The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919Various
History
The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919
Various
African Americans -- Periodicals
It was also disclosed by the testimony that there existed aid
societies in the city of Washington, in the city of Topeka,
Kans., Indianapolis, and elsewhere throughout the West, whose
avowed object was to furnish aid to colored men migrating to the
West and North; and notwithstanding that the agents and members
of these societies generally disclaimed that it was their
intention to induce any colored men to leave their homes, but
only to aid in taking care of them after they had arrived, yet it
was established undeniably, not only that the effect of these
societies and of the aid extended by them operated to cause the
exodus originally, but that they stimulated it directly by
publishing and distributing among the colored men circulars
artfully designed and calculated to stir up discontent. Every
single member, agent, friend, or sympathizer with these societies
and their purposes were ascertained to belong to the Republican
party, and generally to be active members thereof. Some of the
circulars contained the grossest misrepresentation of facts, and
in almost all cases the immigrants expected large aid from the
government of clothes, or land, or money or free transportation,
or something of that kind. Hundreds of them, on given days at
various points in the South, crowded to the depots or to the
steamboat landings upon a rumor that free transportation was to
be furnished to all who would go. It was also disclosed by the
testimony on the part of some very candid and intelligent
witnesses that their object in promoting this exodus of the
colored people was purely political. They thought it would be
well to remove a sufficient number of blacks from the South,
where their votes could not be made to tell, into close States in
the North, and thus turn the scale in favor of the Republican
party.
Wages, rents, method of cropping on shares, &c., were inquired
into in all of the Southern States mentioned, and the fact
ascertained that the aggregate was about the same as in North
Carolina. In most of the Southern States, where wages were higher
than in North Carolina, expenses were also higher, so that the
aggregate, as before stated, was about the same.
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