“ The only Southern States from which the blacks emigrated in any considerable numbers seem to have been Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. The chief reasons given by the negroes for the abandonment of their homes were that they were forced to pay excessive rents, that the system of land tenure in the South was unjust, that exorbitant prices were charged by ‘credit’ merchants, and that the freedmen were wholly denied political recognition and were kept down in every way by ‘bulldozing’ methods. ”

“ The movement began in the early spring of 1879, and before the close of 1880 fully 40,000 negroes had removed to Kansas alone, while a large number had settled in Missouri and Indiana also. Many arrived at their destination poorly clad, generally destitute, and without promise of employment, and for a time there was much want and suffering among them. ”

“ Opponents of the movement asserted that the negroes had been misled by the representations of land speculators, by misguided philanthropists, and by politicians who, in view of the approaching Presidential election, wished to import numbers of Republican voters into various parts of the North, where the Republican majority was doubtful. ”