Our investigations have proved to the friends of the former slaves that their emigration from the South was not instituted and put into operation by their own choice, except as the force of circumstances, in their surroundings, pressed them into this remarkable movement. Monthly reports of the Kansas Freedmen's Relief Association have also proved satisfactory to thousands of donors toward their relief. The increasing intelligence among the four millions and a half of slaves, declared free by the nation's pen in the hand of her President, Abraham Lincoln, they found did not bring with it the glorious sunlight of freedom the proclamation promised in its dawn. After fifteen years of patient hoping, waiting, and watching for the shaping of government, they saw clearly that their future condition as a race must be submissive vassalage, a war of races, or emigration. Circulars were secretly distributed among themselves, until the conclusion was reached to wend their way northward, as their former masters' power had again become tyrannous. This power they were and are made to see and feel most keenly in many localities, a few incidents will show.
Elder Perry Bradley left Carthage, Leek County, Mississippi, in
January, 1880, and testifies to the following facts:
"In October, 1879, twenty-five or thirty masked men went into Peter Watson's house, and took him from his bed, amid screams of 'murder' from his wife and seven children; but the only reply the wife and children received at the hands of the desperadoes was a beating. Their boy of twelve years knocked one down with a chair. While the fighting was going on within, and in their efforts to hold their victim outside, he wrenched himself from their grasp—leaving his shirt in their hands—and ran through the woods to my house, around which colored men gathered and protected him. Although twelve gun-shots followed him in the chase, yet none hit him. By the aid of friends he took the first train he could reach, which, to his surprise, took him twenty-five miles southward, instead of in a northern direction. At Cassiasca, Attala County, Mississippi, not knowing whether they were friends or foes, he told them he wanted to go to Kansas. They told him he should swear that he could not make a living there, before they would allow him to go North. As he found they were all Democrats at that depot, he consented to their demand; consequently they brought the Bible, and he took his oath 'that he could make a living there, but could not get it.' The Democratic 'bull-dozers,' who had sworn they would hang him if they ever caught him, took his span of horses, wagon, three cows, and his crop of cotton, corn, sugar-cane, and potatoes (all matured), and gave his wife money with which to pay the fare for herself and seven children, the twenty-five miles on the cars to meet her husband. The colored men were told 'that if they would be Democrats they could stay; but Republicans and carpet-baggers could not live there.'
"Austin Carter, a Methodist preacher, was an earnest temperance worker, and was prospering in that part of his work. He was also a strong Republican. He was shot dead in August, 1878, near New Forest Station, Scott County, Mississippi, on the railroad running east and west between Jackson and Meridian, Mississippi, while on his way home, between the hours of six and seven o'clock P. M. He received four shots in the back of his head, which instantly took his life. His wife and children knew nothing of it until the shocking tidings reached them the following morning. Thomas Graham, a wealthy merchant at Forest Station, reported that the man who shot him had gone to Texas and could not be found or heard from; and nothing was done to find the murderer or to bring him to justice."
Elder Perry Bradley was told by a number of this class of Democrats, at various places where he was accustomed to preach, that he could not live there and preach unless he would vote the Democratic ticket and teach his people to do the same. Said he, "In the town of Hillsboro, at one of my meetings, the bulldozers came into the congregation and took me out of the meeting, held in a school-house one mile from Hillsboro, on April 15, 1879, at ten o'clock P. M., where I had preached during our day meetings without disturbance. Captain Hardy, leading the band, took me into the woods to an old deserted house, in which was their general or chief commander, Warsham, who asked the following question: 'Will you stop preaching to your people that Christ died to make you all free, body, soul, and spirit?' 'I can not stop preaching God's truth as I find it in the Bible,' was my answer. 'I want you to understand now that you can't preach such doctrine to our niggers,' was the rejoinder. He then directed them to give me two hundred lashes. They took me out in the front yard and drove four stakes in the ground, to which each wrist and foot was fastened. After being disrobed of my clothing and fastened, face downward, two men were selected to do the whipping, one on each side, alternating their strokes, while the rabble stood around until the two hundred lashes were given. Then they were told to stop and let me up. Too weak and trembling to stand, I was again queried whether I would not now preach the Democratic doctrine and vote that ticket? I replied, 'I can not conscientiously make such a promise.' 'Why not? 'Because I do not believe there are Democrats in heaven.' Said their general, Warsham, 'We'll turn him loose with this brushing; may be he'll conclude to behave himself after this.' Turning to me he said, 'Remember, this is but a light brushing compared with what you'll get next time; but well try you with this.' I returned to my home with my back cut in many deep gashes, the scars of which I shall carry to my grave. Yet I praised God in remembrance that my loving Savior suffered more than this for me, and that this suffering was in his cause. As soon as I was able to continue my work for my Lord and Master among my people I was again enabled to proclaim the riches of his grace. A few weeks after resuming my work I preached on the Dan. Lewis' place, in Scott County, where I had held meetings undisturbed. But the same company sought me out, and took me out of an evening meeting into the woods about three miles distant to hang me. After due preparations were made they passed their whisky around, of which they all drank so freely that in their carousings they got into a fight, and while drawing pistols at each other young Warsham, the acting captain, in whose charge I was left, cut the rope that bound my hands behind me, and told me to 'go.' And gladly I obeyed the order and left them engaged in their fight and too drunk to notice my escape. I left that land of darkness as soon as possible for this free Kansas, and I have my family with me, for which I thank my Deliverer from the jaws of the lion of oppression, and praise the Lord of hosts for a free country, where I can vote as well as preach according to the dictates of my own conscience without the torturing whip or the hangman's rope."
Professor T. Greener, of Howard University, Washington, D. C., who has been prominently identified in the new exodus lately returned from a trip to Kansas, where he visited the colored colonies, and gathered information regarding the black emigrants. He reports them as doing well, constantly receiving accessions to their numbers, and well treated by their white neighbors. He says: "Indications point to a continuance of emigration during the Winter, and increase in the Spring, not in consequence of any special effort on the part of those who favor this solution of the vexed Southern question, but because the emigrants themselves are proving the best agents and propagandists among their friends South." Professor Greener is warm in his praise of Governor John P. St. John and the people of Kansas.
A staff correspondent of the Chicago Inter-Ocean, writing from Topeka, Kansas, December 31, 1879, says: "During four weeks' travel through the State, I estimate the number of colored emigrants at fifteen, or twenty thousand. Of these one-fifth probably are able to buy land, and are making good progress at farming. Most of the others have found, through the Freedmen's Relief Association, places as laborers, and are giving good satisfaction; and in no county are they applying for aid, nor are burdens upon corporate charities. The demand for laborers seems stretched to its fullest capacity, as the accumulation of refugees at the barracks (now nearly seven hundred), for whom no places can be found, clearly indicates. Judging from what I learn from the refugees themselves, and from the increasing numbers, now from twenty-five to fifty arriving every day, we predict that the movement to Kansas will soon assume such proportions as to astonish the country, and unless the tide can be turned, or the charity of the North be more readily bestowed, the suffering which the relief committee, although laboring faithfully with the means at their command, has not been entirely sufficient to relieve during the past cold weather, will soon be turned to general destitution and great suffering among the pauper refugees."
The greatest crime in many portions of the South is being a Republican. This has added largely to the emigration, and the tide has reached not only Kansas, but the older States of the North. It has entered Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois, and soon will find its way into Wisconsin, Iowa, and Michigan. We find no political chicanery of the North in this universal uprising of the colored people of the South in leaving the home of their birth. But it is the mistaken policy of the South that is driving their laborers northward; that is, compelling them to flee to more congenial surroundings. It is among the wonders that they waited so long and so patiently for the better day to come. Not long ago one thousand arrived in Parsons, Kansas, in the south-western part of the State. Governor St. John gave them a temperance speech with other good advice. Two hundred and twenty-five arrived in Topeka, and while I was at the barracks over seventy came in from Texas. Hardly a day passed while I was there but we heard of fresh arrivals. Eleven wagon-loads came into Parsons, and two of the men came to Topeka and reported the condition of many of them as very poor. We relieved within three weeks over one thousand persons.
The crime of being a Republican, in many portions of the South, is shown by the following testimonies. I interviewed an intelligent colored man, John S. Scott, of Anderson County, South Carolina. He came well recommended as a well qualified teacher. He had taught twenty-eight terms of school in South Carolina and six terms in Georgia; but if he succeeded in collecting half his pay he did well. He handed me a package of certificates and commendations. His friends were about to run him for office, but his life was threatened, and he was informed that they were determined to have a "white man's government," and gave him to understand that if he got the office, his life would be worthless.
Abbeville district, in that State, was Republican, and John Owen was an influential colored Republican. During the election he was arrested and placed in jail, under the charge of selling forty-eight pounds of twisted tobacco without license. When arraigned before the court it was proved that he had no such article, yet they fined him fifty dollars. He had raised tobacco, but it was still in the leaf. The fine was paid, and after the election he was released.