<span>Free blacks who left the South to escape both the persecution following the Civil War, in the 1870s, were known as Exodusters. They left at first to settle in Cherokee territory and eventually settled in Scott County, the first "colony" being Nicodemus.</span>
African Americans had just risked their lives in the war and now demanded to not be treated like 2nd class citizens.
Invasions by Barbarian tribes
Economic troubles and overreliance on slave labor
Because like a ships caption, he leads his people