Table of Contents
What state was home to Exodusters?
The majority of Exodusters settled in Kansas, but many settled in what would become Oklahoma, Colorado, Ohio, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, New Mexico, Arizona, and Montana. More than 6,000 Exodusters had arrived in Kansas in the spring of 1879 alone.
Where did the Exodusters live?
Exodusters were African Americans who fled North Carolina because of economic and political grievances after the Reconstruction era.
What was the name of the town settled by the Exodusters?
John formed the Freedman’s Relief Association to help care for the people. This group established colonies for the blacks, one in Wabaunsee to the west of Topeka, one in Chautauqua county, and another in Coffey county. Black communities also formed within cities like Topeka and Kansas City.
How did Kansas deal with exodusters?
Exodusters was a name given to African Americans who migrated from states along the Mississippi River to Kansas in the late nineteenth century, as part of the Exoduster Movement or Exodus of 1879….Exodusters.
Refugees on Levee, 1879 | |
---|---|
Date | 1879 |
Outcome | 98,000 sign emigration papers Around 26,000 African Americans arrive in Kansas |
Why did blacks migrate to Kansas?
In the 1920s and 1930s African Americans arrived in Kansas primarily from Arkansas and Missouri where the mechanization of the cotton industry and general and economic times had forced them to leave their homes. Jobs in the thriving meat packing industry provided the lure of better economic conditions.
Where did the Exodusters settle in the US?
The majority of Exodusters settled in Kansas, but many settled in what would become Oklahoma, Colorado, Ohio, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, New Mexico, Arizona, and Montana. More than 6,000 Exodusters had arrived in Kansas in the spring of 1879 alone.
What was life like for the Exodusters in Kansas?
The reality of life for the exodusters in Kansas was difficult, however, and many of those who attempted to homestead the land remained poor. The most successful exodusters were those who migrated to urban areas like Topeka and found domestic or trade work.
When did the black exodus begin in Kansas?
Promoters like Singleton became known as “conductors” and began leading African-American families to Kansas. Obviously, black migration to Kansas did not begin (or end) with the exodus of 1879. Thousands of freed blacks made their ways to Kansas throughout the decade of the 1870s.
How did the great exodus get its name?
Many individuals and families were indeed willing to leave the only place they had known to move to a place few of them had ever seen. The large-scale black migration from the South to Kansas came to be known as the “Great Exodus,” and those participating in it were called “exodusters.”