A. Decades Before and After the Civil War

Kyle Wilkins

Geog 316

1/18/14

A. Decades before and after the Civil War

The decades before the Civil War were the era for fur trading.  Some of the first posts for fur trading by an African-American were in Marinette, near the Menominee River (African).  Other than the few African Americans that lived in Wisconsin, around 1820 to 1830, lead miners brought black slaves to Wisconsin to free them (African).  This way they could get away from the no paid work and start a new life.  Before the war, more African-American settlers came to Wisconsin in 1848, where freed blacks had come to live mainly in Grant County and some others dispersed throughout the state.  Then by 1840 only 200 African Americans lived in Wisconsin and then that jumped to 1,200 blacks by 1860 (Topics).  They were coming here as they were freed and wanted a place to live without being forced to work and get no pay.  When the Civil War had first began they didn’t allow black soldiers so most of the African Americans stayed in the state away from all the fighting, while some joined some regiment groups.  After January 1st, 1863 blacks could now join and 353 blacks from Wisconsin left to fight.  At the end of the war and thirty years later, there were 45 black Civil War veterans still living in Wisconsin (Topics).  The decades after the Civil War were a rough period for black Americans.  There was heavy discrimination against blacks and desegregation was a problem.  Although the harsh living conditions, the black communities continued to grow in size and were stationed around the Milwaukee part of Wisconsin.  The population there rose from only 304 people to almost 1000 (Topics).  Other areas that were settled after the Civil War were Cheyenne Valley and Pleasant Ridge, which were two other communities that had sent some African Americans to fight in the war.  Now that the population of African Americans is continually growing from the years after the Civil war, the younger ones in the family are moving as they grow up.  They were not only moving in the Wisconsin area, usually to Milwaukee area, but out of state to Chicago or Detroit (Topics).  These main cities were a way so that the young African Americans could obtain jobs and make money to start families and to pay for a new place to live.

B. 20th Century

        After the war and turning into the 20th century, more and more African Americans were coming into the state of Wisconsin.  They were in search of new jobs and looking to live in more urban areas.  As Wisconsin wasn’t much of a place that had its white dominance like other surrounding states or other states in the nation, this is what attracted more blacks to relocate to this area (Post War African American Migration).  With many of them coming here looking to find job opportunities, they weren’t so lucky as there weren’t that many jobs.  Wisconsin wasn’t the prospering economy like the neighboring states were, such as Illinois and Michigan. In Wisconsin there were little demand for jobs, as much of the work was agricultural which was owner-operated and has little need for laborer workers (Post War).  Blacks stayed to live in the urban communities and in the city constantly looking for work as it would come along, but were especially hit hard when the depression came along.  “In 1940, forty-six percent of Wisconsin’s black population was unemployed compared to thirteen percent of whites (Post War).” The following twenty years were when the black population increased tremendously.  By 1960 the blacks population had increased 600 percent to a total population of 74,546 (Post War).  Although the population was increasing rapidly and blacks were still looking for jobs, the majority, or ninety percent of blacks stayed in five areas of Milwaukee, Beloit, Madison, Racine and Kenosha.  Even with the spike in African American population there was still seven counties in the state that didn’t have any black residents and another thirty had fewer than ten blacks living in them.  In the later 20th century, most new settlers came from states such as Mississippi, Arkansas and Tennessee (Post War).  When these inhabitants came to Wisconsin most of them had their first stop in Milwaukee.  This was because of the manufacturing boom happening and there were an abundance of jobs for the new settlers.  Once these jobs were opening up, black men were taking them for good pay and industrial jobs.  This was when black women started to immigrate to Wisconsin more, but when they held jobs they were discriminated against more with less pay and not as skill jobs.  These new jobs brought a new life to the African American race within Wisconsin.  With so many manufacturing jobs, many blacks were able to move their life to the middle-class, but with this came segregation.  Much of Milwaukee, where the manufacturing jobs were prospering, the neighborhoods were very segregated.  This segregation in Milwaukee lead people to move out of the city and into even more urban areas, spreading across the state of Wisconsin.  This was the start of a more wide spread population throughout the state of Wisconsin in the latter 20th Century.