"Overrun with Free Negroes": Emancipation and Wartime Migration in the Upper Midwest

Abstract

In March 1863 a Union officer wrote to his hometown newspaper inquiring, “Are there any contrabands wanted in Iowa City, or its vicinity for help this spring? If so, please let me hear from you. I could send a large number to Iowa, if they were wanted, as there are many brought up the river at this time. …” Writing from St. Louis, he noted that many of the former slaves gathered there “prefer going to Iowa [more] than any other place.” But back in Iowa, some of his neighbors had organized a public meeting to oppose “all schemes … to fill our schools and domestic circle with the African race” because of their belief that recently emancipated African Americans, “unaccustomed to our climate, unskilled in our mode of agriculture, undisciplined in habits, and unfit for society,” would “destroy the dignity of white labor” in Johnson County. That Iowans were not all of one mind about the arrival of emancipated slaves was further evidenced in the tone of newspaper coverage when former slaves were brought to a nearby Mississippi River town. As sarcastically noted in the local paper, potential employers were not difficult to find: “When the negroes arrived, there was a great fluttering… for the best ‘take.’ Philanthropy ran very high indeed—provided the services of a good stout negro could be obtained for his victuals and clothes. Visions of retired gentlemen and gentlewomen, with black servants to attend their every want and wish, overcame some … [who] felt as though ‘it were the happiest day of their lives.’”1