Exoduster Movement + Oklahoma Land Rush Flashcards
When was the Exoduster movement?
1879
How many slaves across the USA were freed when the civil war was won?
4 million
How did southern whites stop black Americans from becoming independent?
-They used violence and intimidation to stop black Americans voting
-they also refused to sell land to black Americans and forced them into sharecropping, which kept black farmers working for free on white plantations and economically dependent on white people
What is sharecropping (links to how blacks were being treated)?
when a landowner allows a tenant to use some of their land in return for a share of the crops they grow
What is the deal with Benjamin Singleton?
-pioneered the move to Kansas
-having set up a settlement there in 1873, he promoted Kansas at meetings and in newspaper adverts in the southern states
-helped many hundreds of blacks move there
-he helped to create the foundation for the Exoduster movement
What caused the Exoduster movement and how many people migrated as a result of it?
-in 1879, a rumour spread that the Federal government had given the whole state of Kansas to ex-slaves.
-40,000 black Americans from the southern states to Kansas and other western states as a result.
What’s the deal with Henry Adams?
promoted the idea of black emigrations
What were the reasons for the Kansas emigration?
-Henry Adams and Benjamin singleton
-There was a widespread interest within black communities in the idea of migration generally, including migration to Liberia
-Kansas had a historic reputation as an anti-slavery state and it became a “free state” in 1861 which gave blacks reasons to believe that Kansas would welcome black people and to view the state in a positive way
-the Homestead act offered the promise of free land (pull factor)
-the biblical story of exodus - trusted God would provide for them
What were the problems farming for the Exoduster movement?
-other settlers and ranchers had already taken the best land: blacks were left with land in the Kansas uplands which were very difficult to farm
-Since many had come to Kansas believing that the land would be free, they were not able to afford the administration fee to take up their claims
What was the response to Exodusters?
-Kansas government gave blacks financial help
-there was huge oppositions to the Exodusters in the southern states
-whites in Kansas thought that the Exodusters should not be helped and should return back to the South
What were the consequences of the Exoduster movement?
-Exodusters typically stayed poorer than white migrants and had fewer rights
-By the 1880s, the exodus turned into a much smaller stream of migrants who have saved money and put together the resources necessary for settling in the west.
-difficulties faced by some black settlers in Kansas meant that there was a second (smaller ) wave out of Kansas as former Exodusters went elsewhere in the USA, especially to Nebraska and, after 1889, to Oklahoma
When was the first Oklahoma land rush?
1889
Describe what happened in the first land rush
at midday 22nd April 1889, thousands of white settlers rushed over the country to claim their 160-acre section
How many land rushes were there?
7
When was the last land rush and how many acres of land were opened for settlement?
1895
88, 000
