If you haven’t read Part I of this post, first of all let me say SHAME ON YOU! How can you let crucial learnifying SLIP like that? Second of all, I respectfully suggest you start there for, you know, context and stuff. 

I was waxing history-nerdish over a column titled “The Blacks in Oklahoma,” published in The New York Times on April 9, 1891. It’s historically significant, and rhetorically rich. The reporter is addressing rumors that black homesteaders had been flowing into the recently opened territory without resources or a plan, and had become a drain on the community and perhaps a danger to others. 

Imagine a time in which “others” were automatically treated with such suspicion and accusation. Oh, the good ol’ days… 

Many have gone to that territory with nothing except the rags they wore, but they have never become public charges. They have been cared for by persons of their own race until they were in such condition that they could help themselves and help others. 

It’s not unusual even today for immigrant groups (these weren’t technically ‘immigrants’ so much as ‘migrants,’ but the idea is the same) to settle in clusters where they can mutually support and assist one another. Some of this may be defensive, but it has an important proactive function as well.

Don’t scoff – you’d do it too if you were moving to a new world. 

At this time there are eight families crowded into an old (over one year is “old” in that country) storeroom, which aggregates forty-five people. There they sit day after day, waiting until they can be scattered and settled temporarily upon some of their race’s claims. They have their rages and their bundles of household goods and probably $50 would prove a bonanza to the entire outfit. They are fed by their more fortunate brothers, and some way they will be kept alive until Summer, when they will show that they are self-sustaining, for they will work and exist upon almost nothing.

I wonder if the assertive confidence expressed here reflects the mindset of his subjects, or the convictions of the author himself? That would make an interesting document analysis activity. 

I have some idea what it’s like to be poor, but I lack a real appreciation for the sort of soul-crippling poverty described here. Most of us couldn’t even imagine. And yet…

Humiliating as they confession must be and is, the appeals for aid coming from Oklahoma do not come from the negroes, but from the whites. They exemplify the workings of the co-operative plan, as on claims may be found two, four, and sometimes eight families, all working together and often living together, awaiting the time when more lands will be opened for settlement, when the surplus expect to find claims for themselves.

If there’s a sense of entitlement present, it makes sense it would come from those running to claim land promised to others for as long as the sun shines and the grass grows and so forth. There was little guilt about betraying our national oaths yet again, largely because of a deep conviction that white guys in some way DESERVED this in a way others could not. 

Is it such a leap to realize some of those same claimants would ask for help while they wait for the rest of WHAT THEY DESERVE to become available?

Twelve miles northeast of Guthrie, on the eastern border of Oklahoma, was found the little “city” of Langston, the inspiration of E.P. McCabe, the only colored State officer Kansas ever had, who is now Treasurer of Guthrie County. McCabe proposes to establish at Langston a distinctively negro city, and has for months, through colonization societies, been working in the Southern States to secure a population for this new black Mecca. 

He has secured a number of families and has sold many lots. Some thirty dwelling houses and a small store comprise the nucleus of what the negroes hope to make a great city. There are nearly two hundred persons already there, and not a white face is to be found in the place. 

Black carpenters were at work on a dozen new houses in course of erection, while masons, bricklayers, and other mechanics were making preparations for their future work. They have a black doctor, a black preacher, and a black school teacher, the latter presiding in an unpretentious little building already dignified by being called “the academy.” Adjoining the town site eighty-three acres of land have been broken up, and will this year be used as a co-operative garden by the entire colony. 

McCabe is a big deal in Oklahoma history. He was the driving force behind much of the territory’s black settlement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His goal of an exclusively ‘black state’ was within reach for a time. It could have happened. 

White people, of course, freaked out at the possibility. Imagine if it had failed – all those poor, angry black folks concentrated in one place? What might they do?

Worse, imagine if it had succeeded? How many centuries of American history would have to be re-examined if it turned out black folks were perfectly capable of running their own lives and communities after all? What would that say about…?

Oh yeah – not gonna let that happen. No State For You!

When asked what they were going to live on until something was raised, the general reply was that they “did not come here as paupers,” and that they had brought some money enough with them to live on for some time.

The principal object in establishing this town on the eastern border was to be near the lands of the Iowas, which are expected to be open to settlement before Fall. When these lands are opened Langston will be the supply depot for all of the black race, and there will be repeated the experiment, already a success, that was made in the black-jack country in the northwest part of the Territory, but under much more favorable circumstances, as the new town in situation in a much more productive country.

Black settlers tended to gather in areas with the least desirable farm land, and the least convenient access. While this seems to have occasionally been a result of pre-opening regulations, it was primarily a strategic move on the part of the black community.

It didn’t take much extrapolation to suspect that land recently seized from red men would be unlikely to stay in the hands of black men if desired by white men. So, pick areas white people wouldn’t want. Sure – it would be harder to grow essential crops, and to provide other sustenance… but what else was new?

Apparently some were now hoping to grab some land a bit further east, where conditions weren’t QUITE so onerous. 

Therein lies the inevitable tension for citizens of color, then OR now. Very real opportunity. Very real progress. Open doors and flashing arrows pointing the way towards very real dreams.

And yet… at any time, those rules can change. They change if you’re not successful enough in the game, and they change even more dramatically if you are. You won’t give up, and you don’t want to lose, you have to be careful how much you win.

I insist to my students that whatever else Oklahoma is, its history is rather unique among the fifty states. At the same time, our past repeatedly reflects larger truths about the nation as a whole. We study Oklahoma history not because we’re unique (even if we are), but because of the light it sheds on the bigger picture. 

We’re like a historical funhouse mirror collection. Why can’t THAT be on our license plates?

We’ll conclude in Part III – I promise. 

RELATED POST: The Blacks in Oklahoma, Part I

RELATED POST: The Blacks in Oklahoma, Part III

RELATED POSTS: A Chance In Oklahoma, Parts I & II

RELATED POSTS: Boomers & Sooners, Parts I – V

I’ve been on a bit of a primary-sources-related-to-Oklahoma spree lately. Haven’t we all, at one time or another?

Many of them are interesting, most are informative, and a few contain information which is simply incorrect, however passionately delivered. There are a handful, though, which are simply a joy to read – repeatedly!

Er… for me, at least. As I’ve said before, my life isn’t what you might call “rip-roaring.” 

THE BLACKS IN OKLAHOMA – FLOCKING TO THE TERRITORY IN LARGE NUMBERS 

The New York Times – April 9, 1891

It had been nearly two years since the first land run opened the ‘Unassigned Lands’ in what was becoming increasingly thought of as simply ‘Oklahoma’. A second opening was anticipated in a few months, and people up north were naturally curious how things were going down there in wild country. 

Unlike today, when accuracy and perspective are editorial priorities as a matter of professionalism and respect, it wasn’t unusual in the late 19th century for stories about crazy events or bizarre behavior to capture the public imagination far more than the tedium of most real life. Sometimes news outlets even exaggerated a bit to keep readers entertained.

Of particular interest were stories feeding national preconceptions about race or culture. Were homesteaders at this late stage really such dirty, uneducated folks? Were Indians truly savages, or more like simple children, noble in their pathos? 

And what about the Negro? (That was the polite terminology of the day.) Even approaching 1900, a substantial number of white Americans in the northeast rarely if ever interacted with citizens of color. Oh, there were the Irish and Germans, who were bad enough, maybe an Eastern European sporadically, but a black man?  

Minstrel shows were losing their popularity as Vaudeville became a thing, but the caricatures were well-instilled. On the other hand, there were those who insisted the Negro deserved the same rights and opportunities as white men – maybe not all of them, or to the same extent, but more than they seemed to be getting in the south, if what the papers wrote were true.

And then there was Oklahoma Territory. Formerly ‘Indian Territory’, it was gradually beginning to open its ‘surplus’ lands to white – and black – settlement. Social Darwinism at its purist – run in, hold your claim by any available means, and start from scratch along with everyone else to see what you can make out of these last few remnants of American opportunity.

That was the idealized version, at least. But it was about as close to starting on a ‘level playing field’ as most alive in that generation would ever see for Black Americans, however illusory the ‘level’ part of the equation may have been. 

Topeka, Kan., April 8.- Is Oklahoma really overrun with negroes, and has there been an influx of pauper negroes from the South? So many conflicting answers have been given in response to these two questions that it was impossible to arrive at the truth. 

In class, this is where we’d talk about ‘making good inferences’. What seems to be motivating this particular foray into the territory by this NY Times reporter? Why does he open with these questions? 

Good times, those inference discussions.  

The census taken there last Summer was of no use in aiding one to arrive at conclusions, for, while Guthrie enumerated, so it is said, the horses, dogs, and chickens as well as the “regular” population, Oklahoma and Kingfisher failed to count the men, women, and children, while Edmund, El Reno, and Lincoln are still in doubt as to what and who were counted, and Langston was not in existence.

My students have this weird idea that in 2015, all computers and institutions everywhere are neatly connected and speak the same ‘language’. I assume they get this idea from bad action movies and federal health care legislation. 

But why they apply this assumption backwards through history is beyond me. Most of written history is an absolute mess. We make educated guesses – some fairly supportable, others just… the best we’ve got. 

It’s somewhat reassuring to know that as recently as 1891, at least one contemporaneous observer realized they really had no idea what was going on with who, or where. 

In order to determine the truth, THE TIMES’s representative determined to visit the Territory and see what was to be seen, and to learn from interested persons as much of the truth as they could be prevailed upon to surrender. 

He’s setting us up with tone. I respect that. 

Those who have never attempted to draw the truth from an Oklahomaite can hardly realize the difficulties that are presented. The Territory was born in falsehood, was baptized in falsehood, and falsehood has been the principal article of diet ever since that fateful 23rd day of April, 1889, when the “sooners” became the leading citizens of a country opened to settlement too late in the year for the planting of crops, and to which the poverty-stricken were invited by speculators and impecunious lawyers who had been permitted to enter beforehand by a pig-headed Administration, which could see nothing good outside the ague-stricken Wabash bottoms of Indiana. 

I can’t tell you how often this bit cracks me up. 

After basking in the pithy slander of early Oklahomans, don’t overlook the wonderful jab at President Benjamin Harrison. “{A}gue-stricken Wabash bottoms” just drips with disdain.

Harrison, of course, had made his way up the political ladder from Indianapolis, where he’s now buried. They’re rather proud of him up there – understandable, I suppose, since they really don’t have much else to boast on. I mean, you’ve seen the Colts in action, and their legislators are doing all they can to make Oklahoma’s current public education system look passionately committed to excellence compared to theirs.

But at least they have Ben Harrison’s corpse. That’s something, right?

I don’t really mean that last bit about Indy. It was simply an example of the sort of inflammatory writing popular among some readers in the time period under discussion. I do it solely to help bring HISTORY to YOU. 

You’re welcome.    

Guthrie, being the headquarters of the Afro-American Colonization Company, has naturally been the objective point of the negroes who have been induced to migrate to Oklahoma. It is impossible to ascertain how many of the black race have arrived in that city, the estimates vary so largely. 

Those who are opposed to negro settlement declare positively that there are not fifty in the city. Those who favor the movement insist that there are more than two thousand in and about the capital. The latter is probably more nearly the correct figure, as an inspection of the city revealed many black faces, and an examination of many of the little houses in the suburbs showed a number of colored families comfortably situated. 

It’s hard to know when facts are being willfully fabricated to serve an agenda, or when the perceptions of those gathering them are simply so colored by preconceptions that they see what they expect and intend to see. 

Back then, I mean. Not today, when we have science. And numbers. And ALL THE FACTS. 

That these negroes are not all paupers is shown by their bank deposits, where they have sums ranging from $200 to $1,000. In one bank alone sums aggregating over $15,000 have been deposited by the negro settlers.

I’d pause at this point in class and ask my students to speculate where the author is going with this. You should as well. 

I’ll wait. 

He may be simply refuting existing criticisms, point by point, in defense of Black settlers. Perhaps his point will be that they’re doing fine – just look at the evidence! 

But we’ve already had a taste of the author’s tone. The news may be valid, but it’s swaddled in snark and personality. We should be suspicious. Is he setting us up for… something? 

RELATED POST: The Blacks In Oklahoma, Part II

RELATED POST: The Blacks in Oklahoma, Part III

RELATED POSTS: A Chance In Oklahoma, Parts I & II

RELATED POSTS: Boomers & Sooners, Parts I – V