The Exoduster Movement (1879)

Exodusters were African Americans who migrated from the South to Kansas after the Civil War. The activist Benjamin Singleton encouraged this migration to Kansas as a place of opportunity for ex-slaves. • By 1880, around 43,000 Black Americans had settled in Kansas.
The biblical story of Exodus inspired many to migrate, seeing Kansas as a ‘Promised Land.’
Homesteading opportunities were available, but many ex-slaves struggled as crops often failed, leading to food shortages and deaths. The Kansas government established associations to provide temporary shelter and food aid to struggling migrants.
Some ex-slaves faced intimidation and violence from former owners and were forced into sharecropping whereby they rented land instead of owning it.
Many white settlers opposed their arrival, clinging to the ideology of Manifest Destiny for themselves and resenting Black migration.

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