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Exodusters: African American Migration to the Great Plains
A photograph of Benjamin “Pap” Singleton, 1880.

A photograph of Benjamin “Pap” Singleton, 1880.

A native of Tennessee, Benjamin “Pap” Singleton was born enslaved in 1809 and became one of the leading promoters of black migration to Kansas in the 1870s. Singleton organized black settlements in Cherokee and Morris Counties in Kansas.

Citation Information
Leonard & Martin, Photographers, “Benjamin ‘Pap’ Singleton,” Digital Public Library of America, https://dp.la/item/cc6902ffedaf2fd3a5b9387c6f497ccc.
Note: These citations are programmatically generated and may be incomplete.
Courtesy of Kansas City Public Library via Missouri Hub.

Tips for Students

For this source, consider:

  • the author's point of view
  • the author's purpose
  • historical context
  • audience

Item 3 of 15 in the Primary Source Set Exodusters: African American Migration to the Great Plains

Previous ItemNext Item
An illustration from Harper’s Weekly depicting white men subjecting a black man to violent intimidation while voting, 1876.
An 1875 newspaper article inviting Tennessee’s African American residents to participate in a state convention about migration to Kansas.
A photograph of Benjamin “Pap” Singleton, 1880.
A broadside distributed by Benjamin Singleton advertising migration to Kansas, 1878.
A sheet of lyrics for a song entitled, “The Land that Gives Birth to Freedom,” about leaving Tennessee for Kansas, 1877.
A map showing black towns and settlements in Kansas and Oklahoma in 1900.
A letter from John Turner of St. Louis authorizing William Lloyd Garrison to raise funds for migrants en route to Kansas, April 2, 1879.
A print from Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper depicting African Americans en route to Kansas via St. Louis, 1879.
A photograph of a crowded steamboat with migration organizers Benjamin Singleton and S. A. McClure superimposed in the foreground.
An illustration from Harper’s Weekly entitled, “The Negro Exodus: The Old Style and the New,” May 1, 1880.
An excerpt from the Second Report of the Kansas Freedmen’s Relief Association, 1880.
A 1910 photograph of Elsie and Lela Scott, children of Exodusters John and Julia Scott, who settled in Stafford County, Kansas.
A photograph of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Nicodemus, Kansas.
An excerpt from an 1887 map of Graham County, Kansas, including Nicodemus, an African American community founded in 1877.
An excerpt from Benjamin Singleton’s testimony before Congress, 1880.

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