yet to prove this absurd proposition the committee devoted six months of hard and fruitless labor, during which they examined one hundred and fifty-nine witnesses, selected from all parts of the country, mainly with reference to their supposed readiness to prove said theory, expended over $30,000 and filled three large volumes of testimony.
The undersigned feel themselves authorized to say that there is no evidence whatever even tending to sustain the charge that the Republican party, or any of its leaders, have been instrumental, either directly or indirectly, in aiding or encouraging these people to come from their homes in the South to any of the Northern States. A good deal of complaint was made that certain "aid societies" in the North had encouraged and aided this migration, and a futile attempt was made to prove that these societies were acting in the interest of the Republican party. Upon inquiry, however, it was ascertained that their purposes were purely charitable and had no connection whatever with any political motive or movement. They were composed almost wholly of colored people, and were brought into existence solely to afford temporary relief to the destitute and suffering emigrants who had already come into the Northern and Western States.
In the spring of 1879 thousands of colored people, unable longer to endure the intolerable hardships, injustice, and suffering inflicted upon them by a class of Democrats in the South, had, in utter despair, fled panic-stricken from their homes and sought protection among strangers in a strange land. Homeless, penniless, and in rags, these poor people were thronging the wharves of Saint Louis, crowding the steamers on the Mississippi River, and in pitiable destitution throwing themselves upon the charity of Kansas. Thousands more were congregating along the banks of the Mississippi River, hailing the passing steamers, and imploring them for a passage to the land of freedom, where their rights of citizens were respected and honest toil rewarded by honest compensation. The newspapers were filled with accounts of their destitution, and the very air was burdened with the cry of distress from a class of American citizens flying from persecutions which they could not longer endure. Their piteous tales of outrage, suffering and wrong touched the hearts of the more fortunate members of their race in the North and West, and aid societies, designed to afford temporary relief, and composed largely, almost wholly, of colored people, were organized in Washington, Saint Louis, Topeka, and in various other places. That they were organized to induce migration for political purposes, or to aid or to encourage these people to leave their homes for any purpose, or that they ever contributed one dollar to that end, is utterly untrue, and there is absolutely nothing in the testimony to sustain such a charge. Their purposes and objects were purely charitable. They found a race of wretched miserable people flying from oppression and wrong, and they sought to relieve their distress. The refugees were hungry, and they fed them: in rags, and they clothed them; homeless, and they sheltered them; destitute, and they found employment for them—only this and nothing more.
The real origin of the exodus movement and the organizations at the South which have promoted it are very clearly stated by the witnesses who have been most active in regard to it.
Henry Adams, of Shreveport, Louisiana, an uneducated colored laborer, but a man of very unusual natural abilities, and, so far as the committee could learn, entirely reliable and truthful, states that he entered the United States Army in 1866 and remained in it until 1869; that when he left the Army he returned to his former home at Shreveport, and, finding the condition of his race intolerable, he and a number of other men who had also been in the Army set themselves to work to better the condition of their people.
In 1870—
He says—
a parcel of us got together and said we would organize ourselves into a committee and look into affairs and see the true condition of our race, to see whether it was possible we could stay under a people who held us in bondage or not.
That committee increased until it numbered about five hundred and Mr. Adams says:
Some of the members of the committee was ordered by the committee to go into every State in the South where we had been slaves, and post one another from time to time about the true condition of our race, and nothing but the truth.
In answer to the question whether they traveled over various States he said:
"Yes, sir; and we worked, some of us, worked our way from place to place, and went from State to State and worked—some of them did—amongst our people, in the fields, everywhere, to see what sort of a living our people lived—whether we could live in the South amongst the people that held us as slaves or not. We continued that on till 1874. Every one paid his own expenses, except the one we sent to Louisiana and Mississippi. We took money out of our pockets and sent him, and said to him you must now go to work. You can't find out anything till you get amongst them. You can talk as much as you please, but you got to go right into the field and work with them and sleep with them to know all about them."
I think about one hundred or one hundred and fifty went from one place or another.
Q. What was the character of the information that they gave you? A. Well, the character of the information they brought to us was very bad, sir.
Q. Do you remember any of these reports that you got from members of your committee?—A. Yes, sir; they said in several parts where they was that the land rent was still higher there in that part of the country than it was where we first organized it, and the people was still being whipped, some of them, by the old owners, the men that had owned them as slaves, and some of them was being cheated out of their crops just the same as they was there.
Q. Was anything said about their personal and political rights in these reports as to how they were treated?—A. Yes; some of them stated that in some parts of the country where they voted they would be shot. Some of them stated that if they voted the Democratic ticket they would not be injured.
Q. Now let us understand more distinctly, before we go any further, the kind of people who composed that association. The committee, as I understand you, was composed entirely of laboring people?—A. Yes, sir.
Q Did it include any politicians of either color, white or black?—A. No politicianers didn't belong to it, because we didn't allow them to know nothing about it, because we was afraid that if we allowed the colored politicianers to belong to it he would tell it to the Republican politicianers, and from that the men that was doing all this to us would get hold of it too, and then get after us.
Q. About what time did you lose all hope and confidence that your condition could be tolerable in the Southern States?—A. Well we never lost all hopes in the world till 1877.
Q. Why did you lose all hope in that year?—A. Well, we found ourselves in such condition that we looked around and we seed that there was no way on earth, it seemed, that we could better our condition there, and we discussed that thoroughly in our organization in May. We said that the whole South—every State in the South—had got into the hands of the very men that held us slaves—from one thing to another—and we thought that the men that held us slaves was holding the reins of government over our heads in every respect almost, even the constable up to the governor. We felt we had almost as well be slaves under these men. In regard to the whole matter that was discussed it came up in every council. Then we said there was no hope for us and we had better go.
Q. You say, then, that in 1877 you lost all hope of being able to remain in the South, and you began to think of moving somewhere else?—A. Yes; we said we was going if we had to run away and go into the woods.
Q. About how many did this committee consist of before you organized your council? Give us the number as near as you can tell.—A. As many as five hundred in all.
Q. The committee, do you mean? A. Yes; the committee has been that large.
Q. What was the largest number reached by your colonization council, in your best judgment?—A. Well, it
