Senate committee

As different as chalk and cheese.

WILLIAM CROOM.

The man is working for Daniel Evans, near Russellville, Putnam County. He has a nice brick house to live in, has a nice garden spot, fire-wood, and a team to haul it, a milch-cow and food to feed her, and $15 in cash each month; in all, equivalent to about $24 a month. He is delighted with Indiana, and urges that all his people come to our State as soon as they can get there. In an interview with me, he said: “Neither you nor any other Republican in Greencastle ever said a word to me about voting, nor asked me how I was gaining to vote; nor have I known of your asking any of our people how they were going to vote. All that has been said to us was about finding us homes and work, and taking care of us. They have done all for us they could, and our people are grateful to them for it. None of us want to go back to North Carolina; neither does any man who is honest and has sound judgment. I would take my oath on that. Most of our people who have come here are religious. I belong to the Missionary Baptist church, and am a licensed preacher. I came here to better the condition of myself and family, and to raise them respectably. I have found it better than I expected. Indeed, I don’t think that I hardly deserve as good treatment as I have received and am still receiving. From my own experience, I know that my people in North Carolina could greatly better their condition by coming here, and if they knew the facts they would come.

In a subsequent interview Croom said:

“I came from Wilson County, North Carolina. Have been here several weeks. I came because I had heard that colored men could do better here than in North Carolina, and I find that it was a true statement. There is as much difference between there and here as there is between chalk and cheese. It is altogether different. Here we are men just like the whites, get good wages, have good homes, and there are good schools for our children. The climate is no worse for us here than there. I have not yet seen as cold weather in Indiana as I have seen in North Carolina. And then the people are so different. They are just as kind to us as they can be. It seems as though they can’t do enough for us.”

——

Possibly: William Croom died 17 July 1910 in Indianapolis, Center township, Marion County, Indiana. Per his death certificate, he was 57 years old; was born in North Carolina to Sam Croom and Cherry Latta; was married to Diana Croom; and was a farmer. He was buried in Mount Jackson cemetery.

Cora Allen died 9 November 1925 at Provident Sanitarium in Indianapolis, Center township, Marion County, Indiana. Per her death certificate, she was born 15 May 1884 in Indiana to William Croom and Diana Ellis, both of North Carolina and was married to James Allen. She was buried in Floral Park cemetery.

Senate Report 693, Part 2, 2nd Session, 46th Congress.  Proceedings of the Select Committee of the United States Senate to Investigate the Causes of the Removal of the Negroes from the Southern States to the Northern States (1880).  U.S. Congressional Serial Set.

This is the cause of the exodus.

THOMAS BYNUM.

I lived in Wilson County, North Carolina. I have a wife and eight children. It cost me one hundred and twenty-three dollars to get here. I never heard any thing about politics until I got to Indianapolis; then I was asked by a Democrat if some Republican did not go South and make fine promises to me, and did they not bring me here to vote? I told him, no, that I brought myself; I came on my own money; and that I came because I could not get any pay for my work, nor could I educate my children there; and now that I have seen the difference between the North and South I would not go back to North Carolina for anything, and I never expect to go back in life nor after death, except the buzzards carry me back. Mr. Turnbull, of Toisenot, N.C., a white Democrat, told me that I was coming out here to perish, but so far from perishing I am faring better than I ever fared before in my life. I wish to say that cases like the following is what brought about the exodus: A colored man rented a farm, for which he was to pay three bales of cotton, weighing 450 pounds each; he raised on that farm eleven bales of cotton, weighing 450 pounds each, and 25 barrels of corn, which left to the tenant eight bales of cotton, and 25 barrels of corn, pease, &c. The tenant bought nothing but a very small amount of very coarse food and clothing, using all the economy during the crop season to make no large account, thinking thereby to have something coming to him at settling day; but when settling day came the landlord had so enlarged his account as to cover everything — the eight bales of cotton, the 25 barrels of corn, pease, and all, and then said that the tenant lacked a little of paying out, although cotton sold at ten cents per pound. This and numerous other things is the cause of the exodus.

——

Probably, in the 1870 census of Gardners township, Wilson County: farm laborer Thomas Bynum, 32; wife Bethana, 28; and children James, 11, Oliver, 8, Mary, 6, Lavinia, 4, and “no name,” 2; and Lucy Pitt, 53. “Ages of this family are in doubt.”

In the 1880 census of Toisnot township, Wilson County: merchant P.J. Turnbull, 29, and family.

In the 1900 census of Indianapolis, Howard County, Indiana: at 1622 Guffin Street, street laborer Albert Whitley, 36; Polly, 32; children Cicero, 13, Mamie, 12, Albert, 9, Leonard, 6, and Wilber, 3; and grandfather Thomas Bynum, 65. All the adults were born in North Carolina.

Senate Report 693, Part 2, 2nd Session, 46th Congress.  Proceedings of the Select Committee of the United States Senate to Investigate the Causes of the Removal of the Negroes from the Southern States to the Northern States (1880).  U.S. Congressional Serial Set.

I would not go back to North Carolina for any consideration.

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In the 1880 census of Russell township, Putnam County, Indiana: laborer Joseph Ellis, 27, and wife Prissa, 23, both born in North Carolina.

In the 1900 census of Indianapolis, Marion County, Indiana: widowed day laborer Joseph Ellis, 48; son Theodore, 16, and daughters Margaret, 10, and Vera, 8.

Senate Report 693, Part 2, 2nd Session, 46th Congress.  Proceedings of the Select Committee of the United States Senate to Investigate the Causes of the Removal of the Negroes from the Southern States to the Northern States (1880).  U.S. Congressional Serial Set.

 

I suppose they thought it was no use talking to me; I wasn’t going nohow.

TESTIMONY OF HILLIARD ELLIS.

HILLIARD ELLIS, colored, sworn and examined.

By Senator Vance [Zebulon B. Vance, Democrat-North Carolina].

Question.  Where is your place of residence?  — Answer.  In four miles of Wilson Township, in the county of Wilson, North Carolina.

Q. Has there been any movement among the colored people with reference to this exodus movement in your section? – A. Yes, sir; I suppose there has been some.

Q. Do you know anything about it? – A. Well, sir, I have heard people talking about it.

Q. Do you know what inducement was held out to them to leave North Carolina? – A. Some, I think, were going for better wages, and some were complaining that they could not get their rights under this law. I cannot really tell you all that was said, for I just heard it. I think some of them went just to have a big ride – come for one thing and some for another.  They did not talk much to me about it.

Q. Why? – A. Because I suppose they thought it was no use talking to me; I wasn’t going nohow. They organized a club there, I understand.

Q. Was that a secret society? – A. Yes, sir; I think so. Nobody could get their secrets unless he joined the club.

Q. Was there any agents up there making speeches to them? – A. Yes, sir; there was a fellow from Goldsboro’ by the name of Evans; I think they said that was the name. He was encouraging the thing along, as I heard it.

Q. What were the inducements he held out to these people? – A. He said they could get from one to two and three and four dollars a day, according to the season. When spring opens, I think they were to get two dollars and a half and three dollars.

Q. Was that in Indiana? – A. Yes, sir.

Q. Do you know what inducement was offered them about transportation? – A. Yes, sir; I heard some say that they had to pay so much, and then they gave them the secret of how to get along out to Indiana. Some of them thought they were going to go free.

Q. What is your occupation? – A. I am a farmer.

Q. Do you own land? – A. Yes, sir.

Q. How much? – A. I have a little upwards of two hundred acres.

Q. Is it good or poor land? – A. It is tolerably good land.

Q. What is it valued at? – A. I can hardly tell you, but my taxes are twelve or thirteen dollars a year, as I pay no poll tax.

Q. You can tell us the usual price of labor there? – A. In my neighborhood we don’t pay as much as they do down below on the big farms. The wages are eight and ten dollars down there; but we don’t push them up our way, and only pay them seven and nine dollars. That is the price right in my neighborhood.

Q. What does that include? – A. It gives them a house rent free, fire wood free, and a patch to tend, and five pounds of meat, and a peck of meal a week.

Q. You pay them from seven to nine dollars, according to the grade of the hand? – A. Yes, sir; but there are some I would rather give nine to than to give seven to others.

Q. You give them five pounds ration, a peck of meal, a house, a patch and fire wood free? – A. Yes, sir.

Q. How long does that last? – A. That is for twelve months. I generally hire for a year at a time.

Q. What do day-laborers get when you hire them? – A. Forty cents a day, with lodgings and rations.

Q. Is there any restriction upon the rights of the colored people in your county? Are they interfered with in their right to vote? – A. No, sir; not at my township. I have been poll-holder there myself for a long time.

Q. You mean you have been a judge of elections? – A. yes, sir. Sometimes we have a little differences about the men’s registering, but there is no violations and no difficulties there.

Q. Do the colored people vote the same as others? – A. Yes, sir; a black man votes the same as a white man.

Q. Is it the same way all over the county? – A. I heard of little disturbances around in places, but I do not think there were any disturbances in town.

Q. Your voting place is not in Wilson – in the town, I mean? – A. No, sir; I live four miles out, and vote at a place about a mile from my place.

Q. What is the state of feeling between the whites and the blacks there? – A. I have heard of no difficulties between them. I know, of course, in town, when they are drinking, of Saturday evenings, they are liable to have difficulties and fights. But there is nothing political in that.

Q. Do you know of any reason, in the way of political disturbances or proscription or discrimination of the laws, to make these people leave your country? – A. No, sir. One think I heard them say, that they were going where they could get better wages; that they could not live on the prices if cotton was low. But I think it amounted to about the same, in the way of living, as when they got thirteen and fourteen cents for cotton.  They could get meat for five cents, which was cheaper than they ever got it before.  The price of cotton is better than it was last year, and the price of labor has gone up with it.

Q. About how much real estate has been acquired by the colored people in your county? – A. I could not tell you, sir. I know people right in my neighborhood, and could pick out scattered men, who own a good deal.

Q. Can a colored man who is sober and industrious stand as good a chance as a white man to acquire property, when both of them start without any? – A. Well, sir, I have always done so myself.

Q. Can one do as well as the other? – A. I think they do. If any difference has been made, I can’t see it. I always do well myself.

Q. These men, you said, were going to Indiana for better wages, have you heard anything from them since they have been out there? – A. I have head of them but not myself. Mr. Farmer, who lives near me, received a letter from some of them, which they said to send to Hilliard Ellis’s church to be read.

Q. Was it read? – A. Yes, sir.

Q. What were the contents of it? – A. He wanted them to make up some money to bring him back home. He said he wanted all the members to throw in a little bit to help him.

Q. What reason did he give for wanting to come home? – A. He said had been there eighteen days and only made two dollars. He said he had stopped there in town and could get no work, and he wanted his friends to help him back.

Q. Did he come back? – A. No, sir; not yet, unless he has got there since I left home.

Q. Did they make up money for him? – A. No, sir; I think they said they didn’t know whether he would get the money or not; and they would look further into it. They asked me if I would give something, and I said I did not know.

Q. Could a man who is getting ten dollars a month, his home and rations, and patch to tend to, support himself and family on that? – A. He ought to do it at the present prices of provisions.

Q. In the cotton-picking season, don’t the women and children make good wages? – A. Yes, sir; that is the time of their best wages. A child can pick out as much as a man, almost, and they make more in cotton-picking time, than any other time. That is the reason that a good many of them won’t hire only until fall.  They work until the crop is laid up, and then depend on making double wages during the picking season.

Q. Do you know of any complaints as to injustice being done them in the courts? – A. I have heard some of them grumble about not getting justice in some cases; but I have heard both sides to that. One says that they didn’t do right, and the other say that it was right, and backwards and forwards in that way.

Q. Is there no complaint that there is a difference made in the courts between whites and blacks? – A. I have heard of it. I have heard some of them say they didn’t get justice because they were black men.

Q. You do not know of any case that was so? – A. No, sir; I only heard that the colored people, as a general thing, was oftener in the courts for larceny than the white people.

Q. That makes a difference and causes more of them to be in the penitentiary? – A. Yes, sir.

Q. Because more of them commit these little crimes? – A. Yes, sir; I think they think they are not dealt justly by, and then sometimes they slip into the penitentiary before they know it, not being enlightened to know the law. But, I think, in my neighborhood, they try and take care of themselves.

Q. When a colored man has an established character for integrity and honesty, don’t he stand the same chance of getting justice as the white man? – A. I think he does in my town; I don’t go there myself about the courts, and I only hear about it after the courts are done.

By Senator WINDOM [William Windom, Republican-Minnesota]:

Q. You spoke of some complaints; are they general among the colored people? – A. I have heard them complain a good deal after the courts were over for a while. I have heard them say that in such a such case that was tried that they didn’t think they got justice because it was a colored person.

Q. Did they think it was an injustice to them because of their color? – A. Yes, sir; on account of their color. But then you know, in many times, they may be mistaken.

Q. There is an impression that they didn’t get even-handed justice? – A. That is the talk among them. I would not know, probably, if I was to see it.

Q. Have you heard anything in the way of complaints about the tenants law? – A. Yes, sir, a little; but not enough to tell.

Q. Is your county Republican or Democratic? – A. It is Democratic, and always has been. They have got a majority there.

Q. How far do you live from Goldsborough? – A. It is about twenty-four miles from Wilson to Goldsborough.

Q. About how many people have gone from your county? – A. I do not know, sir; really I could not tell. But there are a good many gone right out of that town.

Q. You say you have heard of some political troubles in the Wilson County? – A. Yes, sir; but not serious. They were just little differences between individual men.

Q. Did you hear any of them given as a reason for this emigration? – A. No, sir; but some of them says they wanted to go where they could get better wages.

Q. You said you heard of no disturbance in your locality, but there were some in Wilson? – A. Yes, sir; but it was mostly from whisky. It would be where they were drinking, and they would have a drunken fight. There was no Democrats or no Republicans in it.

——

Wilson_Advance_2_6_1880_Hilliard_Ellis_to_testify

Wilson Advance, 6 February 1880.

In the 1870 census of Taylors township, Wilson County: 43 year-old farmer Hilliard Ellis, wife Feribee, and children Caroline, William, George, Emily, Hilliard, Mary Ann and Warren. In 1880, still in Taylors: Hilliard Ellis, wife Fereby, and children Hilliard Jr., Mary A., Warren, Phillis and Milby.

Senate Report 693, 2nd Session, 46th Congress.  Proceedings of the Select Committee of the United States Senate to Investigate the Causes of the Removal of the Negroes from the Southern States to the Northern States.  [Sessions held Washington, beginning Tuesday, March 9, 1880]  U.S. Congressional Serial Set.

I’m aiming to get back home and die there.

Washington, Monday, February 16, 1880.

TESTIMONY OF GREEN RUFFIN.

GREEN RUFFIN (colored) was sworn and examined as follows.

By the CHAIRMAN [Daniel Voorhees, Democrat-Indiana].

Question.  State where you live when at home.  – Answer.  I live in Wilson County, North Carolina.

Q. How long is it since you left home? – A. It’s about two months now, as near as I can get at it.

Q. Where have you been? – A. To Indianapolis.

Q. How did you come to go there? – A. Well, sir, there came news about there in the settlement, that if we would all agree to go out to the Western States, to Indianapolis, we could live considerably better out there. Well, it get my head deranged, so I had no sense to make any bargains to work at home, and I said I would go and I would carry my folks; but I didn’t, and I put off and goes myself.

Q. Have you a family? – Yes, sir.

Q. How many in the family? – A. I have a wife and three children.

Q. Did you go with the first party that went? – A. No, sir; I went with the second party.

Q. Did you pay your own way? – A. Yes, sir.

Q. Do you know how much it cost you to get there? – A. I think it was $15.65.

Q. Well, when you got there, what did you do? – A. Well, sir, I done nothing for about two or three weeks.

Q. Did you get any work at all? – A. Sometimes I could get some – just a little more than enough to board me and pay rent. I tried every day to get work, except on Sunday.

Q. During the two months that you were there how much work did you do? – A. I can’t tell..

Q. Did you work half the time? – A. No, sir.

Q. Did you work one day in three? – A. Yes, sir. I worked one week in about three weeks. Maybe I would get a week’s work for a whole week at a time.

Q. How much did you get? – A. I got a dollar a day and boarded myself, and furnished my own tools.

Q. What sort of work did you do? – A. I was putting in sewers about the city.

Q. Did you have to furnish your own shovel? – A. Yes, sir; but they furnished the picks.

Q. And you got a dollar and boarded yourself? – A. Yes, sir.

Q. Did you find much demand there for work? – A. There was mighty few people there were looking for workmen.

Q. Were there a few many or many who were looking for work? – A. There were a great many of them looking for work, for there are plenty of people there as bad off as we were.

Q. How much wages were you to get out there? – A. Fifteen dollars a month on a farm, and house to live in, firewood furnished, and a cow and calf to milk extra for each family.

Q. Did you find any truth in such statements? – A. None at all, sir.

Q. Are you on your way back to North Carolina? – A. yes, sir.

Q. Do you expect to stay there? – A. I’m aiming to get back home and die there.

Q. You are going to stay when you get there? – A. I am going to stay right at home and advise all the rest to stay.

Q. What kind of advice are you going to give them? – A. I am going to tell them, “You have got a home, and you stay there”; for it’s an abomination to go where you have got none.

Q. You speak in the church at home sometimes, don’t you? – A. Yes, sir; sometimes in the prayer meetings and round about.

Q. Do you expect to speak to them about this thing? – A. Yes, sir; if I live, I expect to tell them about these things.

Q. You think it is a great outrage on your race? – A. Yes, sir; it is a regular abomination.

Q. You belonged to Mr. Ruffin, who was once in Congress, did you not? – A. Yes, sir.

Q. How have you been treated since the war down there? – A. As good as I want to be. Nobody ever bothered me, and when I worked for them they paid me.

Q. Did you vote down there? – A. Yes, sir; at every election. I have never missed any one that I know of.

Q. What ticket did you vote? – A. The Republican ticket.

Q. Did anybody ever keep you from voting it? – A. No, sir.

Q. Did you go to court during court week? – A. Yes, sir; I go to see how court goes on and the cases there.

Q. Did you live there on the old plantation? – A. Yes, sir; I have a piece of ground there yet.

Q. Do you rent it? – A. Yes, sir; I rent from a landholder.

Q. What sort of terms do you get? – A. Well, sir, if you tend the lands and they furnish the teams and all the utensils and seed, and I do the labor and board myself, I get a half.

Q. Do you make a living for yourself and your family that way? – A. Yes, sir.

Q. When you heard of those big wages, you thought you could do better out there than at home? – A. Yes, sir; it’s a man’s duty to do better if he can, but if you don’t like it, why then don’t take up with it.

Q. You don’t like it, and you are going back? – A. Yes, sir.

Q. How many of your people out there would go back from Indiana if they could? – A. I know of two families, and think they have something of the rise of eight or ten children, who asked us to do something to get them back, and I said I would do my best.

Q. And you are going to try to get them back? – A. Yes, sir.

Q. How did you get back? – A. I had worked and got seven dollars that I saved; and the man that I was with wrote for money, and they send him $35, and he lent me seven, and with the seven I had it bought me here; and when I got here I had nothing to eat, but I was this nigh home.

Q. Did you tell the white people out there you were going home? – A. Yes, sir; I declared I wouldn’t live in their State.

Q. Did any of them advise you to stay? – A. Yes, sir; they said they did not blame you immigrants for wanting to go home, but said, you try and stay until after the Presidential election, and then we think it is best for you to go home; and I said all right, and I went on my way and come here.

Q. Do you know the men who said that to you? – A. I do not.

Q. You have been raised in North Carolina, I believe. Now tell us how you found the weather out there in Indiana for your people? – A. It was too cold, sir.

Q. Did you notice a good many people among your emigrants who were sick? – A. Yes, sir; some two or three died in the time. There were little children who were carried to the graveyard and some old ones.

Q. So you know this man Perry – Sam Perry? – A. I know him if I see him, but I wasn’t acquainted with him.

Q. Did he make speeches down there in your country about this emigration matter? – A. No, sir; I don’t know of anybody making any speeches in Wilson, but when I got to town I found this thing was all through there. I caught hold of it and it worried me so that I got away.

Senator BLAIR [Henry W. Blair, Republican-New Hampshire.]  I want you to tell me how many people advised you to stay in Indiana until after the election?  A.  I didn’t take any notice how many – no more than I know this was spoke to us.

Q. How many times? – A. Twice.

Q. Only twice? – A. Only twice to my knowledge.

Q. Were they there in Indianapolis? – A. Yes, sir; right in the city.

Q. You have no knowledge of the persons who said that to you? – A. No, sir.

Q. And you kept quiet about it? – A. I said all right and walked right on.

Q. How many white people did you talk with while you were there? – A. A great many.

Q. Did you talk with them probably a thousand times? – A. Yes, sir, more or less.

Q. And twice only somebody said for you to hold on until after the election? – A. Yes, sir.

Q. You can’t give the names of those people? – A. No, sir.

Q. You don’t know but what they were Democrats who wanted you to stay there and vote the Democratic ticket? – A. I don’t know, sir.

Q. These Democrats are pretty sharp and up to a great many tricks, ain’t they? – A. Yes, sir; I reckon so.

Q. How much money did you have when you started to Indiana? – A. $45.

Q. And it cost you something to live on along the way? – A. Yes, sir.

Q. Do you know how much? – A. No, sir; I loaned out $8 to a colored man who was going on.

Q. Then it must have cost you some $23? – A. I never counted it up.

Q. When you got ready to go back, when did you start from Indiana? – A. Thursday morning at five o’clock.

Q. This last week? – A. Yes, sir.

Q. When did you arrive here? – A. Friday night, at seven o’clock.

Q. How did you happen to be here this morning? – A. Well, sir, Mr. Barnes requested of me to stay.

The CHAIRMAN.  I subpoenaed him, Mr. Blair.

The WITNESS.  Mr. Barnes requested of me to stay, and so I staid.

Senator BLAIR. Did anybody else request you to stay? – A. I don’t know if Mr. Vance [Zebulon B. Vance, Democrat-North Carolina] didn’t say he would like for me to stay.

Q. You can’t give the names of those people? – A. No, sir.

Q. How did everybody know you had anything to tell about this emigration? – A. They spoke to me in the depot, and I said I was going home from Indianapolis; and they asked me how I liked it, and I said I didn’t like it all. I said to them “Do you know of a man here by the name of Mr. Barnes?” They said “Yes.”

Q. How did you come to know him? – A. Because I was raised with him right there in North Carolina.

Q. You say you got work only a third of the time you were out there? – A.Yes, sir.

Q. If you had been at home, how much could you have gotten? – A. I would have worked every day if the weather was suitable.

Q. You could work all the time there? – A.Yes, sir.

Q. Are there any idle people down there? – A. Yes, sir; if they make themselves idle – that is all there is about it.

Q. What is the demand for labor? Is it so that the whole colored people there can work? – A. Yes, sir; if they want.

Q. From January to January? – A.Yes, sir.

Q. Do you work out yourself? – A. I farm, sir.

Q. You rent land, do you? – A. Yes, sir.

Q. You mean, then, that you can work on the piece of land that you hire? – A. Yes, sir.

Q. You don’t mean that your people generally can have labor by the day, every single day in the year? – A. They don’t do much of that kind of hiring down there with us.

Q. You mean, then, they can work on their land or land that they hire? – A. Yes, sir.

Q. That there are a good many days that you don’t have to work? – A. Yes, sir. There are a good many days when you won’t have to work if you are up with your business.

Q. And it is in that way that you mean that you have work every day in the year? – A. Yes, sir.

Q. A man can do that in Indiana, can’t he? – A. I didn’t inquire about that.

Q. When you got there you didn’t have any such work as that to do? – A. No, sir; I didn’t.

Q. But you got a chance to dig sewers in Indianapolis? – A. Yes, sir, I struck it for a while.

Q. That is not good work for farmers to do, is it? – A. No, sir; but they tell me they don’t have any use for farmers much until about March. I went round for about ten miles from the city all round. Some of them said they would take me in March, but I said I couldn’t be there in March.  They asked me where I was going to be.  I said I reckon I would be dead if I staid there, for I must have something to eat between this and March.

Q. Yet you say you accumulated $7? – A. Yes, sir; but that’s nothing to what I would get at home.

Q. You don’t think you had the chance out there that you have at home? – A. Not the beginning of the chances.

Q. Isn’t it a fact that a good many colored people have got chances to work, and have scattered out among the farmers and are doing well? – A. Well, sir, some of them have, and if they don’t like it they say they do.

Q. If they don’t like it they say they do? – A. Yes, sir; I don’t see how they liked it though, when they say they can’t get work and are about fit to starve.

Q. You think they don’t tell it, then, as it is? – A. No, sir; I don’t think so, because I could see their conditions myself.

Q. At the same time they seem to like it better than North Carolina? – A. Yes, sir.

Q. And you saw many men who have families, and who want to get back home? – A. Yes, sir; they told me.

Q. And these are the only ones you know who want to get back? – A. They are the only ones who told me so.

Q. You are a preacher, and a sociable sort of man, and you go round among them a great deal at Indianapolis? – A. I didn’t have anything to say of the Scriptures among them.

Q. You saw them and talked with them, though? – A. Mighty little; I talked mighty little myself.

Q. But you saw most of them and talked with them? – A. I couldn’t say that and tell the truth.

Q. But you saw a good deal of them? – A. Yes, sir; I saw a good deal of them.

Q. And two of them said they wanted to get back? – A. Yes, sir.

Q. Well, you seem to have a good deal of feeling in this matter? – A. Yes, sir; I have.

Q. And you want to get back home and die there? – A. Yes, sir.

Q. But you don’t want to die right away, do you? – A. I hope not, but I am going to tell them not to go out there to Indiana; I ain’t going myself no more; but I shall not pester them if they want to go and find out for themselves.

Q. You think they have a right to go if they want to? – A. Yes, sir.

Q. They have the same right to go to Indiana as a white man? – A. Yes, sir.

Q. Did you talk with the white people out there much as to whether they thought the colored people ought to go there? – A. No, sir.

Q. Did you see any politicians out there, and talk politics with them? – A. I don’t talk politics with anybody if I can help it.

Q. Why not? – A. I don’t believe in taking up too much time with that sort of stiff, and if I can get labor and get my money for it, I rather for that.

Q. But the question is, did you talk any politics out there? – A. Not unless somebody attacked me about it.

Q. Did anybody attack you with it? – A. I told you that gentleman did, who asked me to stay until after the day of the election.

Q. Were there any others who talked the merits of the political question with you; argued with about it? – A. Not that I can remember.

Q. Those two Republicans or Democrats told you to stay until after the election? – A. I didn’t know whet their politics were.

Q. Didn’t they tell you you would have an easy time when it came spring? – A. Some did and some did not; some of them said it would be the same thing all the year.

Q. Some of them said it was better for you to go out? – A. Yes, sir.

Q. You don’t know whether they were Republicans or Democrats? – A. I am certain there were two of them were Q. Republicans; they were the same two who sent off my letter.

Q. They were Republicans? – A. Yes, sir.

Q. They were not anxious, then, for you to stay? – A. They were Republicans, and they said I had better go back.

Q. They advised you to come back home? – A. Yes, sir.

Q. Were they very strong Republicans? – A. I don’t know, sir.

Q. Were they good looking men? – A. Yes, sir; they looked like intelligent men.

Q. And they advised you to leave Indiana? – A. Yes, sir; they thought it best, as they said we were most on to starvation.

Q. These people who go out there didn’t take money to buy land, and so they have to work and earn some before they can make any purchases? – A. Yes, sir.

Q. If a man went to Indiana with three or five hundred dollars in his picket he could do as he pleased, could he not? – A. Five hundred dollars wouldn’t go far with there to buy land.

Q. How far would it go in North Carolina? – A. A right smart piece.

Q. It wouldn’t buy much in Raleigh would it? – A. Well, sir, I haven’t been there since I was a boy.

Q. Well, $500 wouldn’t buy much in a city? – A. I think not.

Q. And wouldn’t do so in Indianapolis? – A. No, sir; I don’t suppose it would.

Q. Suppose you were to go out in the unsettled parts of Indiana as in North Carolina, then it would go pretty far, wouldn’t it? – A. I can’t keep up with you about that; I have not any experience of it.

Q. Were they good looking men? – A. Yes, sir; they looked like intelligent men.

Q. And they advised you to leave Indiana? – A. Yes, sir; they thought it best, as they said we were most on to starvation.

(By the CHAIRMAN.) Mr. Blair has asked you if you believe it is right for a man to go anywhere in this country that he pleases, and you said you do think so. Do you think it is right to be induced to leave your home and go away where you are not known, and where you cannot get work, by means of falsehoods and misrepresentations? – A. No, sir.

Q. You don’t think a man ought to be induced in that way to go where he would be worse off? – A. No, sir; I don’t think so.

Q. You think that has been done in this case? – A. Yes, sir; with me and all the rest.

Q. And that is the feeling of the colored people towards this man Perry? – A. The feeling, so far as I presume of it, is great dissatisfaction with him.

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Green Ruffin, age 36, appears in the 1870 census of Wilson township, Wilson County, with wife Tamer and children Ora and Martha, plus 58 year-old Nicey Watson. (N.B. David Ruffin and family lived next door; the two may have been brothers.) In 1880, Green, with age listed as 52, is in Wilson township, Wilson County, with Tamer and children Orah, Martha and Stephen.  His former master was United States Congressman Thomas Ruffin of Franklin County, North Carolina.

Senate Report 693, 2nd Session, 46th Congress.  Proceedings of the Select Committee of the United States Senate to Investigate the Causes of the Removal of the Negroes from the Southern States to the Northern States.  U.S. Congressional Serial Set.