Historical Romance of the American Negro

by Charles Henry Fowler

Will my kind reader now permit me to sum up, in a few sentences, the results of this wonderful exodus? The departure of so many thousands of colored people from the different States of the Sunny South to Kansas and many other Northern States informed the whole world that the South was nothing but a land of thugs and common cut-throats and murderers. The exodus informed the world that 'Secessia' was no place for them to emigrate into, where even life and limb were unsafe. It represented the Southerners as a vindictive, barbarous and most uncivilized people; as a people, in short, who were unfitted to carry on the laws of their States in a civilized nation. It repelled the Christian world from them, instead of drawing them to them in love and friendship. The exodus, in short, gave the South a 'black eye,' to use a familiar expression common among pugilists, and afforded most abundant proof that the war had been a just and righteous one, as waged against so wicked and demoralized a race of men—men unfitted for civil government. Even the 'laughable farce' of Mr. Voorhees' Congressional inquiry into the causes of the exodus informed the whole world of the murderous state of mind of the Southern white people, who were unable to contemplate the sight of a colored man voting the Republican ticket of freedom without the wish of taking his life—the life of his neighbor citizen who had even a better right to vote than himself; for the colored man had certainly never been a traitor to his country, as these self-same murderous Southerners had been.

We are all perfectly well aware that colored men could get on better without the white man, than the white man could without him. The climate of the South, and especially of the far South, is warm, and men of African descent are naturally better able to stand against the rays of the hot sun than the Caucasian race. It was for this express reason that the slave trade and slavery were so long carried on with such vigor and persistency, because the African was well qualified to work among the canebrakes, the cotton fields and the rice swamps of the Southern States.

The African was found to be strong-bodied, and through and by means of his diligent labor the cities and lands of the South had been built up and tilled respectively. The "poor white trash," as Caucasian laborers were termed, were not so well qualified to toil under a semi-tropical sky, and extract the wealth from the soil in the same degree. No part of the United States was so rich when the war began as these States. They had amassed an immense horde of silver and of gold by means of the labors of the slaves; although all that precious metal was thrown away upon cannon and gunpowder, and all other necessaries of war, and the cause for which they fought was lost after all. Still, the fact remains that the South had to a great extent been built up by the labor of the hardy and diligent African, who was so very useful and valuable that "Secessia" struggled on for four long years to retain the colored race in slavery, and even to make slavery itself the chief corner-stone of the Southern Confederacy. But crime could not be allowed to go unpunished, and the oppressed African was entitled to his liberty and his rights.

With the tramp, tramp, tramp of so many refugees from the Southern States upon their pilgrim way to Kansas and other Northern States, the leading white men of the country that they left behind at last began to open their eyes to the mischief which they and their minions had already done, and they saw that they had lost the confidence of the colored race. As from forty to sixty thousand men, women and children had gone to Kansas alone, and immense numbers had emigrated to other Northern States, both far and near, the leading men in the deserted sections now began to wonder to what extent this thing would grow. They saw that if things went on at this rate the Southern States would become depopulated, or at least as destitute of inhabitants as they were upon the landing of Columbus. Something must be done to stop at once this great rush of wronged and oppressed men for other States, where they could live in safety and freedom; and not only must the shot-gun policy of the Southerners be brought to an end, but that system of cheating and robbery, also, whereby white men had beat the colored ones out of their full share of the crops, on the plantations, and defrauded them in every way under the so-called "Credit System." It was most unmanly, cowardly, and even shameful to the last degree, for wise and intelligent white men to thus rob and plunder the oppressed and uneducated African. Such a devilish policy was simply adding insult to injury. Never was a more savage thing done through the wickedness of the human race since the creation. It now became the policy of all thinking ex-rebels to put on their thinking caps, and study a better system than such sheer dishonesty.

The leading white men of the South, therefore, now went to work to reverse the system that had driven so many of the colored people out of the land, and to do every possible thing to regain their confidence, because there was no one who could fill the empty places, and do the needful work.

And not only was it now necessary to gain the confidence of the colored man, but even to regain the confidence of white men who had any intention of going South and settling down in that part of the country. There were many men of capital, besides thousands of accomplished artisans, who could both enrich themselves and the Southern States by going and settling down there, but who were now justly alarmed, when they saw whole hosts of orderly and industrious people of color moving away from these self-same States on account of robbers and murders by the very same men among whom they had been planning to go and settle down, to labor and toil, and there to end their days. It was perfectly clear to the most obtuse Southern mind that no Northern man would ever go South and invest his capital where those who ran his mills and cultivated his plantations were liable to be brought down by the shot-gun of the old soldiers of Lee and Jackson, because they voted the Republican ticket—if they even dared to go to the polls at all on election day! This was as bad, or worse, than despotic Russia or Turkey; and therefore Southern men wisely decided to reverse the policy they had adopted towards the colored population, for they now saw that if they did not do so, no capitalists or artisans would ever come South, but remain at home or go elsewhere.

On the other hand the exodus was a benefit to the colored race; at least, to a portion of them. Those who emigrated from the Southern States found an abundant entrance, and a warm welcome to the fertile lands of Kansas and other Northern cities and Western States, where there was plenty of land calling for nothing so much as cultivation, and where the oppressed pilgrims and refugees built up for themselves comfortable homes, and they and their children are there to this day. In Kansas and the other States whither they emigrated, the spirit of freedom and justice prevailed, and every man could abide under his own vine and fig tree without having any midnight thugs about to make him afraid. And those who remained behind were also benefited by the exodus, because there was now more room for those who were left there; and inasmuch as the white leaders of the South had decided upon possessing a wiser and more Christian policy, the prospect of good treatment in every respect was far brighter than ever; they need not emigrate to the North and West, as their brethren had done, but could remain at home in safety.

Thus, my dear reader, I have related to you the story of the exodus of our people to Kansas and other States, as it passed before our eyes about the years 1879 and 1880, as I very well remember. It was a wonderful object lesson set before the whole nation, and an outgrowth of slavery, and the war, and the violent passions of the vanquished. But good has come out of evil. The poor, oppressed pilgrim refugees were not forsaken in the days of their distress, for they were tenderly cared for by the most loving of mankind, and underneath them were the everlasting arms of the merciful God.

[CHAPTER XVIII.]