Columbus State University Archives and Special Collections

Historical Context for Migration

Why did folks leave Columbus and the Chattahoochee Valley for Liberia

With the end of the Civil War in May of 1865, African Americans looked to the future with both hope and a large degree of uncertainty. In Georgia, the white population was 550,000, while the black popluation was around 460,000.

There were several hopeful projects in terms of material support and political change that brought hope to newly freed peoples in the South. 

Federal Conditions

In March of 1865, the US Congress created the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abonadonded Lands to aid African Amerians in thei transition from slavery to freedom. Known more commonly as the Freedmen's Bureau, it provided social welfare for citizens including food rations, schools, hospitals, established a contract labor system, and created military tribunals to review legal disputes. Early efforts to give title of abandonded lands to emanicpated slaves (under Union Genreal William T Sherman) subsequently failed in the US Congress. Most African Americans had little choice but to work for former masters in what became known as the sharecropper system. Many lost faith in the politics of Reconstruction.  

In June 1865 the federal government created various military districts across the South to provide some stability and much needed food rations. President Andrew Johnson appointed a Columbus, GA Unionist James Johnson to lead Georgia's Military Department which oversaw elections were held in October 1865 for the constitutional convention in the state. Voting was restricted to white adult males who would take a loyalty oath. The election of a new state government, congressmen and state legistators in November of 1865 saw many ex-Confederates take those roles.  

State Conditions

Early December 1865 saw the newly created Georiga General Assembly ratifiy the 13th Amendment of the United States. This amendment abolished slavery, recognized formerly enslaved people gained citizenship and the right to vote. Having met the President Andrew Johnson's requirements for ratification, he return of the government of Georgia from federal control under the Military District program. Georgia was now back in the control of its elected officials. This created a firestorm in Washington DC. as the two US senators were the former vice president of the Confederacy (Alexander Stephens) and one of its senators (Herschel Johnson).  Both senators were not allowed to take their seats. 

In 1868, ex-confederates in the Georiga State Legistlature expel all black members (summer)

Local Conditions

By November 1965, the Columbus Daily Sun reports that the city is creating chain gangs of "idle negroes" that do not have "visible means of support," thus beginning a tradition of rounding up local African American men and forcing them into labor. 

African American folks met to discuss how to limit unruly behavior at the Colored M.E. church. They come together as the Colored Mechanics, a group tradesmen to a society to regular the price of labor and advance trained blacksmiths, wheelwrights, carpenters, bricklayers and other tradesmen. In doing so they sought to discourage black migrants from outlying areas coming into Columubs as "house rent and fuel [is] very high with nothing but starvatoin and freezing to death before them." (Columbus Daily Sun, October 7 1865). 

Racial violence continued. Management of the Third Federal District was conducted in part by African American soliders, which prompted racial violence as a Mr. Lindsay shot a "negro solider" for a perceived insult (Troy Messenger (Al) February 23, 1866). Arrested by black soliders, Mr Lindsay was "rescued" by local residents.  

Soliders from the Third Federal District continued to help voter registration, and Muscogee County saw the registration of many "colored" citizens in 1867.  

November 1867 saw first significate group of 235 emigres leave Columbus and Eufala for Liberia.

On March 17th, 1868, Nathan Bedford Forrest, a former confederate general and first Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) comes to Columbus at the same time that KKK notices begin to appear in local newspapers. A few days later George Ashburn, a local, white radical Republican is assassinated by the KKK.

By May, the second wave of emigrants leaves the Chattahoochee Valley Emigration to Liberia inlcuidng 204 individuals.

In late summer, whites fire into a political rally and kill at least nine blacks (September).

By the end of the year Georgia's poll tax effectively disfranchises blacks and the number of black voters plummets. Conservatives use intimidation, fraud, and violence to regain control of the presidential election (November).

The Rise of the American Colonialization Society

The American Colonization Society (ACS) was founded in 1817, primarily by northern religious groups and included a few southern slave owners. The primary purpose was to fund the movement of free African Americans from the United States to Liberia, in Africa. By 1830 roughly 1,400 African Americans emigrated to Liberia, which was less than the number of enslaved people being born each year in the US. With the close of the Civil War and the violent and unpredictable conditions in the post-war period, the ACS saw an incrase in the number of African Americans seeking new opportunities outside of the US. 

 

Historical Context for Migration