"PAP" SINGLETON 73
However, Pap was finally made to see that popular opinion in Kansas was not in favor of encouraging further migration of "paupers," and through the influence of the whites he was brought to the point where he used his influence to discourage the exodus movement.' But unwillingly did he come to this. In May, 1879, he had denounced in advance a meeting of the National Negro Convention soon to be held at Nashville for the purpose of considering the causes of the exodus and the condition of the blacks. He feared that the negroes like Douglass and Pinchback would control the convention and try to keep the blacks in the South. He wanted the Kansas Negro Convention, which was to be held about the same time, to inform southern negroes about Kansas and assist them to get there.^^ Soon, how- ever, in order to relieve and reassure Kansas, he planned to divert the immigration to the states farther west, but only a few went to Nebraska and Colorado. His next plan, suggested by the whites, was to turn the migration to the states north of the Ohio. He visited Illinois and Indiana to investigate conditions, but received little encouragement. He then began to play upon the fear of the whites in those states about a possible "exodus," declaring that the "exodus was working," but that if the North would force the South to treat the negroes well, let them vote, sell land to them, etc., they would stay in the South.^^
The migration began to decrease in the summer of 1879 and Singleton busied himself in looking after the negroes in the colonies, and in the relief work. About 200 Tennessee negroes went to his colonies in 1879, besides those from the lower South. ^^ When the exodus began afresh in the spring of 1880, the Kansas newspapers very willingly published statements from Singleton advising prospective "exodusters" either to stay at home or to scatter out into other northern states, for, as all maintained, Kansas had her share, there was no employment for more, and no more aid could be given to them.^^ The southern
" Scrapbook, pp. 5, 6.
^ Topeka Commonwealth, October 14, 1879,
- • Scrapbook, pp. 6, 1 2.
- ^ Scrapbook, p. 32, November 18, 1880; Topeka Daily Capital, March 28,
1880.
