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The History and Development of the Monroe School Neighborhood
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Initial Settlement of Topeka
Jacob Chase, one of the nine founders of Topeka, first owned the land where BRVB is located. He purchased one of the original one hundred shares of land, first apportioned among Topeka’s nine founding members in December of 1854. In 1855, Chase sold a 160-acre plot to settlers John and Mary Ritchie who had recently moved from Indiana.

Bird's eye view of the city of Topeka, the capital of Kansas 1869. Drawn by A. Ruger.United States. Library of Congress. Ruger map collection, no. 69.

Initially, the Ritchies used the plot as a homestead and farm while also purchasing other land and developments within Topeka. During the 1860s Ritchie began selling 75-ft by 100-ft parcels to free African-Americans and others migrating to the area. A staunch supporter of the anti-slavery movement and the Underground Railroad, John Ritchie helped scores of African-Americans settle in Kansas throughout the Civil War period.

The Reconstruction Period: 1865–1877
With the start of the Civil War and continuing through the Reconstruction Period, African-Americans began moving into the new state of Kansas with prospects of acquiring land and establishing independent livelihoods. Between 1860 and 1865 the African-American population in Kansas grew from below one percent to nearly nine percent. Conversely, following the Civil War, the attitudes about racial equality and civil rights championed by John Ritchie and the Abolitionist movement fell by the wayside. Throughout the Reconstruction Period, American values changed, placing more restrictions on African-American freedoms including the segregation of transportation, education, housing, and other public areas.

Throughout the south, Reconstruction Period economics kept African-Americans disenfranchised and poor. Euro-American land owners charged tenants exorbitant prices to lease farmland, sometimes collecting between one-half and one-third of the total harvest revenue. These high rent prices caused massive accumulations of debt and kept African-Americans economically bound to plantation owners. Freed African-Americans would not obtain equality until they became independent land owners controlling their own destiny. Kansas and the Homestead Act of 1862 would provide that opportunity for those willing to leave the southern states.

The Exodus and Kansas Fever
During the 1860s and 1870s, African-Americans slowly began migrating out of the former slave states in search of free lands to the west. In Topeka, the established white populace saw no cause for concern with the early immigration. African-Americans were able to develop communities and enclaves within the city, particularly within Ward II , an affluent, predominately Euro-American neighborhood.

This slow influx soon turned into a torrent of migration into Kansas. The tide shifted with the 1878 election, when Louisiana voters elected a Democratic administration, thereby heralding the end of Republicanism in the state and cutting African-American Republicans out of the political process. Election results from 1878 were also contested in Mississippi and South Carolina, creating a climate of violence and fear within African-American communities throughout Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Texas. To many in these communities, Kansas and the unsettled western territories seemed a place to escape the persecution and repression perpetrated by hostile majorities in many of the former Confederate states.

"Ho For Kansas!" Copy print of handbill. Historic American Building Survey Field Records, HABS FN-6, #KS-49-14 Library of Congress

"Negro Exodusters en route to Kansas, fleeing from the yellow fever, " Photomural from engraving. Harpers Weekly, 1870. Historic American Building Survey Field Records, HABS FN-6, #KS -49-11 Library of Congress

The full fledged exodus out of the southeast began in March 1879 and continued into 1881, transplanting 25,000 African-Americans to Kansas. Also called “Exodusters”, the migrants were ex-slaves seeking to claim lands and establish homesteads in the hope that they would gain freedom from the economic and social oppression that had always been a way of life in the south. The Kansas fever was in full bloom and migrants sought every opportunity to claim all or part of the 160-acre plots as defined in the 1862 Homestead Act.

Topeka bore the full brunt of the Exodus. Between April and August 1879, 7,000 emigrants passed through Topeka, which was the only city in Kansas with a social welfare and resettlement program. The flood of people coming into Topeka aroused concerns in both the Euroamerican and established African-American communities. Although fully supportive of the Exoduster cause, Topeka’s African-American population made it clear that the emigrants must “remember that in Kansas everybody must work or starve”. In addition, the city and county governments were for the most part unaccommodating of the Exodus migration. In fact, very little help was forthcoming from nearly all levels of government including the U.S. government.

Most relief monies for poor and infirm emigrants came in the form of private donations and contributions administered by the State Central Relief Committee, which later became the Kansas Freedman’s Relief Association. The primary goal of the Relief Committee was to give temporary aid to those who needed it and to assist the Exodusters in finding employment and housing. At the beginning of 1880, the Relief Association had secured jobs for 10,000 workers in Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, and Illinois (Cox 1982:65). By the end of the Exodus migration in 1881 nearly 3,000 African-Americans had relocated to Topeka. This huge influx of new people caused a profound shift in the composition and structure of African-American society in Topeka.

The Birth of a New Century
By the 1890s, African-Americans lived in all five Wards and held a diverse array of business, professional, and skilled labor positions in the Topeka community. Racial segregation was very much a part of everyday African-American life that recognized no status or class boundaries. Because of racial segregation, African-Americans from Topeka, regardless of social status or wealth, began banding together to promote the cause of social progress.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Kansas was still overwhelmingly a rural and agricultural state. However, the City of Topeka continued to grow and develop into an urban center, with a population of 33,600 in 1900 and 50,000 in 1920 (Cox 1982). By 1900 African-Americans constituted fourteen percent of the total population in Topeka (Cox 1982). Increases in population within the Monroe School neighborhood are evident from the historic maps of the neighborhood, documenting the construction of numerous structures on the west side of Monroe Street. NEXT >>

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