[Footnote 33:  Ibid., p. 39.]

[Footnote 34:  Starr, What shall be done with the People of Color in the United States, p. 25; Ward, Contrabands, pp. 3, 4.]

[Footnote 35:  It is said that Lincoln suggested colonizing the contrabands in South America.]

[Footnote 36:  Atlantic Monthly, XII, p. 308.]

[Footnote 37:  Levi Coffin, Reminiscences, p. 671.]

[Footnote 38:  Atlantic Monthly, XII, p. 309.]

[Footnote 39:  Ibid., XII, pp. 310-311.]

[Footnote 40:  Ibid., p. 311.]

[Footnote 41:  Hamilton, Reconstruction in North Carolina, pp. 156, 157.]

[Footnote 42:  Eckenrode, Political History of Virginia during the Reconstruction, p. 43.]

[Footnote 43:  Hall, Andrew Johnson, p. 258.]

[Footnote 44:  Thompson, Reconstruction in Georgia, p. 44.]

[Footnote 45:  Davis, Reconstruction in Florida, p. 341.]

[Footnote 46:  Ficklen, History of Reconstruction in Louisiana, p. 118.]

[Footnote 47:  Fleming, The Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama, p. 271.]

[Footnote 48:  Thompson, Reconstruction in Georgia, p. 69.]

[Footnote 49:  Ibid., p. 69.]

[Footnote 50:  This exodus became considerable again in 1888 and 1889 and the Negro population has continued in this direction of plentitude of land including not only Arkansas and Texas but Louisiana and Oklahoma, all which received in this way by 1900 about 200,000 Negroes.]

[Footnote 51:  American Journal of Political Economy, XXII, pp. 10, 40.]

[Footnote 52:  Ibid., XXV, p. 1038.]

[Footnote 53:  Mecklin, Black Codes.]

[Footnote 54:  Dunning, Reconstruction, pp. 54, 59, 110.]

[Footnote 55:  DuBois, Freedmen’s Bureau.]

CHAPTER VII

THE EXODUS TO THE WEST

Having come through the halcyon days of the Reconstruction only to find themselves reduced almost to the status of slaves, many Negroes deserted the South for the promising west to grow up with the country.  The immediate causes were doubtless political. Bulldozing, a rather vague term, covering all such crimes as political injustice and persecution, was the source of most complaint.  The abridgment of the Negroes’ rights had affected them as a great calamity.  They had learned that voting is one of the highest privileges to be obtained in this life and they wanted to go where they might still exercise that privilege.  That persecution was the main cause was disputed, however, as there were cases of Negroes migrating from parts where no such conditions obtained.  Yet some of the whites giving their version of the situation admitted that violent methods had been used so to intimidate the Negroes as to compel them to vote according to the dictation of the whites.  It was also learned that the bulldozers concerned in dethroning the non-taxpaying blacks were an impecunious and irresponsible group themselves, led by men of the wealthy class.[1]