A Century of Negro Migration Author:Carter G. Woodson Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Some of them were conducted from these camps into York, Columbia, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, and by water to New York and Boston, from which they w... more »ent to various parts seeking labor. Some collected in groups as in the case of those at Five Points in New York.13 Large numbers of them from Virginia assembled in Washington in 1862 in Duff Green's Row on Capitol Hill where they were organized as a camp, out of which came a contraband school, after being moved to the McClellan Barracks.14 Then there was in the District of Columbia another group known as Freedmen's village on Arlington Heights. It was said that, in 1864, 30,000 to 40,000 Negroes had come from the plantations to the District of Columbia.18 It happened here too as in most cases of this migration that the Negroes were on hand before the officials grappling with many other problems could determine exactly what could or should be done with them. The camps near Washington fortunately became centers for the employment of contrabands in the city. Those repairing to Fortress Monroe were distributed as laborers among the farmers of that vicinity.1In some of these camps, and especially in those of the West, the refugees were finally sent out to other sections in need of labor, as in the cases of the contrabands assembled with the Union army at first at Grand Junction and later at Memphis.17 u Rfport of the Committee of Repretentatitet, ete p. 9. 14 At an entertainment of t" school, Senator Pomeroy of Kang Toteing the gentiment of Liceolr, spoke in favor of a scheme to colonize Xegroes in Central Amenta. Special Etport of the Urited States Comaasi'/n of Education on the Schools of the District of Colomhta, p. 215. Ckrirtto examiner, T.XXV1, p. 34Jr. There were three types of these camp communities whic...« less