It was said that,
in 1864, 30,000 to 40,000 Negroes had come from the plantations to the
District of Columbia.[15] It happened here too as in most cases of this
migration that the Negroes were on hand before the officials grappling
with many other problems could determine exactly what could or should be
done with them. The camps near Washington fortunately became centers for
the employment of contrabands in the city. Those repairing to Fortress
Monroe were distributed as laborers among the farmers of that
vicinity.[16]
[Illustration: DIAGRAM SHOWING THE NEGRO POPULATION OF NORTHERN AND
WESTERN CITIES IN 1900 AND THE EXTENT TO WHICH IT INCREASED BY 1910.
COUNTIES IN THE SOUTHERN STATES HAVING AT LEAST 50 PER CENT OF THEIR
POPULATION NEGRO.
(Maps 3 and 4, Bulletin 129, U.S. Bureau of the Census.)
(Maps 5 and 6, Bulletin 129, U.S. Bureau of the Census.)]
In some of these camps, and especially in those of the West, the refugees
were finally sent out to other sections in need of labor, as in the cases
of the contrabands assembled with the Union army at first at Grand
Junction and later at Memphis.[17]
There were three types of these camp communities which attracted attention
as places for free labor experimentation. These were at Port Royal, on the
Mississippi in the neighborhood of Vicksburg, and in Lower Louisiana and
Virginia.
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