ts and rewards of a just society, and combining with the currents
of our continental civilization, will, under the guidance of a benevolent
Providence which forgets neither them nor us, make them a constantly
progressive race; and secure them ever after from the calamity of another
enslavement, and ourselves from the worst calamity of being their
oppressors."[40]

It is clear that these smaller numbers of Negroes under favorable
conditions could be easily adjusted to a new environment. When, however,
all Negroes were declared free there set in a confused migration which was
much more of a problem. The first thing the Negro did after realizing that
he was free was to roam over the country to put his freedom to a test. To
do this, according to many writers, he frequently changed his name,
residence, employment and wife, sometimes carrying with him from the
plantation the fruits of his own labor. Many of them easily acquired a dog
and a gun and were disposed to devote their time to the chase until the
assistance in the form of mules and land expected from the government
materialized. Their emancipation, therefore, was interpreted not only as
freedom from slavery but from responsibility.[41] Where they were going
they did not know but the towns and cities became very attractive to them.

Speaking of this upheaval in Virginia, Eckenrode says that many of them
roamed over the country without restraint.[42] "Released from their
accustomed bonds," says Hall, "and filled with a pleasing, if not vague,
sense of uncontrolled freedom, they flocked to the cities with little hope
of obtaining remunerative work. Wagon loads of them were brought in from
the country by the soldiers and dumped down to shift for themselves."[43]
Referring to the proclamation of freedom, in Georgia, Thompson asserts
that their most general and universal response was to pick up and leave
the home place to go somewhere else, preferably to a town. "The lure of the
city was strong to the blacks, appealing to their social natures, to their
inherent love for a crowd."[44] Davis maintains that thousands of the
70,000 Negroes in Florida crowded into the Federal military camps and into
towns upon realizing that they were free.[45] According to Ficklen, the
exodus of the slaves from the neighboring plantations of Louisiana into
Baton Rouge, Carrollton and New Orleans was so great as to strain the
resources of the Federal authorities to support them. Ten thousand pour