ouisiana, Mississippi, and Texas,
working his way and taking notes of the crimes committed against
his race. His notes, written in terse and simple language,
embraced the names of six hundred and eighty-three colored men
who have been whipped, maimed or murdered within the last eight
years, and his statement of these crimes covers thirty-five pages
of closely printed matter in the report. We are sure no one can
read it without a conviction of its truthfulness, and a feeling
of horror at the barbarous details he relates. Adams is the man
who has organized a colonization council, composed of laboring
colored people, and rigidly excluding politicians, which numbers
ninety-eight thousand who have enrolled themselves with a view to
emigration from that country as early as possible. He details the
character and the purpose of the organization and the efforts it
has made to obtain relief and protection for its members.
"First," he says, "we appealed to the President of the United
States to help us out of our distress, to protect us in our
rights and privileges. Next, we appealed to Congress for a
territory to which we might go and live with our families.
Failing in that," says he, "our other object was to ask for help
to ship us all to Liberia, Africa, somewhere where we could live
in peace and quiet. If that could not be done," he adds, "_our
idea was to appeal to other governments outside of the United
States to help us to get away from the United States and go and
live there under their flag_." What a commentary upon our own
boasted equality and freedom! Finding no relief in any direction,
they finally resolved to emigrate to some of the Northern States.
He says they had some hope of securing better treatment at home
until 1877, when "we lost all hopes and determined to go anywhere
on God's earth, we didn't care where; we said we was going if we
had to run away and go into the woods." Perhaps we can best
summarize the condition of affairs in Louisiana and the causes of
the exodus from that State, as the Negroes themselves regarded
them, by quoting a brief extract from the report of the business
committee to the colored State convention held in New Orleans on
the 21st of April, 1879:

NEW ORLEANS, April 21, 1879.