The Exodusters

After the Civil War, freed slaves in the South faced an uncertain future. Economically destitute, they struggled to establish schools and buy their own land. The establishment of the sharecropping system, the rise of the Ku Klux Klan and the entrenchment of segregation made their chances for success remote. In 1877, when Reconstruction ended, and federal troops withdrew,Black families began to leave the South by the thousands, looking for a better future. They were called Exodusters. Excerpts from letters written in 1879 help tell the story of the Exodusters journey to Kansas.