The Pickens sentinel. [volume] (Pickens, S.C.) 1871-1903, 1890-04-17
A NEGRO EXODUS.
WHOLE SECTIONS OF NORTH CARO-.
LIMA WITHOUT CoLoRED LABOR.

The emigrant agent has had his
day in North Carolina. Like q plague
of devastating insects he has swept
over the entire eastern section of
the State, leaving nought behind but
wide waste places, desolated planta
tions, and malodorous memories.
Breaking levees and an unprecedented
overflow in the Mississippi Valley
put an effectual check upon the opera
tions, but, alas. too late to save the
poor negroes already gathered into
his net from untold hardships and
cruel dcprivations.
1t is curious fact that every great
movement Of the negroes i'll the di-
rection of seeking to better their ma
terial condition by removal from their
native soil has has resulted disas-
trously to them. Take, for example,
the great exodus into Kansas some
ten years ago, which resulted in II
call for Govemmcnt aid to succor the
unfortunate creatures and save them
from starvation and freezing during
nn unusually hard winter immedi-
ately following. Then, later on, when
there was great influx of negroes
into Arkansas and Texas from Cen
trail Georgia and Western South
Carolina, State and private aid had
to be furnished to save the ill-adviScd
and over -sanguine blacks from dire
want. SO now, scarcely have the
emigrants from this State been safely
landed in the Mississippi region be
sues, inundating almost the entire
section into which they have removed,
and precluthng all likelihood of
making Il crop this season.
Already the apparently inevitable
CRY of distress has been sounded, and
its revcrbcratiOnS are cchOing now
from every village and hamlet
throughout the deserted districts III
this State. At Goldsboro, Winston,
Tarboro, Halifax. Scotland Neck,
Snow Hill. Plymouth and various
other towns and settlements visited
in the last few days, letters the most
urgent are shown from negroes who
have but recently gone from these
vlcinitics, begging for money to bring
them back And yet in the face of all
this there arc 400 dcludcu blacks ut
Scotland Neck, 600 ut Plymouth and
800 III Beaufort county, packed and
encampcd, awaiting agents to come
and remove them. But up to this
writing no agent has appeared, and
from the present lcmorulizcd state of
the traffic there is small likelihood
hat 1
means ofcXit for time some to come. if
ut all.
In addition to the check put upon
the movement by the overflow in the
Southwest, the planters and citiS5ns
generally have combined to stop the
operations of the cmigrant agents.
and have been moved so to do as
much out Of consideration for the
welfare of the negroes themselves us
to retain what available farm labor
there is left III the country. An III
stance of this occurred a few days
since at Scotland Neck, where Mr..
Mcneil, of the firm of Mcneil & Pax
ton, JOSSelXn, Ga, turpcntinc and
naval stores producers, who had gone
to that point to secure labOrcrS, was
met by Il committee Of citizens and
quietly but firmly admouishcd to
dcsist from interfering with the ne
grOcS thcrcnOoutS. and advised TO
take himself off, which he did with
celclity
Just here it is proper to cite the
distinction between the exodus cmi-
grants and the tnpcntinc cmigrants,
the difference being that the former
go to stay, and the lattcr-who nrc
taken to Central and Southern Gcor-
gia only go for the season, Is being
expressly stipulated in their contracts
that Whcntheir services are no longer
required they shall be furnished
transportation back to their homes
Geo. w. Price, Jr., II representa-.
tive negro, who has become an cmi-
grant agent, returned from the Yazoo
Mississippi delta on Monday, having
gone thlihcr with about two hundred
families. He tells me that the en-
tire region is now under water, and
that III consequence there is great
decentralization and dissatisfaction
among the cmigrants. 1t is hoped,
however, that the flood will yet sub
side in time for the making Of Il crop,
wv liz ID liob Mtll tSSlllc(l
of this to venture forth with any moro
of his people.
70 get an accurate idea of the desc
late condition of the counties from
which SO many Of the cXodusters
have gone one must leave the rail
roads--in the vicinity of which there
IS always more or less lifc-apd by
horseback on vehicle traverse the
country roads. AS u general thing
the country roads III Eastern North
Carolina are not inviting to travellers
familiar with and accustomed to hard,
smooth surfaced pixies, or even clay
bedded wagonways. Through the
piney woods these rural thorough
fares wind and twist about in the
most bewi]dering and provoking fash
ion, while your stced OF span of horses
struggle through the sand, varying
from one to ten inches in depth, con
stituting the roadbed.
The eastern counties of this State
have been, up to the time of the negro
exodus, the most populous, and there
are still people enough III them to
till and make productive almost evc1v