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THE HISTORY CAT
Unit 10 The Last Frontier
1860-1900
Exodusters
Exodusters Lesson Plan | Grades 7-12
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Picture this: It's spring 1879, and the docks in St. Louis are packed with Black families stepping off steamboats from Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. They've got everything they own stuffed into bags and crates. Most are nearly broke, and they're all heading to the same place—Kansas. They called themselves "Exodusters," comparing their journey to the biblical story of escaping slavery in Egypt. Except they weren't running from ancient Pharaohs. They were running from the nightmare that the American South had become after the United States called it quits on Reconstruction.
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Why They Left: The Post-Reconstruction South
To understand why they left, let's rewind to 1865. The Civil War was over, slavery was abolished, and reconstruction promised formerly enslaved people new freedoms: the right to vote, own land, hold political office, and gain wealth. For about a decade, it almost worked. Black men voted, Black politicians got elected, and the U.S. Army stayed in the South to protect those rights.
Then came 1877. The contested presidential election between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel Tilden ended with the Compromise of 1877. Hayes got the presidency. Southern Democrats got federal troops pulled out of the South.
Without federal protection, white supremacist groups like the Ku Klux Klan launched a reign of terror. They burned homes, lynched Black leaders, and intimidated Black voters. Southern states passed laws that effectively re-enslaved Black people through sharecropping—a system where Black farmers worked white-owned land, bought supplies on credit at inflated prices from white-owned stores, and ended up owing more than they had earned at harvest time. Sharecroppers fell deeper into debt and legally couldn't leave until it was paid. The whole system was designed to recreate slavery, just under a different name.
By 1879, the message was clear: the country had moved on from Reconstruction and civil rights. That's why those steamboats were packed with families heading to Kansas.
Visit of the Ku-Klux" by Frank Bellew (1872) depicts two members of the Ku Klux Klan entering an African American household and prepare to commit violence. US National Park Service
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The Exodus Begins
The first big wave of this migration really kicked off in March 1879. While a few Black families had been trickling into Kansas since the early 1870s, by that spring, it turned into a total flood. Somewhere between 20,000 and 40,000 people packed up their belongings and walked away from Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, and Tennessee. Most of them were making a beeline for Kansas, though some ended up in places like Nebraska and Oklahoma.
So, why was everyone heading to Kansas? Word had traveled through Black communities that Kansas had free land thanks to the Homestead Act. More importantly, it was a place where Black men could actually vote without being attacked. Kansas also had a bit of a legendary reputation—it was the place where John Brown had fought against slavery before the Civil War. To many, Kansas felt like a place of freedom that would actually welcome them.
The man who helped spark this was Benjamin "Pap" Singleton, often called the "Father of the Exodus." Singleton had been born into slavery in Tennessee and knew exactly how hard life was in the South. After he was free, he tried to buy farmland in Tennessee for Black families, but white landowners just wouldn't sell to him. Since they wouldn't let him build a life there, he started organizing trips to Kansas instead. He printed flyers, held meetings, and sent scouts ahead to check out the land. He even helped start several all-Black towns, like the Singleton Colony.
Of course, Southern plantation owners weren't happy about losing their cheap labor. They did everything they could to stop people from leaving. Steamboat companies were pressured to refuse Black passengers, and white mobs blocked the roads or used violence to turn people back. Southern politicians even made up stories, claiming that Northern Republicans were planning the whole "Exodus" just to get more voters in Kansas.
Eventually, the migration got so big that the government had to step in. In December 1879, a Senate committee held hearings to find out why so many people were fleeing. People came and told stories of the terror they faced from groups like the Ku Klux Klan and the White League. They talked about being trapped in debt by sharecropping and how they were stopped from voting. The evidence made it clear: these families weren't part of some political plot; they were simply escaping violence and looking for a fair chance at life.
Benjamin "Pap" Singleton
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Stranded in St. Louis
By the time many families reached St. Louis, the journey had already drained them of everything they had. St. Louis became a massive roadblock where thousands of people were suddenly stuck. They had run out of money for tickets, and since they had no way to pay for the final leg of the trip to Kansas, they had nowhere to go. The riverfront became a makeshift campsite filled with hundreds of families living in the open air—broke, homeless, and surviving on whatever they had managed to carry from home.
The city’s leadership didn't exactly offer a helping hand. St. Louis Mayor Henry Overstolz actually sent telegrams back south, warning people not to come to the city unless they had enough cash to support themselves. With no official help from the city and resources running out, the situation was turning into a full-blown crisis for the families stuck on the docks.
Exoduster refugees on a levee - 1879
Credit: Wikimedia
Since the local government wasn't stepping in, Black churches in St. Louis took charge. They formed the Colored Relief Board to provide food, clothing, and medical care to the families camping by the river. They also reached out to donors across the country—and even as far away as England—to raise money for tickets so these families could finally finish the trip.
Help was also waiting on the other side of the border. Kansas Governor John P. St. John was a big supporter of the movement and helped form the Freedmen’s Relief Association of Kansas. This group managed to raise about $70,000 (a massive fortune at the time) to build schools and temporary housing for the new arrivals. Even though the needs of 40,000 people were much bigger than the money they had, these relief agencies were a lifeline for families who arrived with nothing.
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Arriving in Kansas
When the families finally crossed into Kansas, they quickly realized that the Homestead Act wasn’t quite as simple as it sounded. The government promised "free" land, but you still needed money to actually run a farm. To get basic supplies like a plow, seeds, and livestock, you needed about $1,000 in 1879—which would be like trying to come up with $36,000 today. Since banks almost never gave loans to Black homesteaders, most families had to start with absolutely nothing.
Timing was also a major problem. Because the Homestead Act had been around for nearly twenty years by the time the Exodusters arrived, most of the "good" land—the spots with easy access to water or rich soil—had already been claimed. Black families usually got the "leftovers"—the rocky, dry, or sandy plots of land that everyone else had already rejected.
On top of that, many white communities in Kansas grew nervous as the number of migrants climbed into the thousands. Some locals were worried about being "overrun" by the new arrivals. Take the town of Wyandotte, Kansas for example. In April 1879, over 1,000 Exodusters stepped off steamboats in just two weeks—a massive shock for a town of only 4,600 people. Mayor J.S. Stockton went into a total panic and made a deal with relief boards to stop more people from coming. Instead of helping the families who were already there settle together, he packed them onto trains and sent them off to different towns like Lawrence and Manhattan.
African American homesteaders.
Solomon D. Butcher Collection. History Nebraska
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Building a New World
For many Exodusters, turning back was simply not an option. They hadn't traveled hundreds of miles and survived the struggle of St. Louis just to return to the violence and oppression they had left behind in the South. Instead of struggling alone on isolated farms, thousands of families decided that if they couldn't find a place in the existing system, they would build their own. This led to the creation of all-Black towns like Nicodemus and Morton City, where Black families could live without white oversight or the threat of being treated like second-class citizens.
These towns were built on a foundation of teamwork. Morton City, for example, proved that a community could survive even on tough land if people worked together. When a single family couldn't afford a piece of expensive farm equipment, the whole town pooled their money to buy it. They shared tools, helped each other with harvests, and teamed up to get better prices when they sold their crops. In towns like Nicodemus, this cooperation turned a patch of prairie into a thriving hub with its own bank, general stores, and newspapers. For the first time in their lives, these families were running their own businesses and governing themselves.
The town of Nicodemus, Kansas - 1890s
This independence led to a kind of political freedom that was almost unthinkable in the Deep South. In these Kansas communities, Black men could walk to a polling place and vote without fearing for their lives. In places like Graham County, Black voters became such a powerful group that white politicians actually had to show up and ask for their support. Imagine coming from a place where trying to vote could get you killed, to a place where a local official actually cared about your opinion and wanted your endorsement. It was a massive shift in power.
The "social glue" that held everything together was the church. Places like the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) churches were way more than just houses of worship; they were the heart of the community. They served as schools, town halls, and mutual aid societies all rolled into one. If a family’s crops failed or someone got sick, the church organized help. They provided literacy classes and burial funds, creating a social support system built by people who had been legally forbidden from even meeting together just a few years earlier.
Not every family made it. The brutal Kansas winters and the difficult soil were more than some could handle, and many eventually moved to bigger cities or even back south. But the ones who stayed changed the face of the West. By 1910, there were over 60,000 Black residents in Kansas. They proved that even with the odds stacked against them, they could build a legacy of independence that forced the rest of the country to pay attention.
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Why It Matters
The Exoduster movement shows exactly how Reconstruction had failed to correct the injustices of slavery. When 40,000 people are willing to risk everything to leave their homes, it tells you that the promises of freedom and safety in the South weren't being kept. While the Homestead Act was technically race-neutral, the actual system—from access to bank credit to the quality of the available land—created massive barriers for Black families that white settlers simply didn't have to face. By "voting with their feet," these families proved they would rather face the unknown in Kansas than live one more day under the thumb of Southern Jim Crow laws.
This movement also set the template for the Great Migration that would follow a few decades later. These pioneers were the first to prove that moving away was a real strategy for survival and success. By building towns like Nicodemus from scratch, they showed they could run their own lives, businesses, and schools on their own terms. This was the opening chapter of a much bigger story—it paved the way for the millions of Black families who would later leave the South for cities in the North and West, all searching for that same chance at a better life.
Digging Deeper
Use the article to answer the questions below.
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What was an Exoduster?
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What were the three main requirements to claim land under the Homestead Act of 1862?
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Why did the Exoduster movement happen when it did (1879) rather than immediately after the Civil War ended (1865)? Use evidence from the article to support your reasoning.
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