the witnesses who were asked as to the causes of the
exodus answered that it was because of a feeling of insecurity
for life and property; a denial of their political rights as
citizens; long-continued persecutions for political reasons; a
system of cheating by landlords and storekeepers which rendered
it impossible for them to make a living no matter how hard they
might work; the inadequacy of school advantages, and a fear that
they would be eventually reduced to a system of peonage even
worse than slavery itself.

On the latter point they quoted the laws of Mississippi, which
authorize the sheriff to hire the convicts to planters and others
for twenty-five cents a day to work out the fine and cost, and
which provide that for every day lost from sickness he shall work
another to pay for his board while sick. Under these laws they
allege that a colored man may be fined $500 for some trifling
misdemeanor, and be compelled to work five or six years to pay
the fine; and that it is not uncommon for colored men thus hired
out to be worked in a chain gang upon the plantations under
overseers, with whip in hand, precisely as in the days of
slavery. And some of the witnesses declared that if an attempt be
made to escape they are pursued by blood-hounds, as before the
war.

Henry Ruby, a witness summoned by the majority of the committee,
swore that in Texas, under a law similar to that in Mississippi,
a colored man had been arrested for carrying a "six-shooter" and
fined $65, including costs, and that he had been at work nearly
three years to pay it. The laws of that State do not fix the rate
for hiring, but "county convicts" may be hired at any price the
county judge may determine. He mentioned the case of a colored
woman who was hired out for a quarter of a cent a day. Describing
this process of hiring, he says:

They call these people county convicts, and if you have got a
farm you can hire them out of the jail. They have got that
system, and the colored men object to it. I know some of these
men who have State convicts that they hire and they work them
under shotguns. A farmer hires so many of the State, and they are
under the supervision of a sergeant with a gun and nigger-hounds
to run them with if they get away. They hire them and put them in
the same gang with the striped suit on, and, if they want, the
guard can bring them down with his shotgun! Then they have these
nigger-hounds, and if one of them gets off and they can't find
him they take the hounds, and from a shoe or anything of the kind
belonging to the convict they trail him down.

Q. Are these the same sort of blood-hounds they used to have to
run the Negroes with?--A. Yes, sir.

These things need no comment. To the Negro they are painfully
suggestive of slavery. Is it a wonder that he has resolved to go
where peonage and blood-hounds are unknown?

Several witnesses were called from Saint Louis and Kansas, who
had conversed with thousands of the refugees, and who swore that
they all told the same story of injustice, oppression and wrong.
Upon the arrival of the first boat-loads at Saint Louis, in the
early spring of 1879, the people of that city were deeply moved
by the evident destitution and distress which they presented, and
thousands of them were interviewed as to the causes which
impelled them to leave their homes at that inclement season of
the year. In the presence of these people, and with a full
knowledge of their condition and of the flight, a memorial to
Congress was prepared, and signed by a large number of the most
prominent and most respectable citizens of Saint Louis, embracing
such names as Mayor Overholtz (a Democrat), Hon. John F. Dillon,
judge of the United States circuit court, ex-United States
Senator J.B. Henderson and nearly a hundred other leading
citizens, in which the condition and grievances of the refugees
are stated as follows:

The undersigned, your memorialists, respectfully represent that
within the last two weeks there have come by steamboats up the
Mississippi River, from chiefly the States of Louisiana and
Mississippi, and landed at Saint Louis, Mo., a great number of
colored citizens of the United States, not less than twenty
hundred and composed of men and women, old and young, and with
them many of their children.

This multitude is eager to proceed to Kansas, and without
exception, so far as we have learned, refuse all overtures or
inducements to return South, even if their passage back is paid
for them.

The condition of the great majority is absolute poverty; they are
clothed in thin and ragged garments for the most part, and while
here have been supported to some extent by public, but mostly by
private charity.

The older ones are the former slaves of the South; all now
entitled to life and liberty.

The weather from the first advent of these people in this
Northern city has been unusually cold, attended with ice and
snow, so that their sufferings have been greatly increased, and
if there was in their hearts a single kind remembrance of their
sunny Southern homes they would naturally give it expression now.

We have taken occasion to examine into the causes they themselves
assign for their extraordinary and unexpected transit, and beg
leave to submit herewith the written statements of a number of
individuals of the refugees, which were taken without any effort
to have one thing said more than another, and to express the
sense of the witness in his own language as nearly as possible.

The story is about the same in each instance: a great privation
and want from excessive rent exacted for land, connected with
murder of colored neighbors and threats of personal violence to
themselves. The tone of each statement is that of suffering and
terror. Election days and Christmas, by the concurrent testimony,
seem to have been appropriated to killing the smart men, while
robbery and personal violence in one form and another seem to
have run the year round.

* * * * *

We submit that the great migration of Negroes from the South is
itself a fact that overbears all contradiction and proves
conclusively that great causes must exist at the South to account
for it.

Here they are in multitudes, not men alone, but women and
children, old, middle-aged, and young, with common consent
leaving their old homes in a natural climate and facing storms
and unknown dangers to go to Northern Kansas. Why? Among them all
there is little said of hope in the future; it is all of fear in
the past. They are not drawn by the attractions of Kansas; they
are driven by the terrors of Mississippi and Louisiana. Whatever
becomes of them, they are unanimous in their unalterable
determination not to return.

There are others coming. Those who have come and gone on to
Kansas must suffer even unto death, we fear; at all events more
than any body of people entitled to liberty and law, the
possession of property, the right to vote, and the pursuit of
happiness, should be compelled to suffer under a free government
from terror inspired by robbery, threats, assaults, and murders.

We protest against the dire necessities that have impelled this
exodus, and against the violation of common right, natural and
constitutional, proven to be of most frequent occurrences in
places named; and we ask such action at the hands of our
representatives and our government as shall investigate the full
extent of the causes leading to this unnatural state of affairs
and protect the people from its continuance, and not only protect
liberty and life, but enforce law and order.

It is intolerable to believe that with the increased
representation of the Southern States in Congress those shall not
be allowed freely to cast their ballots upon whose right to vote
that representation has been enlarged. We believe no government
can prosper that will allow such a state of injustice to the body
of its people to exist, any more than society can endure where
robbery and murder go unchallenged.

The occasion is, we think, a fit one for us to protest against a
state of affairs thus exhibited in those parts of the Union from
which these Negroes come, which is not only most barbarous toward
the Negro, but is destructive to the constitutional rights of all
citizens of our common country.

Accompanying this memorial are numerous affidavits of the
refugees fully confirming all its statements.

As to the future of the exodus we can only say that every
witness, whose opinion was asked upon this point, declared that
it has only begun, and that what we have seen in the past is
nothing compared to what is to come, unless there shall be a
radical change on the part of Democrats in the South. They say
that the Negro has no confidence in the Democratic party, and
that if a Democratic President shall be elected there will be a
general stampede of the colored race.

There is but one remedy for the exodus--fair treatment of the
Negro. If the better class of white men in the South would retain
the colored labor, they must recognize his manhood and his
citizenship, and restrain the vicious and lawless elements in
their midst. If Northern Democrats would check the threatened
inundation of black labor into their States, they must recognize
the facts which have produced the exodus and unite with us in
removing its causes.

We present in conclusion the following brief summary of the
results of the investigation:

First: This movement was not instigated, aided or encouraged by
Republican leaders at the North. The only aid they have ever
given was purely as a matter of charity, to relieve the distress
of the destitute and suffering emigrants who had already come to
the North.

Second. Not one dollar has ever been contributed by anybody at
the North to bring these people from their homes. On the
contrary, the only contributions shown to have been made for such
purpose were made by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company, a
Democratic corporation which employed agents to work up the
emigration from North Carolina, paying $1 per head therefor.

Third. It is _not_ proven that the emigrants are dissatisfied in
their new homes and wish to return to the South. On the contrary,
a standing offer to pay their expenses back to the South has not
induced more than about three hundred out of thirty thousand to
return.

Fourth. It is _not_ proven that there is no demand for their
labor at the North, for nearly all those who have come have found
employment, and even in Indiana hundreds of applications for them
were presented to the committee.

Fifth. It is _not_ proven that there is any sufficient reason for
the grave political apprehensions entertained in some quarters,
for it was shown by Mr. Dukehart, who sold all the tickets to
those who came from North Carolina, that not more than _two
hundred voters had gone to Indiana_.

Sixth. The exodus movement originated entirely with the colored
people themselves, who for many years have been organizing for
the purpose of finding relief in that way, and the colored agents
of such organizations have traveled all over the South consulting
with their race on this subject.

Seventh. A long series of political persecutions, whippings,
maimings and murders committed by Democrats and in the interest
of the Democratic party, extending over a period of fifteen
years, has finally driven the Negro to despair, and compelled him
to seek peace and safety by flight.

Eighth. In some States a system of convict hiring is authorized
by law, which reinstates the chain-gang, the overseer, and the
bloodhound substantially as in the days of slavery.

Ninth. A system of labor and renting has been adopted in some
parts of the South which reduces a Negro to a condition but
little better than that of peonage and which renders it
impossible for him to make a comfortable living, no matter how
hard he may work.

Tenth. The only remedy for the exodus is in the hands of Southern
Democrats themselves, and if they do not change their treatment
of the Negro and recognize his rights as a man and a citizen, the
movement will go on, greatly to the injury of the labor interests
of the South, if not the whole country.

WILLIAM WINDOM.
HENRY W. BLAIR.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Congressional Record, 46th Congress, 2d Session, X, p. 155.

[2] _Ibid._, pp. 155-170.

[2a] Congressional Record, 46th Congress, 2d Session, X, p. 170.

[3] Reports of Committees of Senate of the United States for the First and Second Sessions of the Forty-Sixth Congress, 1879-80, VII, pp. iii-xiii.

[4] Report of the Committee of the Senate of the United States for the First and Second Sessions of the Forty-Sixth Congress, 1879-80, VII, pp. viii-xxv.

SOME UNDISTINGUISHED NEGROES

MR. J. H. LATROBE, corresponding secretary of the Maryland Colonization Society and later President of the American Colonization Society, has left the following story:

"It was while I was reading in the same room with General Harper that there entered one day a tall, gaunt, square-shouldered, spare, light mulatto, who announced himself as Abel Hurd. He was a Bostonian by birth, and a seaman by profession. In a voyage to the East his vessel had been captured by the Malays, and he alone, if I recollect rightly, escaped death, owing to his complexion. He had a varied fortune; had at one time been in Cochin-China, again in Tibet, and, after passing some twenty years in the East, had returned to America, and was looking out for employment. Some one had heard how deeply interested General Harper was in Africa and African colonization, and had sent Hurd to him. About this time there was a great doubt as to the mouth of the Niger; whether it was to be found at the bottom of the Bight of Benin, and whether it was not identical with the Congo, or Zaire, south of the line. This was a question in which General Harper was interested, and he determined to fit out Hurd and send him northward from Liberia until he struck the river, which he was then to follow to its mouth, and I was deputed to superintend the outfit.

"Hurd's idea was to take as little baggage with him as possible, and to rely upon the resources of his wit and ingenuity in making his way among the interior tribes. He had had a vast experience, and he directed his own equipment. I do not recollect all that he was furnished with, but I recollect having devised a hollow cane, in the top of which was a compass and the tube of which contained papers and pencils. These were to be resorted to when the compass and materials openly were lost. I think I wrote, at General Harper's dictation, a letter of instructions. Had Hurd lived and succeeded, he would have anticipated the Landers, Richard and John, who explored the Niger in 1832-34. He arrived safely in Liberia, and made several short excursions into the interior, but he had a theory that it was necessary to train himself for the great journey. Abstinence was a part of his training. It was a mistake. He took the acclimating fever, and, although he recovered from the first attack, he had a relapse brought on by some imprudence and died."[1]

* * * * *

CHARLES H. WEBB.--During the years when the American Colonization Society was preparing to establish a colony of freedmen in Africa, it early became evident that the mere transportation of the blacks to their native home would mean little in establishing them in life. It was, therefore, necessary to organize schools in which Negroes desiring to be colonized could be trained in agriculture, mechanical arts and even in the professions. Among the first to qualify in the field of medicine was Charles H. Webb. In his examinations he exhibited evidences of ripe scholarship and much proficiency in his chosen field. He set sail for Liberia in 1834, after having completed his medical studies, which he had pursued under the direction of the American Colonization Society for a number of years. In the following autumn, however, he fell a victim to the local fever aggravated by some imprudence on his part and died before he could render his people much service.[2]

* * * * *