There appeared waste places in the country.

Improvements were wanting, land lay idle for lack of sufficient labor, and that which was cultivated yielded a diminishing return on account of the ignorance and improvidence of those tilling it.

These Negroes as a rule had lost the ambition to become landowners, preferring to invest their surplus money in personal effects; and in the few cases where the Negroes were induced to undertake the buying of land, they often tired of the responsibility and gave it up.[12] There began in the spring of 1879, therefore, an emigration of the Negroes from Louisiana and Mississippi to Kansas.

For some time there was a stampede from several river parishes in Louisiana and from counties just opposite them in Mississippi.

It was estimated that from five to ten thousand left their homes before the movement could be checked.