NEGRO EXODUS. The name applied to a movement of freedmen [roe the Southern to the We,tern and Northern in 1879 aml 1850. The movement began in the early spring of 1879, and before the close of 1580 fully 40.000 uegroes had removed to alum., [chile a large number had settled in _Missouri and Indiana also. Many arrived at their destination poorly clad. generally th-ditute. and without promise of cumploymm'nt, and for it time there was much want and suffering among them. Large sums Of money, however, Were Is nit ributed for their re lief throughout the North. especially in Kan sas, where, soon after the arrival of the first band of immigrants, an efficient Freedmen's Re lief Association was organized. The only South ern States from which the blacks emigrated in any considerable number, seem to have been Loui,hina. 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 laud 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. Opponents of the movement asserted
that the negroes had been misled by the repre sentations 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 Repub lican majority was 41(mM:fill. The movement seems to have been considerably furthered by the 'Nashville Colored Convention.' which met in Nashville, Tenn.. May 7. 1879, adopted a report setting forth the grievance• of the blacks and the many disadvantages. social. eronomic, and politi cal, under which they labored in the South. and recommending that the negroes should emigrate to those States where their rights were not denied them. For an account of the causes of the movement, consult an article by Runnhm. "The Negro Exodus." in the itlantie Monthly, vol. xliv. (Boston. 1879) : and for arguments justify ing and the movement. consult arti cles by R. T. Greener and Frederick Douglass, respectively, in the Journal of Social Science, vol. xi. (Boston. 1888).