The New York Public Library, Humanities and Social Sciences Library, Wallach Division

A.D. Bonney

Some migrants to the North found living in a new state or city painful, even though conditions were easier than they had been in the South. Although the South was oppressive, it was also home, and most people vowed to remain in familiar surroundings rather than retreat. The South was also the place where the extended family lived (there were sometimes two or three generations under the same roof), and kinship links were tight. Some families who had been separated by the domestic slave trade reunited after the Civil War, and were reluctant to separate once again. But increasing numbers of men and women expressed a willingness to "quot;go wherever I can be free."quot;