African American Migration To Wyandotte County 1875 - 1885 Delaware Township

RESEARCH QUESTION:

  Does the immigration of  Blacks from former slave holding states to Delaware Township, Kansas after 1879 show an increase  over the immigration of Blacks from former slave holding states to Delaware Township Kansas before that date?

    During the Civil War, and in the decades after it, Blacks fled the South to the North which was seen as a beacon of hope for freedom and prosperity. Termed Exodusters (or Exodusers) after the Biblical flight of the Israelites from slavery, these Blacks settled in the major northern cities of Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, etc. They also formed smaller farming communities in northern states. The most famous of these is Nicodemus,  Kansas, the first all Black community west of the Mississippi.
     But African Americans also farmed in areas near urban centers such as Kansas City, Kansas.  Delaware Township, which comprises the southwest corner of Wyandotte County, was the home for some Black southern immigrants.  The most famous migration of Blacks to Kansas from the South came during  a  few months in 1879 when an estimated 6,000  to 20,000 African Americans left the South for Kansas in the space of a few months. 1
 
    What happened?  Did the Blacks stay in Wyandotte County and become permanent residents - as the white residents feared - or did they move on to other places in the North and West?  A study of the migration patterns of African Americans into Delaware Township, Kansas in the years between 1875 and 1885 is a good first step toward a larger study of  Black migrations from the South and its affect on the permanent settlement of Blacks in  the Wyandotte County area.  The Kansas State Census data for the years 1875 and 1885 will provide the necessary data for this research.
 
 

TO WYANDOTTE COMMUNITY RESEARCH HOME PAGE

TO NEXT STEP IN DELAWARE TOWNSHIP     RESEARCH PROJECT