Exodusters

Black Migration to Kansas after Reconstruction

With a New Introduction by the Author

Nell Irvin ii Painter

W W - NORTON & COMPANY New York London

Benjamin "Pap" Singleton and Migration to Kansas log

Benjamin "Pap" Singleton and Migration to Kansas

Benjamin Singleton and Henry Adams amazed the American public in 1879-80; Adams told of ninety-eight thousand Blacks organized to emigrate, and staggered Northern imaginations, and Singleton asserted flat out, "I am the whole cause of the Kansas immigration!"^ Since 1880, secondary literature on the Exodus has mentioned Adams and Singleton in the same breath. Yet the two men never knew each other and never collaborated, not even by mail. Benjamin Singleton, like Henry Adams, took enormous interest in the welfare of the race, and, like Adams, he grew convinced that Blacks could prosper only outside the old slave states. Also like Adams, Singleton unequivocally divorced himself from "politicians." He, too, thought himself the possessor of certain extraordinary, God-given talents. But, whereas Adams's gift was the power of healing, Singleton was an instrument expressing the will of God, more precisely, the will of the "God of Daniel." Although both Singleton and Adams had been slaves before the Civil War, and both favored migration out of the South, they were otherwise very dissimilar men. Much of the difference between them stemmed from the vast disparity in their ages; Adams was thirty-six in 1879, Singleton, seventy. Singleton had grown up
'Benjamin Singleton, Senate Report 693, III: 382. (Emphasis in original.) Singleton claimed to have "fetched out" from the South 7,432 people. (Ibid, p. 379.)

and grown old in slavery, while Adams was still a young man when he was freed at the end of the war. Adams came to maturity amid Radical Reconstruction in one of the most radically reconstructed states of all, Louisiana. He also served in the United States Army. Like Black veterans in other periods, Adams emerged from the Army stiffened with a resolve to see Blacks secure their citizens' rights. Singleton, too old for the Union Army, lived most of his life in Tennessee, where the changes wrought by Reconstruction were superficial and ephemeral. Little is known of Singleton's life before the mid-i870s. He spent his young manhood as a cabinetmaker in Nashville, where he was born and raised. Sold to owners in the Gulf States several times, he repeatedly escaped back to Nashville, until finally he fled to Canada. He stayed only briefly in Canada, soon returning to Detroit, where he worked as a scavenger and ran a boarding house that often harbored other fugitive slaves. After the war, he returned to Nashville and began to fulfill his "mission," as he saw it, to see Black people safe and secure, whether within or outside Tennessee. With the passage of time, he came to view his Godgiven mission as the removal of Blacks from the former slave states. During the late 1860s and the 1870s, Singleton lived in Edgefield, across the Cumberland River from Nashville. In his work as a carpenter and cofiBnmakef in the country around Nashville, he fashioned coffins for many of the victims of racially motivated murders and heard stories of their untimely deaths. The magnitude of the carnage convinced him that "the Southern country is out of joint." He was moved by the unending violence of whites against Blacks that typified conditions in the postwar South generally. Black men in Tennessee might risk their lives or lose them trying to shield their wives or daughters from the attentions of "trashy" white men: Our people in times of their little social gatherings at nightsquilting, perhaps, and weddings, throughout the country, you will see a dirty, low-lived, trashy'[white] man out in the town, and he will send some weak-minded one there to tell some colored man's daughter or wife he loves to come 6ut, he wants a word with them. He will stop along the road and have some talk with them, and then that poor black man
'St. Louis Globe-Democrat, April 21,1879.

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Adams, Singleton, and Postwar Realities

Benjamin "Pap" Singleton and Migration to Kansas 111

daren't say nothing, or there will go to his house, a lot of them scoundrelsI am not talking of Democrats onlya lot of them scoundrels will go in there and take that negro out and kill him. I know lots of folks they took out. Two cases stuck in Singleton's memory: Julia Haven; I made the outside box and her cofiBn, in Smith County, Tennessee. And another young colored lady I know, about my color, they committed an outrage on her and then shot her, and 1 helped myself to make the outside box. For both historic and personal reasons. Singleton placed less importance on Black people's right to vote and run for ofiBce than did Henry Adams. The United States Army, including Black soldiers, had occupied Louisiana over a period of years; Tennessee had had no postwar occupation and only a brief Reconstruction. Tennessee's whites far outnumbered its Blacks, and the state's politics divided on differences between various groups of whites. Its Republican regime reflected the concerns of men like Andrew Johnson, who reserved their real passion for large planters in the southwestern portion of the state, whom they opposed on economic and regional grounds. They cared little for erecting a political base for the Republican party among new Black voters. Reconstruction in Tennessee, such as it was, had ended in 1870, Singleton not only lived in a state where the Black masses played a less active political role, he was also of a generation that had matured well before Black emancipation and enfranchisement were even topics for discussion. In Singleton's view, proper public action sprang from divine revelation, not from the democratic process. Adams lived and traveled arnong the people whose opinions and interests he articulated, and he stressed the importance of listening to what they said. Singleton, in contrast, claimed knowledge of the Black situation from experience, and its solutions from the advice of God. Adams tried his best to express the wishes of the people. Singleton presented them with divinely inspired solutions and attempted to lead them to receive his truths. Thus, for Singleton, voting and running for office were mere diversions, sometimes dangerous pastimes not necessarily intended for the colored people. Here he found ready agreement with Southern
'Benjamin Singleton, Senate Report 693, III: 382-83.

whites where Adams could not. Not surprisingly, Singleton pointed with pride at the approval his ideas received from prominent Tennessee whites: The white people said, "you are right; take your people away." And let me tell you, it was the white peoplethe ex-governor of the State, felt like I did. And they said to me, "You have tooken a great deal on to yourself, but if these negroes, instead of deceiving one another and running for office, would take the same idea that you have in your head, you will be a people."'' Singleton had voted several times and called himself a Grant man, but he was not immersed in political organizing in the way that Adams was. Just as there was a certain disingenuousness in Adams's distinction between himself and "politicians," Singleton was less than candid when he insisted that there were no "political men" in his migration movement in Tennessee. Columbus M. Johnson, for instance, was associated with Singleton perhaps longer than any other man, having explored farm purchase in Tennessee in 1869. Johnson accompanied Singleton to Kansas, gathering information on homesteading there. Singleton returned to Nashville, and Johnson remained in Topeka as the Kansas-based agent of the Edgefield Real Estate Association. But Johnson had not avoided politics; he was a delegate to the Republican National Conventions of 1872 and 1874. W. A. Sizemore also worked with Singleton over several years. Although he was not a full-time politician, Sizemore was elected a member of the Davidson County Republican Central Committee in 1874. Another of Singleton's associates, A. W. McConnell, served on the same committee that year. Both Sizemore and McConnell were elected delegates from Davidson
Ibid., p. 381. 'Chicago Daily Tribune, March 27,1879. Singleton and Sizemore had collaborated from the incorporation of the Edgefield Real Estate Association in September 1874 'o incorporation of the Singleton Colony at Dunlap, Kansas, in June 1879. Sizemore, a carpenter, may have actually been more important in the movement in Tennessee than was Singleton. In any case, his was the first name of the association's memorandum of incorporation. Further, in Singleton's first letter to Kansas, he requested his answer through either the Second Baptist Church or W. A. Sizemore. (Benjamin Singleton to Governor Thomas A. Osborn, Nashville, Tennessee, August 7,1876, CRSF, Osborn, box 2, KSHS.)

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Adams, Singleton, and Postwar Realities

Benjamin "Pap" Singleton and Migration to Kansas 113

County to the State Convention of Colored MenJ (Singleton came into more prominence the following year, when he, too, was elected to the Tennessee Convention of Colored Men.) Sizemore chaired the State Convention of Colored Men in 1875, which Singleton and McConnell participated prominently. All three men gave major speeches advocating migration out of the state, which convinced one white Nashville newspaper that interest in migration was not limited to the "most ignorant grades of the colored population." (Another paper found the meeting devoid of significance, noting that it was neither representative nor statewide, and that "outside of some windy harrangues against Grangers and office-holding and office-seeking Republicans, the preceedings were without point or coherence.") The Union and American distinguished the migrationist movement now "controlled by the more sagacious of [the colored] race," from the Kansas Fever "sensation," but admitted that the two might be confused.'" Singleton clearly belonged to the former group, and by spring 1875 gained prominence in this growing migration movement in middle Tennessee, as did several other very respectable and politically active Black men in Nashville and Edgefield. Singleton was most visible in Nashville between 1875 and 1877, although during 1876 his activities were briefly overshadowed by the National Convention of Colored Men. This Nashville convention brought together the most illustrious Black men on the national scene, and none of the delegates from Tennessee was of the Sizemore-Singleton-McConnell circle. Instead of the craftsmen of the Singleton group, the Tennessee delegates to the convention were "representative colored men," lawyers, schoolteachers, civil servants, and doctors." While the nation's "leading colored men" debated the desirability of migrating. Singleton was taking steps
'Nashville Union and American, May 2,1874. 'Ibid., May 16,1875. 'Nashville Republican Banner, May 20,1875. '"Nashville Union and American, May 20,1875. Nashville and Edgefield City Directory (Nashville; 1876,1877,1878,1879). Several Tennessee delegates held (of would hold) local offices. One delegate, W. F. Yardley of Knoxville, ran for governor in 1876. (Mingo Scott, Jr., The Negro in Tennessee Politics and Governmental Affairs [Nashville, 1964], pp. 50-57.) See also Joseph Howard Cartwright, "The Negro in Tennessee Politics," unpublished M.A. thesis, Vanderbilt University, 1963.

to fulfill his own mission of conducting Tennessee Blacks to the free land in the West. Since the late 1860s Singleton had attempted to convince his fellow Blacks of the feasibility of investing in their own farms. Lack of capital, as ever, posed the great stumbling block. Even though in this early period Singleton favored Kansas, a combination of circumstances persuaded him to pursue the purchase of farms in Tennessee. First of all. Blacks in Tennessee were reluctant to forsake their old homes. In an 1877 migration meeting, Stokely Walton said, "We feel sorry to think that we have to leave our fathers, mothers, wives and children's dust and flee into other States to make a living."' In Tennessee this sense of continuity and proximity to one's parents' graves waxed stronger than in the Gulf States for immediately comprehensible reasons. In Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, adults of the postwar years were very likely to have been born in the southeastern states, especially in South Carolina and Georgia. Having graveled to the Gulf States as youngsters, they knew long-distance migration and hesitated less than Tennesseans to move again. But in Tennessee, the postwar adult generation most likely shared Tennessee nativity with both parents. The initial inertia of the native Black population corresponded with advice Singleton received from other quarters. "My white friends," he said, advised him to "make a trial and see if we could riot buy land in Tennessee. So we did. We made one or two selections, but the land in Tennessee was sixty dollars an acre."' Once it was apparent that finding accessible land in Tennessee would prove exceedingly difficult. Singleton's Kansas alternative prevailed. In 1870 a handful of men went to Kansas and returned a favorable report .of homesteading possibilities. Several families migrated, and theij- assessments were also positive. In 1873 Singleton himself visited southeastern Kansas and discovered that the lands that had formerly been the Cherokee reservation would serve well as homesteads for Tennessee Blacks. By his account, he began conveying families to the Singleton Colony in Cherokee County in the early 1870s, but it is not at all clear that this move"Singleton Scrapbook, p. 50. "Benjamin Singleton, Senate Report 693, III: 389.

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Benjamin "Pap" Singleton and Migration to Karisas 115

ment had actually progressed beyond the talking stage before the middle of the decade.'* Singleton's i88o version of the Kansas beginnings explained that
my people, for the want of landwe needed land for our childrenand their disadvantagesthat caused my heart to grieve and sorrow; pity for my race, sir, that was coming down, instead of going upthat caused me to go to work for them. I sent out [to Kansas] perhaps in '66^perhaps so; or in '6^, any waymy memory don't recollect which; and they brought back tolerable favorable reports; then I jacked up three or four hundred, and went into Southern Kansas, and found it was a good country, and I thought Southern Kansas was congenial to our nature, sir; and I formed a colony there, and bought about a thousand acres of groundthe colony didmy people."

Singleton's own letters, circulars, and interviews between 1875 and 1880 confirm this summary but situate it in a somewhat later period. While Singleton doubtless visited Kansas in 1873, he did not begin making serious inquiries of the state government until 187^. In August of the latter year he wrote to the governor, explaining that the Black people of Tennessee wanted to purchase land over a long period, as they lacked the liquid capital to purchase farms outright. He asked whether any aid was available for their transportation or settlement.' Citing hard times as their main reason for wanting to go to Kansas, he said that thousands were ready to leave Tennessee: "Will you pleas to Write to me all about it and the turms that it can be had and I will no What to do we are bound to leve this State fast as Soon as we can get a Way for Starvation is Staring us in the face. ... I think that we can Rais about from one to three thousand people that will leve this fall.
'St. Louis Globe-Democrat, April 21,1879. "Benjamin Singleton, Senate Report 693, III: 380. "This is of interest because during the Kansas Fever Exodus, which set in motion a national charity drive. Singleton pointed with pride to "his" migrants, none of whom had ever needed or asked for any outside help. "My people that I carried to Kansas ever since 1879 have generally, sir, come on our own resources, and generally went on our own workings. We have tried to make a people of ourselves. I tell you to-day, sir, this [Freedman's Aid] committee is outside of me, for I don't know nothing about it hardly; my people depends on their own resources." (Ibid., p. 390.) "Benjamin Singleton to Governor Osborn, N^hville, Tennessee, August 7, i8y6, CRSF, Osborn, box 2, KSHS. The governor's office gave the standard response to such inquiries; guarded encouragement emphasizing the need for a minimum of money.

In the following year, 1877, Singleton and Columbus Johnson visited Kansas on a tour of inspection. On his return. Singleton inserted a notice in a Nashville newspaper indicating his willingness to supply information about Kansas to interested people, free of charge. A year later he issued a circular notifying potential migrants that he would conduct them to the Cherokee County colony. During the intervening period he worked to build interest in migration to Kansas, especially through the Edgefield Real Estate and Homestead Association.' During 1877 and 1878 the Edgefield Real Estate Association sponsored mass meetings and maintained an ofiEce to drum, up support for its migrationist cause. The officers of the real estate association issued a call for an investigative meeting on May 30, 1877, emphasizing the need for a spirit of peace, for race unity, and for divine approval (rather than the material gains to be realized through migration). Singleton, chairman of the meeting, wanted to awaken the race "to a sense of their duty." Stressing peace and goodwill to all mankind, he said that "peace and time have met together and kissed each other, and it is now high time to-be looking after the interest of our downtrodden race." Huston Soloman, the superintendent of the meeting, underlined the need for racial unity on both secular and spiritual grounds:
There are a great number of our people that don't heed to any advice of their own color, and I say that is just the reason we are in the condition that we are to-day, so let us wake up to the sense of our duty, and begin to look after our downtrodden race. Let us come together like the family of Israel, that we may inherit eternal life, for I believe in Daniel's God, the inheritor of eternal life. . ..'

Open to "the State of Tennessee," not just to Blacks, the meeting was held on July 31 and August 1,1877, in Nashville. Although it was a great success. Singleton took "representative colored men" to task for their notable absence: "I am now compelled to say something to our leading men of our race that sit in high places and get their living ofiF of our poor laboring class, and then point the finger of scorn at us for calling .together a meeting for our future welfare, when white men praise us for so doing. Such men as this should not be leaders of our race any longer."^ By Sin"Singleton Scrapbook, unpaginated fliers. 'Ibid., p. 21. '"Ibid., p. 24.

ii6 Adams, Singleton, and Postwar Realities

Benjamin "Pap" Singleton and Migration to Kansas iij

gleton's reckoning, about five hundred people "of the laboring class attended the two-day meeting. They took twelve hundred of Singleton s notices back home with them,, to areas in and around Nashville and elsewhere in Tennessee. ^ The Edgefield Real Estate and Homestead Association shifted into high gear after the summer meeting. It publicized its migration activities at festivals and picnics, earning enough money to cover its expenses. In 1878 the association regularly conducted working-class Blacks to Kansas and incorporated the- Singleton Colony in Dunlap, Morris County, Kansas, in 1879.2.' Singleton, W. A. Sizemore, and Alonzo DeFrantz lived there from the middle of 1879 to the early part of 1880; Singleton's temporary residence in this colony marked the end of his mdst active period of conducting settlers from Tennessee to Kansas. Nonetheless, the sense of mission he developed in this work in the 1870s continued to pervade his life. Benjamin "Pap" Singleton interpreted his role as an instrument of God in a broad sense, transcending the single question of migration. Meetings of the Edgefield Real Estate and Homestead Association spoke of peace and goodwill toward all mankind, and after 1879 Singleton saw himself as a vessel to shower these blessinp on his people at large. He would bring peace to the South, he said, by teaching the Southern white people a lesson. By taking the Black people out of the South, he would show Southern whites that they must live with their Black-neighbors in tranquillity. He had tried to show the whites that they must change their ways, he said; he had prayed for peace with his people: "I have talked about this, and called a convention, and tried to harmonize things and promote the spirit of conciliation, and to do everything that could be done in the name of God. Why, I haye prayed to the Almighty when it appeared to me an imposition before heaven to pray for them. Reaching beyond the tools of secular organization and of the Christian churches, beyond meetings in Liberty Hall, Singleton tapped the living sources of Black folk religion: "I have taken my people out in the rogds and in the dark places, and looked to the stars of heaven and prayed for the Southern man to turn his heart.""
"Benjamin Singleton, Senate Report 693, III: 387-88. 'Ibid., pp. 383-84.

When the concerted will and soul of his community together would not "turn" the heart of white Southerners, the only other divinely acceptable alternative was for Blacks to forsake the South. Yet, once the lesson had been well learfted. Singleton said he would lead the people hack to the land most suited to them, back to the South. "We don't want to leave the South," he said, "and just as soon as we have confidence in the South I am going to be an instrument in the hands of God to persuade every man to go back,*because that*is the best country; that is genial to our nature, we love that country, and it is the best country in the world for us; but we are going to learn the South a lesson."'^ White Southerners did not learn Singleton's lesson, at least not during his lifetime. He had called himself the "Father of the Kansas emigration" from Tennessee as early as 1877, and it was as the father of migration that he was known in 1879. His work for race betterment continued well into the decade that followed.
''Ibid., p. 383. Singleton reasoned that creating a labor shortage in the cotton states would drive the price of cotton intolerably high and thereby teach the white South nof to mistreat its Blacks.