EXILED

: THE

STORY

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ARKANS

AS’S F

REE BL

ACK

EXPULS

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1860

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B RI A

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Was comprised of leading businessmen, politicians, and fraternal leaders in the City. Many went on to be officers in the Confederacy• Alexander George • William E. Ashley • John Collins • C. I. Jefferies • J. D. Wallett• T. J. Churchill • Peter Hanger • Richard Fatherly • Benjamin F. Danley • H. N. Rector • Sam W. Williams • Albert Pike

COMMITTEE OF CITIZENS OF LITTLE ROCK

THE CIRCULAR OF JULY 21, 1858 (ARKANSAS GAZETTE) Represented the committee’s second attempt to

expel the state’s free black population (first unsuccessful attempt took place in 1856) .

The committee contended that free persons of color represented an “evil” among them

“Even if they [free blacks] do nothing actively [ no wrong doings] their very existence here, and their condition as freed men, make them constant, though silent, preachers to the slave of notions that are dangerous in the last degree to us, and injurious to him”

THE JUSTIFICATION FOR THE EXILE“The submission and loyalty of the slave must come from his

conviction that hiscondition of servitude to a higher race is his natural

condition; that such is the law, andthat the law is right. If you set constantly before his eyes

the living contradiction of thedoctrine of his unfitness to be free, what can you expect

but dissatisfaction, murmuringand sedition.If, therefore, our free colored population were fit to be

free; if they behaved withproperty and restrained from instilling into the minds of

the slaves notions injurious toour and their own welfare, it would still be a suicidal

policy to permit them to remainamong us.”

The words of the committee…“These persons [Free persons of color] are not, and by the solemn decision of the supreme court of the United States, cannot be citizens of the United States. They are not citizens of the State. They do not vote and their testimony is not receivable against a white man.”

EMPOWERED BY THE DRED SCOTT DECISION

ACT 151 OF 1859: ACT TO REMOVE FREE BLACKS AND MULATTOES FROM THE STATE Was signed into law on February 12, 1859 by Governor

Elias N. Conway The Act called for the removal of all Free blacks and

mulattoes from the borders of the state by January 1, 1860

Those free blacks that did not leave were to be arrested by the sheriff and sold as a hired slave for a period of 12 months. At the end of that the individual was released from bondage, given the monies collected for his labor, and was required to leave the state within thirty days (30 days)

Any property that was owned by free blacks and had not been liquidated by January 1, 1860 was seized by the county and sold at auction. Half of the proceeds of the sale were sent to the free person and the other half went to the county for the support of “all white” public education.

NATHAN “NASE” WARREN - Noted confectioner , businessman, minister, and black

masonic leader left after the Citizen’s Committee first attempt to expel free blacks in 1857.

- Warren and his family relocated to Xenia, Ohio and returned to Little Rock in 1863

- Shortly after his returned he founded Bethel AME Church- Warren left the state before October 16, 1859

HENRY KING –FREE MAN OF COLOR

KING’S PROBLEM

- On October 16, 1859 ,abolitionist John Brown leads a small group on a raid against a federal armory in Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), in an attempt to start an armed slave revolt and destroy the institution of slavery.

- Three free blacks with Brown at Harpers Ferry

- Arkansans maintain that free black participation at the raid proved that they were right. The state’s stance against free blacks was admired and supported by slave states. Arkansas’s neighbors Tennessee and Missouri impose prohibitions on the entry of free blacks. Although no other states will successful expel their free black populations, many towns and counties forced blacks from their homes.

JOHN BROWN’S RAID

MASS EXODUS It is believed that about 600 free blacks were forced to

leave Arkansas on January 1, 1860 Large groups traveled by train, steamboat, wagon,

horseback, and on foot. The leading destinations of the exodus were Ohio,

Indiana, Illinois, Kansas, and Missouri. Groups also traveled to Texas and northern Louisiana.

REJECTION & AN APPEAL TO CHRISTIANS THROUGHOUT THE WORLD

In February of 1860, a group of exiled free blacks penned an appeal to abolitionist newspapers in hope of drawing attention to their expulsion and aid for the hundreds of free blacks that were wandering the United States looking for homes.

The author of the appeals was Eliza Ann West, from Redfork (Desha County) and eleven others from Desha, Napoleon, and Pulaski counties.

The Appeal appeared in numerous papers in the United States and in England.

The Appeal draws the attention of the American Colonization Society

THE AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY By the late Spring of 1860, the society had raised

$10,000 for the resettlement of one hundred free blacks in Liberia

The society sends its Traveling Secretary, Reverend John Orcutt to find and recruit exiled free blacks as colonist.

Orcutt notes that some 200 exiles are living in tenements in Cincinnati when he arrived.

Orcutt also pursued exiles in Indiana and Kentucky before the Civil War started

SLAVERS AND KIDNAPPERS • -Slavers , bounty hunters, organized bands of criminal

kidnapped scores of exiles • Exiles were then sold down –river as slaves. • Casewell Jones ( Independence County, Arkansas) • Mrs. Sampson ( taken from the Delaware Mission)• Hope Kunard .