Nicodemus descendants preserve history of former slaves’ quest for freedom in Kansas

Angela Bates, a fifth-generation descendant of Nicodemus, points to historical artifacts of the Kansas town created by former slaves in the 1870s. She spoke Wednesday at Spencer Research Library at University of Kansas, which archived portions of Nicodemus history. (Tim Carpenter/Kansas Reflector)

LAWRENCE — Fifth-generation Nicodemus descendant Angela Bates draws inspiration from carrying forward the history of people who left the South in the 1870s to establish a town in rural Kansas where they might move closer to the promise of freedom.

Bates, who was raised in California by parents born in Nicodemus, eventually relocated to Kansas, formed the Nicodemus Historical Society and campaigned to preserve the documentary history of a town that had gradually fallen on hard economic times. Structural pieces of Nicodemus remain these days in a handful of buildings. The settlement near the Solomon River has been designated a National Historic Site by Congress.

“It’s always exciting to talk about Nicodemus,” she said. “It runs in my blood. I’m a channeler of all of those ancestors that endured slavery and have gone on before me. I’m glad I’m still here to tell their stories and to preserve their history.”

Bates brought her slice of oral history to the Spencer Research Library at the University of Kansas, where a collection of photographs and documents related to Nicodemus has been archived. She said the library served as the Fort Knox of history for people tied to Nicodemus. She recently completed work on a documentary about settlement of Nicodemus and the legacy of a community far from the Kentucky hills where many settlers were recruited.

Her great-great-grandfather Tom Johnson was among the first to arrive in 1877. A great-great-great-grandfather on her father’s side of the family came to Nicodemus in 1879. While her parents moved in the 1950s in California, the family returned to Nicodemus regularly for celebrations of the emancipation of slaves in the United States.

“I feel very blessed to be part of the Nicodemus legacy,” Bates said. “I’m doing it not for fame, not for money — obviously not money — but I do it because I don’t want their stories to be lost. I think their stories are important. They’ve been a part of my life. I can remember sneaking around listening to the old folk. I wish I had a pen and paper at that point and taken down notes, because I got some stories. I tell you.”

Spirit, determination

The people who made a home in Nicodemus included formerly enslaved residents of the central bluegrass region of Kentucky, which included Lexington and Georgetown. The objective was to gain ownership of land in Kansas and put distance between themselves and aggressively enforced Jim Crow laws stalling the ability of Black Americans to broaden their personal experience with freedom, Bates said.

Bates said the decision by more than 300 people to leave Kentucky was difficult, especially for people who had been confined on plantations and had traveled little. The Great Plains was geographically quite different from the environs of Kentucky, she said. She said Jim Crow’s hold on Kansas wasn’t as fierce, but that mindset was an unmistakable presence in Kansas, too.

“It’s not like Kentucky, but they’ve got free land,” Bates said. “Your geographic mindset is tiny, but your imagination is big and your heart is even bigger and your spirit and determination is even greater. And the greatest thing of all is that you have faith in God that you’re going to make a difference.”

Bates said the early period in Nicodemus was harsh, but Potawatomie and Osage tribe members assisted settlers. Potawatomie members on a hunting trip shared game with Nicodemus residents in the first year, she said. Initially, homesteaders lived in dugouts or sod structures.

She said it was often assumed the name of the town came from Biblical stories of Nicodemus. However, she said, the name was drawn from a Civil War-era abolitionist song “Wake Nicodemus” about the end of slavery.

Residents of Nicodemus helped organize Graham County. The first three county attorneys were Black men, she said.

Bates said Nicodemus was passed over when decisions were made about construction of a railroad system from Salina to Colby. Track was laid several miles from Nicodemus at Bogue. It was consequential because a collection of merchants in Nicodemus relocated to Bogue, she said.

She said the Dust Bowl years and Great Depression further eroded the business community in Nicodemus. More families moved away over the years, she said, but elements of their history, including five buildings, remain of the settlement. The preserved archive record, including community and family photos, put a face to people who engaged in a courageous effort to reposition themselves inside the United States.

“More than anything, they brought their spirit of determination and cooperation, and they did work together,” Bates said. “A lot of people knew each other. Before they came, they were on neighboring plantations or on the same plantation. I think those are some of the things that really made the community cohesive over the years.”

‘Never occurred to me’

Bates said there was tension between Nicodemus and predominantly white towns and cities nearby. Relations with Hill City and Bogue were strained at times, she said, and about 20 miles away the city of Stockton had a sundown rule that prohibited nonwhite people from remaining in city limits after sunset. There was a strong bond between Nicodemus and the French-Canadian town of Damar, she said.

The 160-acre core of Nicodemus was designated by the National Park Service as a national historic landmark district. Bates organized the Nicodemus Historical Society in the 1980s.

Subsequently, Bates worked six years with members of the Kansas congressional delegation to secure approval from Congress to declare the homestead of formerly enslaved people a national historic site.

“It never occurred to me, not one time, that it wasn’t going to happen,” Bates said.

She said the Nicodemus historic site and the town’s historical society needed an infusion of financial resources to improve access to the local history.

On Wednesday, Bates brought a fresh bundle of Nicodemus materials to add to the collection at Spencer Research Library at KU.

“These people represent what African-Americans did with their freedom,” Bates said. “They participated in manifest destiny.”

She said too often analysis of American history focused on the slave experience and the civil rights movement. The experience of Black people after emancipation and during Reconstruction was generally skipped over, she said.

“That whole chapter is just missing,” she said. “I’m hoping through the story of Nicodemus they will understand what African Americans did with their freedom.”

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