A Century of Negro Migration - Carter G. Woodson
[Transcriber's note: The spelling inconsistencies of the original are
preserved in this etext.]
A CENTURY OF NEGRO MIGRATION
Carter G. Woodson
TO MY FATHER
JAMES WOODSON
WHO MADE IT POSSIBLE FOR ME TO ENTER THE LITERARY WORLD
A CENTURY OF NEGRO MIGRATION
PREFACE
In treating this movement of the Negroes, the writer does not presume to
say the last word on the subject. The exodus of the Negroes from the South
has just begun. The blacks have recently realized that they have freedom
of body and they will now proceed to exercise that right. To presume,
therefore, to exhaust the treatment of this movement in its incipiency is
far from the intention of the writer. The aim here is rather to direct
attention to this new phase of Negro American life which will doubtless
prove to be the most significant event in our local history since the
Civil War.
Many of the facts herein set forth have seen light before. The effort here
is directed toward an original treatment of facts, many of which have
already periodically appeared in some form. As these works, however, are
too numerous to be consulted by the layman, the writer has endeavored to
present in succinct form the leading facts as to how the Negroes in the
United States have struggled under adverse circumstances to flee from
bondage and oppression in quest of a land offering asylum to the oppressed
and opportunity to the unfortunate. How they have often been deceived has
been carefully noted.
With the hope that this volume may interest another worker to the extent
of publishing many other facts in this field, it is respectfully submitted
to the public.
CARTER G. WOODSON.
Washington, D.C., March 31, 1918.
CONTENTS
I.--Finding a Place of Refuge
II.--A Transplantation to the North
III.--Fighting it out on Free Soil
IV.--Colonization as a Remedy for Migration
V.--The Successful Migrant
VI.--Confusing Movements
VII.--The Exodus to the West
VIII.--The Migration of the Talented Tenth
IX.--The Exodus during the World War
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
MAPS AND DIAGRAMS
Map Showing the Per Cent of Negroes in Total Population, by States: 1910
Diagram Showing the Negro Population of Northern and Western Cities in
1900 and 1910
Maps Showing Counties in Southern States in which Negroes Formed 50 Per
Cent of the Total Population
CHAPTER I
FINDING A PLACE OF REFUGE
The migration of the blacks from the Southern States to those offering
them better opportunities is nothing new. The objective here, therefore,
will be not merely to present the causes and results of the recent
movement of the Negroes to the North but to connect this event with the
periodical movements of the blacks to that section, from about the year
1815 to the present day. That this movement should date from that period
indicates that the policy of the commonwealths towards the Negro must have
then begun decidedly to differ so as to make one section of the country
more congenial to the despised blacks than the other. As a matter of fact,
to justify this conclusion, we need but give passing mention here to
developments too well known to be discussed in detail. Slavery in the
original thirteen States was the normal condition of the Negroes. When,
however, James Otis, Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson began to discuss
the natural rights of the colonists, then said to be oppressed by Great
Britain, some of the patriots of the Revolution carried their reasoning to
its logical conclusion, contending that the Negro slaves should be freed
on the same grounds, as their rights were also founded in the laws of
nature.[1] And so it was soon done in most Northern commonwealths.
Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts exterminated the institution by
constitutional provision and Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, New
York and Pennsylvania by gradual emancipation acts.[2] And it was thought
that the institution would soon thereafter pass away even in all southern
commonwealths except South Carolina and Georgia, where it had seemingly
become profitable. There came later the industrial revolution following
the invention of Watt's steam engine and mechanical appliances like
Whitney's cotton gin, all which changed the economic aspect of the modern
world, making slavery an institution offering means of exploitation to
those engaged in the production of cotton. This revolution rendered
necessary a large supply of cheap labor for cotton culture, out of which
the plantation system grew. The Negro slaves, therefore, lost all hope of
ever winning their freedom in South Carolina and Georgia; and in Maryland,
Virginia, and North Carolina, where the sentiment in favor of abolition
had been favorable, there was a decided reaction which soon blighted their
hopes.[3] In the Northern commonwealths, however, the sentiment in behalf
of universal freedom, though at times dormant, was ever apparent despite
the attachment to the South of the trading classes of northern cities,
which profited by the slave trade and their commerce with the slaveholding
States. The Northern States maintaining this liberal attitude developed,
therefore, into an asylum for the Negroes who were oppressed in the South.
The Negroes, however, were not generally welcomed in the North. Many of
the northerners who sympathized with the oppressed blacks in the South
never dreamt of having them as their neighbors. There were, consequently,
always two classes of anti-slavery people, those who advocated the
abolition of slavery to elevate the blacks to the dignity of citizenship,
and those who merely hoped to exterminate the institution because it was
an economic evil.[4] The latter generally believed that the blacks
constituted an inferior class that could not discharge the duties of
citizenship, and when the proposal to incorporate the blacks into the body
politic was clearly presented to these agitators their anti-slavery ardor
was decidedly dampened. Unwilling, however, to take the position that a
race should be doomed because of personal objections, many of the early
anti-slavery group looked toward colonization for a solution of this
problem.[5] Some thought of Africa, but since the deportation of a large
number of persons who had been brought under the influence of modern
civilization seemed cruel, the most popular colonization scheme at first
seemed to be that of settling the Negroes on the public lands in the West.
As this region had been lately ceded, however, and no one could determine
what use could be made of it by white men, no such policy was generally
accepted.
When this territory was ceded to the United States an effort to provide
for the government of it finally culminated in the proposed Ordinance of
1784 carrying the provision that slavery should not exist in the Northwest
Territory after the year 1800.[6] This measure finally failed to pass and
fortunately too, thought some, because, had slavery been given sixteen
years of growth on that soil, it might not have been abolished there until
the Civil War or it might have caused such a preponderance of slave
commonwealths as to make the rebellion successful. The Ordinance of 1784
was antecedent to the more important Ordinance of 1787, which carried the
famous sixth article that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude except
as a punishment for crime should exist in that territory. At first, it was
generally deemed feasible to establish Negro colonies on that domain. Yet
despite the assurance of the Ordinance of 1787 conditions were such that
one could not determine exactly whether the Northwest Territory would be
slave or free.[7]
What then was the situation in this partly unoccupied territory? Slavery
existed in what is now the Northwest Territory from the time of the early
exploration and settlement of that region by the French. The first slaves
of white men were Indians. Though it is true that the red men usually
chose death rather than slavery, there were some of them that bowed to the
yoke. So many Pawnee Indians became bondsmen that the word _Pani_
became synonymous with slave in the West.[8] Western Indians themselves,
following the custom of white men, enslaved their captives in war rather
than choose the alternative of putting them to death. In this way they
were known to hold a number of blacks and whites.
The enslavement of the black man by the whites in this section dates from
the early part of the eighteenth century. Being a part of the Louisiana
Territory which under France extended over the whole Mississippi Valley as
far as the Allegheny mountains, it was governed by the same colonial
regulations.[9] Slavery, therefore, had legal standing in this territory.
When Antoine Crozat, upon being placed in control of Louisiana, was
authorized to begin a traffic in slaves, Crozat himself did nothing to
carry out his plan. But in 1717 when the control of the colony was
transferred to the _Compagnie de l'Occident_ steps were taken toward
the importation of slaves. In 1719, when 500 Guinea Negroes were brought
over to serve in Lower Louisiana, Philip Francis Renault imported 500
other bondsmen into Upper Louisiana or what was later included in the
Northwest Territory. Slavery then became more and more extensive until by
1750 there were along the Mississippi five settlements of slaves,
Kaskaskia, Kaokia, Fort Chartres, St. Phillipe and Prairie du Rocher.[10]
In 1763 Negroes were relatively numerous in the Northwest Territory but
when this section that year was transferred to the British the number was
diminished by the action of those Frenchmen who, unwilling to become
subjects of Great Britain, moved from the territory.[11] There was no
material increase in the slave population thereafter until the end of the
eighteenth century when some Negroes came from the original thirteen.
The Ordinance of 1787 did not disturb the relation of slave and master.
Some pioneers thought that the sixth article exterminated slavery there;
others contended that it did not. The latter believed that such
expressions in the Ordinance of 1787 as the "free inhabitants" and the
"free male inhabitants of full size" implied the continuance of slavery
and others found ground for its perpetuation in that clause of the
Ordinance which allowed the people of the territory to adopt the
constitution and laws of any one of the thirteen States. Students of law
saw protection for slavery in Jay's treaty which guaranteed to the
settlers their property of all kinds.[12] When, therefore, the slave
question came up in the Northwest Territory about the close of the
eighteenth century, there were three classes of slaves: first, those who
were in servitude to French owners previous to the cession of the
Territory to England and were still claimed as property in the possession
of which the owners were protected under the treaty of 1763; second, those
who were held by British owners at the time of Jay's treaty and claimed
afterward as property under its protection; and third, those who, since
the Territory had been controlled by the United States, had been brought
from the commonwealths in which slavery was allowed.[13] Freedom, however,
was recognized as the ultimate status of the Negro in that territory.
This question having been seemingly settled, Anthony Benezet, who for
years advocated the abolition of slavery and devoted his time and means to
the preparation of the Negroes for living as freedmen, was practical
enough to recommend to the Congress of the Confederation a plan of
colonizing the emancipated blacks on the western lands.[14] Jefferson
incorporated into his scheme for a modern system of public schools the
training of the slaves in industrial and agricultural branches to equip
them for a higher station in life. He believed, however, that the blacks
not being equal to the white race should not be assimilated and should
they be free, they should, by all means, be colonized afar off.[15]
Thinking that the western lands might be so used, he said in writing to
James Monroe in 1801: "A very great extent of country north of the Ohio
has been laid off in townships, and is now at market, according to the
provisions of the act of Congress.... There is nothing," said he, "which
would restrain the State of Virginia either in the purchase or the
application of these lands."[16] Yet he raised the question as to whether
the establishment of such a colony within our limits and to become a part
of the Union would be desirable. He thought then of procuring a place
beyond the limits of the United States on our northern boundary, by
purchasing the Indian lands with the consent of Great Britain. He then
doubted that the black race would live in such a rigorous climate.
This plan did not easily pass from the minds of the friends of the slaves,
for in 1805 Thomas Brannagan asserted in his _Serious Remonstrances_
that the government should appropriate a few thousand acres of land at
some distant part of the national domains for the Negroes' accommodation
and support. He believed that the new State might be established upwards
of 2,000 miles from our frontier.[17] A copy of the pamphlet containing
this proposition was sent to Thomas Jefferson, who was impressed thereby,
but not having the courage to brave the torture of being branded as a
friend of the slave, he failed to give it his support.[18] The same
question was brought prominently before the public again in 1816 when
there was presented to the House of Representatives a memorial from the
Kentucky Abolition Society praying that the free people of color be
colonized on the public lands. The committee to whom the memorial was
referred for consideration reported that it was expedient to refuse the
request on the ground that, as such lands were not granted to free white
men, they saw no reason for granting them to others.[19]
Some Negro slaves unwilling to wait to be carried or invited to the
Northwest Territory escaped to that section even when it was controlled by
the French prior to the American Revolution. Slaves who reached the West
by this route caused trouble between the French and the British colonists.
Advertising in 1746 for James Wenyam, a slave, Richard Colgate, his
master, said that he swore to a Negro whom he endeavored to induce to go
with him, that he had often been in the backwoods with his master and that
he would go to the French and Indians and fight for them.[20] In an
advertisement for a mulatto slave in 1755 Thomas Ringold, his master,
expressed fear that he had escaped by the same route to the French. He,
therefore, said: "It seems to be the interest, at least, of every
gentleman that has slaves, to be active in the beginning of these
attempts, for whilst we have the French such near neighbors, we shall not
have the least security in that kind of property."[21]
The good treatment which these slaves received among the French, and
especially at Pittsburgh the gateway to the Northwest Territory, tended to
make that city an asylum for those slaves who had sufficient spirit of
adventure to brave the wilderness through which they had to go. Negroes
even then had the idea that there was in this country a place of more
privilege than those they enjoyed in the seaboard colonies. Knowing of the
likelihood of the Negroes to rise during the French and Indian War,
Governor Dinwiddie wrote Fox one of the Secretaries of State in 1756: "We
dare not venture to part with any of our white men any distance, as we
must have a watchful eye over our Negro slaves, who are upward of one
hundred thousand."[22] Brissot de Warville mentions in his _Travels of
1788_ several examples of marriages of white and blacks in Pittsburgh.
He noted the case of a Negro who married an indentured French servant
woman. Out of this union came a desirable mulatto girl who married a
surgeon of Nantes then stationed at Pittsburgh. His family was considered
one of the most respectable of the city. The Negro referred to was doing a
creditable business and his wife took it upon herself to welcome
foreigners, especially the French, who came that way. Along the Ohio also
there were several cases of women of color living with unmarried white men;
but this was looked upon by the Negroes as detestable as was evidenced by
the fact that, if black women had a quarrel with a mulatto woman, the
former would reproach the latter for being of ignoble blood.[23]
These tendencies, however, could not assure the Negro that the Northwest
Territory was to be an asylum for freedom when in 1763 it passed into the
hands of the British, the promoters of the slave trade, and later to the
independent colonies, two of which had no desire to exterminate slavery.
Furthermore, when the Ordinance of 1787 with its famous sixth article
against slavery was proclaimed, it was soon discovered that this document
was not necessarily emancipatory. As the right to hold slaves was
guaranteed to those who owned them prior to the passage of the Ordinance
of 1787, it was to be expected that those attached to that institution
would not indifferently see it pass away. Various petitions, therefore,
were sent to the territorial legislature and to Congress praying that the
sixth article of the Ordinance of 1787 be abrogated.[24] No formal action
to this effect was taken, but the practice of slavery was continued even
at the winking of the government. Some slaves came from the Canadians who,
in accordance with the slave trade laws of the British Empire, were
supplied with bondsmen. It was the Canadians themselves who provided by
act of parliament in 1793 for prohibiting the importation of slaves and
for gradual emancipation. When it seemed later that the cause of freedom
would eventually triumph the proslavery element undertook to perpetuate
slavery through a system of indentured servant labor.
In the formation of the States of Indiana and Illinois the question as to
what should be done to harmonize with the new constitution the system of
indenture to which the territorial legislatures had been committed, caused
heated debate and at times almost conflict. Both Indiana[25] and
Illinois[26] finally incorporated into their constitutions compromise
provisions for a nominal prohibition of slavery modified by clauses for
the continuation of the system of indentured labor of the Negroes held to
service. The proslavery party persistently struggled for some years to
secure by the interpretation of the laws, by legislation and even by
amending the constitution so to change the fundamental law as to provide
for actual slavery. These States, however, gradually worked toward freedom
in keeping with the spirit of the majority who framed the constitution,
despite the fact that the indenture system in southern Illinois and
especially in Indiana was at times tantamount to slavery as it was
practiced in parts of the South.
It must be borne in mind here, however, that the North at this time was
far from becoming a place of refuge for Negroes. In the first place, the
industrial revolution had not then had time to reduce the Negroes to the
plane of beasts in the cotton kingdom. The rigorous climate and the
industries of the northern people, moreover, were not inviting to the
blacks and the development of the carrying trade and the rise of
manufacturing there did not make that section more attractive to unskilled
labor. Furthermore, when we consider the fact that there were many
thousands of Negroes in the Southern States the presence of a few in the
North must be regarded as insignificant. This paucity of blacks then
obtained especially in the Northwest Territory, for its French inhabitants
instead of being an exploiting people were pioneering, having little use
for slaves in carrying out their policy of merely holding the country for
France. Moreover, like certain gentlemen from Virginia, who after the
American Revolution were afraid to bring their slaves with them to occupy
their bounty lands in Ohio, few enterprising settlers from the slave
States had invaded the territory with their Negroes, not knowing whether
or not they would be secure in the possession of such property. When we
consider that in 1810 there were only 102,137 Negroes in the North and no
more than 3,454 in the Northwest Territory, we must look to the second
decade of the nineteenth century for the beginning of the migration of the
Negroes in the United States.
[Footnote 1: Locke, _Anti-Slavery_, pp. 19, 20, 23; _Works of John
Woolman_, pp. 58, 73; and Moore, _Notes on Slavery in Massachusetts_,
p. 71.]
[Footnote 2: Bassett, _Federalist System_, chap. xii. Hart,
_Slavery and Abolition_, pp. 153, 154.]
[Footnote 3: Turner, _The Rise of the New West_, pp. 45, 46, 47, 48,
49; Hammond, _Cotton Industry_, chaps. i and ii; Scherer, _Cotton
as a World Power_, pp. 168, 175.]
[Footnote 4: Locke, _Anti-Slavery_, chaps. i and ii.]
[Footnote 5: Jay, _An Inquiry_, p. 30.]
[Footnote 6: Ford edition, _Jefferson's Writings_, III, p. 432.]
[Footnote 7: For the passage of this ordinance three reasons have been
given: Slavery then prior to the invention of the cotton gin was
considered a necessary evil in the South. The expected monopoly of the
tobacco and indigo cultivation in the South would be promoted by excluding
Negroes from the Northwest Territory and thus preventing its cultivation
there. Dr. Cutler's influence aided by Mr. Grayson of Virginia was of much
assistance. The philanthropic idea was not so prominent as men have
thought.--Dunn, _Indiana_, p. 212.]
[Footnote 8: _Ibid_., p. 254.]
[Footnote 9: _Code Noir_.]
[Footnote 10: Speaking of these settlements in 1750, M. Viner, a Jesuit
Missionary to the Indians, said: "We have here Whites, Negroes, and
Indians, to say nothing of cross-breeds--There are five French villages
and three villages of the natives within a space of twenty-one leagues--In
the five French villages there are perhaps eleven hundred whites, three
hundred blacks, and some sixty red slaves or savages." Unlike the
condition of the slaves in Lower Louisiana where the rigid enforcement of
the Slave Code made their lives almost intolerable, the slaves of the
Northwest Territory were for many reasons much more fortunate. In the
first place, subject to the control of a mayor-commandant appointed by the
Governor of New Orleans, the early dwellers in this territory managed
their plantations about as they pleased. Moreover, as there were few
planters who owned as many as three or four Negroes, slavery in the
Northwest Territory did not get far beyond the patriarchal stage. Slaves
were usually well fed. The relations between master and slave were
friendly. The bondsmen were allowed special privileges on Sundays and
holidays and their children were taught the catechism according to the
ordinance of Louis XIV in 1724, which provided that all masters should
educate their slaves in the Apostolic Catholic religion and have them
baptized. Male slaves were worked side by side in the fields with their
masters and the female slaves in neat attire went with their mistresses to
matins and vespers. Slaves freely mingled in practically all festive
enjoyments.--See _Jesuit Relations_, LXIX, p. 144; Hutchins, _An
Historical Narrative_, 1784; and _Code Noir_.]
[Footnote 11: Mention was thereafter made of slaves as in the case of
Captain Philip Pittman who in 1770 wrote of one Mr. Beauvais, "who owned
240 orpens of cultivated land and eighty slaves; and such a case as that
of a Captain of a militia at St. Philips, possessing twenty blacks; and
the case of Mr. Bales, a very rich man of St. Genevieve, Illinois, owning
a hundred Negroes, beside having white people constantly employed."--See
Captain Pittman's _The Present State of the European Settlements in the
Mississippi_, 1770.]
[Footnote 12: Dunn, _Indiana_, chap. vi.]
[Footnote 13: Hinsdale, _Old Northwest_, p. 350.]
[Footnote 14: _Tyrannical Libertymen_, pp. 10, 11; Locke,
_Anti-Slavery_, pp. 31, 32; Brannagan, _Serious Remonstrance_,
p. 18.]
[Footnote 15: Washington edition of _Jefferson's Writings_, chap. vi,
p. 456, and chap. viii, p. 380.]
[Footnote 16: Ford edition of _Jefferson's Writings_, III, p. 244;
IX, p. 303; X, pp. 76, 290.]
[Footnote 17: Brannagan, _Serious Remonstrances_, p. 18.]
[Footnote 18: Library edition of _Jefferson's Writings_, X, pp. 295,
296.]
[Footnote 19: Adams, _Neglected Period of Anti-Slavery_, pp. 129,
130.]
[Footnote 20: _The Pennsylvania Gazette_, July 31, 1746.]
[Footnote 21: _The Maryland Gazette_, March 20, 1755.]
[Footnote 22: _Washington's Writings_, II, p. 134.]
[Footnote 23: Brissot de Warville, _New Travels_, II, pp. 33-34.]
[Footnote 24: Harris, _Slavery in Illinois_, chaps. iii, iv, and v;
Dunn, _Indiana_, pp. 218-260; Hinsdale, _Old Northwest_, pp.
351-358.]
[Footnote 25: This code provided that all male Negroes under fifteen,
years of age either owned or acquired must remain in servitude until they
reached the age of thirty-five and female slaves until thirty-two. The
male children of such persons held to service could be bound out for
thirty years and the female children for twenty-eight. Slaves brought into
the territory had to comply with contracts for terms of service when their
master registered them within thirty days from the time he brought them
into the territory. Indentured black servants were not exactly sold, but
the law permitted the transfer from one owner to another when the slave
acquiesced in the transfer before a notary, but it was often done without
regard to the slave. They were even bequeathed and sold as personal
property at auction. Notices for sale were frequent. There were rewards
for runaway slaves. Negroes whose terms had almost expired were kidnapped
and sold to New Orleans. The legislature imposed a penalty for such, but
it was not generally enforced. They were taxable property valued according
to the length of service. Negroes served as laborers on farms, house
servants, and in salt mines, the latter being an excuse for holding them
as slaves. Persons of color could purchase servants of their own race. The
law provided that the Justice of the County could on complaint from the
master order that a lazy servant be whipped. In this frontier section,
therefore, where men often took the law in their own hands, slaves were
often punished and abused just as they were in the Southern States. The
law dealing with fugitives was somewhat harsh. When apprehended, fugitives
had to serve two days extra for each day they lost from their master's
service. The harboring of a runaway slave was punishable by a fine of one
day for each the slave might be concealed. Consistently too with the
provision of the laws in most slave States, slaves could retain all goods
or money lawfully acquired during their servitude provided their master
gave his consent. Upon the demonstration of proof to the county court that
they had served their term they could obtain from that tribunal
certificates of freedom. See _The Laws of Indiana_.]