Postbellum Race Relations and Rural Land Tenure: Migration of Blacks and Whites to Kansas and Nebraska, 1870-1890

Abstract

This article analyzes differential migration o/blacks and whites during the two decades, 1870-80 and 1880-90, to homesteading opportunities in Kansas and Nebraska with reference to two theories of race relations. A push-pull migration model is used where the pull offree farmland in Kansas and Nebraska is considered constant so that push factors of migration model the race and class relations of thle late nineteenth century United States. Quantitative analysis of census data via weighted least squares regression shows support for both Bonacich's (1972) split labor market and James's (1988) racial state theories of race relations. The economic relations embodied in the postbellum agricultural system were the primary motivation for migrants from the eastern U.S. to the states of Kansas and Nebraska. Political factors also played a role in migrants' actions. Between 1870 and 1880 more than 21,000 blacks migrated from the former Confederacy to Kansas. This Exoduster Movement was large enough to draw the attention of the U.S. Senate, which held hearings and issued a three-volume report on the matter (Lambert 1978). Historians have argued that for blacks with few options to exercise political power in the South, migration was one means of escape from severe racial repression and its accompanying econonuc consequences. Although this migration of blacks has been well studied, a comparison to white migration of the time has not previously been made. Such a comparison permits a consideration of the relative merit of racial repression as opposed to economic factors as explanations for this migration. During the same decade, 1870-80, more than 73,000 whites migrated from the former Confederacy to Kansas and Nebraska. This rate of migration was nearly twice the black rate from these same states to Kansas and Nebraska. The