Exodusters- An Overview
The Exodusters were freed African Americans from the south. They lived in very poor conditions. Many of these Exodusters were sharecroppers who where cheated out of their crops and suffered poverty because they didn't make enough profit and had great debt. This was only a small fraction of why they left. They African Americans left in spite of fear. Blacks were pushed down for taking political positions and attempting to vote, some were even killed, even though they were granted these freedoms through the Fifteenth Amendment. Lastly, the Ku Klux Klan was a terrorist organization that oppressed black people. These things drove them out of the south, now all they had to do was find a place to go.
In 1877, some African Americans had traveled the long distance to Kansas and founded Nicodemus, a small town. Many Africans still living in the deep south, had heard that Kansas was trying to attract settlers. Many considered the possibilities, plenty of land and the guarantee of bountiful crops. So many sold the few belongings that they owned at cheap prices, and set off on the long journey to Kansas. The boat ride did not supply food or bedding, so they were forced to supply them themselves. Many Exodusters didn't have enough money to travel the full distance by boat, so they were only taken half of the way and dropped off, forced to find any possible way of getting there, in most cases, walking.
After a long complicated journey to Kansas, the exodusters arrived looking for equipment to start and a home to live in. They started schools, churches, and other small businesses they could start with the little money they had. There were many donations. Thirteen thousand dollars were donated from the English Quakers, along with clothing, food, spoons, needles and many blankets for the mass of African Americans that had arrived. Some were able to produced bunches of corn and share with friends and relatives that arrived later. Few asked for assistance from the State because they loved the feeling of freedom. Nicodemus turned out to be a very profitable town because of the amount of African American contributors in the town.
It is not strange that Kansas -- the state where the great conflict began that ended in the liberation of the slaves -- should be the goal of many of the "Exodusters." The Kansas Monthly for April, 1879, referred to the movement as a "stampede of the colored people of the Southern states northward, and especially to the State of Kansas," and gave an account of a meeting held at Lawrence, which adopted a series of resolutions, one of which was as follows:
"In view of the fact that large numbers of these immigrants are arriving in Kansas in a destitute condition, and need our aid and direction to enable them to become self-sustaining, we believe that a state organization for this purpose should be effected at the earliest possible moment, and this philanthropic work in the hands of an efficient and responsible state executive committee."
Benjamin "Pap" Singleton
Born in 1809 in Nashville, Tennessee, Singleton was an escaped slave who returned to the city following the Civil War to help his people. When an effort to buy acreage in Tennessee failed in the late 1860s, Singleton turned his attention to Kansas.
He described his motivation in testimony before the U.S. Senate in 1880:
"These men would tell all their grievances to me in Tennessee -- the sorrows of their heart. You know I was an undertaker there in Nashville, and worked in the shop. Well, actually, I would have to go and bury their fathers and mothers. . . . Well, that man would die, and I would bury him; and the next morning maybe a woman would go to that man (meaning the landlord), and she would have six or seven children, and he would say to her, 'Well, your husband owed me before he died. . . . You must go to some other place; I cannot take care of you.' Now, you see, that is something I would take notice of. That woman had to go out, and these little children was left running through the streets, and the next place you would find them in a disorderly house, and their children in the State's prison."
Singleton and his associates sent exploration committees to investigate Kansas in the early 1870s. Singleton himself later "went into Southern Kansas, and found it was a good country."
Very few African Americans arrived in Kansas with enough funds to start a farm or a business, and many were forced into economic conditions similar to those they had left behind in the South. One of Singleton’s delegations reckoned what it would cost African Americans to relocate to Kansas. Including the outlay for a team of good mules, a pair of plows, tools, lumber, the cost of digging a well, and $500 for transportation and provisions, it estimated that each migrant would need a minimum of $1,000. This was a tremendous sum for southern blacks in 1875.
Kansas: The Land of Opportunity
Singleton gave his followers the best advice he could and never intentionally led them astray, but adverse economic and social conditions in America overwhelmed him and the black settlers of Cherokee County. He also founded the Freedman's Aid Association, which provided important educational opportunities for blacks. Benjamin Singleton had a dream of helping fellow ex-slaves own property.
As life in the South worsened after the Civil War, many African Americans considered leaving for more promising lands. Blacks understood that land ownership provided the economic foundation for political and social independence, yet most were unable to secure acreage for their families. This apparent lack of progress in the South motivated Benjamin "Pap" Singleton to initiate a westward colonization movement.
The failure to establish an African American colony in southeastern Kansas did not deter efforts in other parts of the state. In spring of 1878, Singleton redirected his efforts to a part of Kansas where cheaper land was available through the 1862 Homestead Act, and successfully established a colony at Dunlap in Morris County (central Kansas). The famous Nicodemus Colony in Graham County was established in the summer of 1877, and the Hodgeman County Colony was first settled in the spring of 1878.
Singleton’s attempts to form a colony in southeastern Kansas demonstrate the determination of black Americans to break free from the social and economic oppression of the South, and it served as a forerunner to the more worldly-wise Dunlap Colony. Thus it remains an important milestone in African American history. Blacks defied southern stereotypes and risked the only life they knew when they strove to become farmers on the Kansas prairie. Singleton was an inspiration to many who followed.