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especially, losing thousands of Blacks would likely drain the labor source of cheap
agricultural services poor African Americans provided throughout the region.
Newspapers published propaganda from railroad companies dispelling rumors of free
transportation for Black migrants as well as letters from Black Exodusters in Kansas
concerning their poor economic conditions. Meanwhile, riverboats—an important source
of transportation for many Exodusters—failed to stop for Black passengers along the
Mississippi River. 62 In fact, White southerners accosted Kansas-bound African Americans
along river banks. Reports from Exodusters, found in this predicament, include violent
encounters from Whites wanting to deter Black movement to Kansas. 63 Nonetheless,
Benjamin Singleton’s dedication to Black migration led to Kansas reaching a total of
40,000 African Americans by 1880—the second largest Black population of any western
state or territory aside from Texas. 64 However, land openings in Indian Territory and
economic difficulty in Kansas led some Black Americans to seek relief in Indian
Territory.
Economic factors affected Black settlement in Texas and Kansas. It proved
difficult for freedmen to obtain employment and land. Most Exodusters were unable to
find steady work. Nonetheless, the Exodusters set a precedent for additional Black
migration to the American West with large numbers of Kansas migrants leaving for
Nebraska and Oklahoma throughout the 1880s. Exodusters, like Edward McCabe
eventually gained interest in the Unassigned Lands in central Indian Territory.
Meanwhile, Benjamin Singleton continued to move groups of African Americans to
Kansas throughout the 1880s. McCabe, along with other ambitious Black migrants,
62
Painter, Exodusters, 195.
63
Painter, Exodusters, 196-7.
64
Martin Dann, “From Sodom to the Promised Land: E. P. McCabe and the Movement
for Oklahoma Colonization,” Kansas Historical Quarterly 3 (1974), accessed November
4, 2014, http://www.kshs.org/p/kansas-historical-quarterly-from-sodom-to-thepromised-land/13246;
Quintard Taylor, In Search of the Racial Froniter, 135.