Exoduster movement/ Oklahoma land rush

Question 1

When was the Exoduster movement?

Answer 1

1879

Question 2

How many slaves across the USA were freed when the civil war was won?

Answer 2

4 million

Question 3

How did southern whites stop black Americans from becoming independent?

Answer 3

• 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

Question 4

What is sharecropping (links to how blacks were being treated)

Answer 4

when a landowner allows a tenant to use some of their land in return for a share of the crops they grow

Question 5

What is the deal with Benjamin singleton?

Answer 5

• 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

Question 6

What caused the exoduster movement and how many people migrated as a result of it?

Answer 6

• 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.

Question 7

What’s the deal with Henry Adams?

Answer 7

promoted the idea of black emigrations

Question 8

What were the reasons for the Kansas emigration?

Answer 8

• 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

Question 9

What were the problems farming for the exoduster movement?

Answer 9

• 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

Question 10

What was the response to Exodusters?

Answer 10

• 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

Question 11

What were the consequences of the exoduster movement?

Answer 11

• 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

Question 12

When was the first Oklahoma land rush?

Answer 12

1889

Question 13

Describe what happened in the first land rush

Answer 13

at midday 22nd April 1889, thousands of white settlers rushed over the country to claim their 160-acre section

Question 14

How many land rushes were there?

Answer 14

7

Question 15

When was the last land rush and how many acres of land were opened for settlement?

Answer 15

1895

88, 000

Question 16

When was the largest land rush, what was it called, how many acres were open for settlement?

Answer 16

1893

the Cherokee strip land rush

8 million acres