Welcome to Module 3! This module will explore the Reconstruction era (1865-1877) outside of the South. In Module 2, you learned about the political achievements of interracial governments in the South, and the resulting violent backlash. In this module, we'll look to the American West. How did this region represent economic and social opportunity compared to the South or North? What kinds of racial violence occurred in the West, and how did it compare to the rest of the country?
Three questions will guide this module blog post:
How did the Homestead Act of 1862 change the population of the American West?
What were the effects of the Homestead Act on the US’ relationship with Native nations?
How did antislavery rhetoric continue to impact American racial ideology after Reconstruction?
Part I: The Homestead Act
In Part I, we'll consider how the Homestead Act of 1862 represented opportunity and freedom for some, and hardship and loss for others.
Let's start with a question: In your opinion, at the end of Reconstruction, which region had the most potential for economic opportunities for ordinary citizens? The North, South, or West? (Access the poll here if you can't see it.) Elaborate on your answer in the annotations or comments!
Expansion of the Federal Government During the Civil War
During the Civil War, Republicans in Washington passed several significant pieces of legislation. Without the presence of Southern Democrats in Congress, they were able to pass an economic package to expand the federal government. Influential legislation included:
The Homestead Act, to encourage westward migration;
The Land-Grant College Act, which provided states with land grants to finance the establishment of colleges; and
The Pacific Railroad Act, which authorized the issuance of bonds and land grants to railroad companies in order to promote the construction of a transcontinental railroad.
In this module, we’ll focus on the Homestead Act and the Pacific Railroad Act.
The Homestead Act was passed in 1862 and went into the effect the same day as the Emancipation Proclamation: January 1, 1863. The Act stated that any citizen, or those who intended to become citizens who had never borne arms against the US government could file an application and lay claim to 160 acres of federally owned lands in the West.
After filing a claim, improving the land by plowing fields, building houses and barns, digging wells, and living on the land for five years, homesteaders could apply for the official title deed to the land. Shortly after the act was passed, amendments were added to allow homesteaders to reside on the land for only 14 months and pay $1.25 per acre to receive the title to the land. After the Civil War, Union soldiers could deduct the time they served from residency requirements.
The act specified that any “21-year-old head of household” could file a claim. It did not define what it meant to be the head of a household. Thus, in a way, it was egalitarian. It allowed African Americans, immigrants, and even women a chance to build their own homesteads in the West.
It is estimated that up to 12 percent of homesteaders in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, North and South Dakota, and Utah wearer single women (single, widowed, or divorced). Widows of Union soldiers could deduct their husband’s time served from residency requirements.
The law did discriminate against married women. Married women were not allowed to take land in their town names, unless they were considered to be the head of household. See more here.
We have a strong collective historical memory of this time. The most well-known source is Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie series.
Homesteading was extremely challenging. Homesteaders faced wind, blizzards, and plagues of insects which threatened their crops. They built homes out of sod, because open plains meant there were few trees available for building. Raising livestock was difficult with scarce natural vegetation. There were limited fuel and water supplies. In many areas, the original homesteader did not stay on the land long enough to fulfill the claim.
Pacific Railroad Act
Six months after the Homestead Act was passed, the Pacific Railroad Act was signed. This act granted up to 100 million acres to the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroad companies, who were charged with building a railroad from the Missouri River to the Pacific coast. Railroads provided easier transportation for homesteaders as well as more ready access to manufactured goods, farm tools, weapons, and other supplies.
In addition, railroad companies sold off their excess land at inflated prices. Between 1863 and 1934, over 1.6 million homestead applications were processed and more than 270 million acres—10 percent of all US lands—passed into the hands of individuals. The Plains were transformed by the influx of homesteaders. For example, in 1860, Kansas had about 10,000 farms. In 1880, it had 239,000. In 1850, Texas had a population of 200,000 people. By 1880, the population had reached 1.6 million.
Most homesteaders settled in the Great Plains, including Nebraska, the Dakotas, Montana, Oklahoma, and Colorado. By 1900, homesteaders had settled in Oregon, Washington, California, and Arizona.
Many of these homesteaders took advantage of the stipulations of the act that provided a way to obtain title to the land for free. However, others found that the best land had been purchased by land speculators, mining and timber companies, and railroads. They purchased their land from private sellers. Thus, land distribution was not necessarily as“egalitarian” as it seemed.
This graph from the National Park Service shows the percentage of total homesteaded acreage in each state:
Many European immigrants came to the US because of the promise they saw in the Homestead Act. Most of them learned about the act through letters from family members already in the US. Others met with promoters from western states who set up offices in European cities.
In the Great Plains states, foreign-born settlers and their children often became the majority of the population on the frontier. They formed ethnic enclaves, providing a method of self-defense, mutual aid, and potential political power. Germans and German-speakers from Russia, Switzerland, and Austria migrated to the Great Plains in high numbers. In addition, population clusters of British, Irish, and Scandinavian immigrants arose, as well as smaller settlements of Czechs, Polish, and eastern European Jews.
Exodusters
After the passage of the 14th Amendment in 1868, the Homestead Act was open to African Americans, who were now citizens. Many Black Americans migrated to Kansas in the 1870s, and Oklahoma in the 1890s in large part to escape the economic, social, and political oppression they faced in the South with the end of Reconstruction. In 1855, Kansas was home to 151 free Blacks and 192 enslaved people. In 1870, there were 17,108 Black people, and by 1880, 43,107.
Western homesteading was attractive because the overwhelming majority of Blacks could not own land in the South—sharecropping and tenant farming trapped families in cycles of debt.
Initially, many black families were inspired to move to Kansas by Benjamin “Pap” Singleton, an activist and businessman who traveled throughout the South organizing people to move. Between 1877 and 1879, about 300 African Americans followed Singleton to Kansas. Black people who made their exodus to Kansas from the deep South are referred to as “exodusters.”
The mass migration was highly publicized and caused commotion in Kansas. Conservatives expressed an outcry against the influx of poor families who would require local government resources. Exodusters chose Kansas in part because the state had a reputation for radical anti-slavery activism. Most famously, it was the state where John Brown, famed abolitionist who had attempted to start a slave rebellion, had gained notoriety in the 1850s.
Some Kansans called out the state’s hypocrisy. For example:
The Junction City Tribune remarked that even “the strongest republican journals are protesting against the newcomers, arguing lustily that Kansas, at least, does not want them, and indeed, cannot support them.”
Another writer noted, “The negro exodus from the South has brought so many negroes to Kansas that race prejudice is beginning to spring up in a most alarming fashion.” [1]
Exodusters faced violence from angry white mobs, discrimination in housing, and increasingly into the 1880s, lynching.
Thinking about the context of the Homestead Act and the realities of living in the South after Reconstruction, consider the following question:
If you were a black local officeholder living in the deep South at the end of Reconstruction, what would you do? Stay? or Leave? (If you can't see the poll below, find it here.)
Part II: Native-Settler Conflict in the Context of the Civil War
In Part II of this module, we'll examine three significant examples of violent conflict between Native nations and American homesteaders and soldiers in the West during the Civil War and Reconstruction era. You’ll be able to see connections between these examples and the topics we’ll cover in Module 7, “The Indian Wars,” in Week 4.
As you might imagine, the influx of settlers into the Plains caused conflict among Native nations who claimed that same land as their homelands. At this point in time, US policy with Native nations was to negotiate treaties that led to the cession of land by tribes to the United States. In return for their land, many tribes received trade goods, yearly cash payments (annuities), and the right to remain on part of their homelands (reservations).
US-Dakota War
One particular example of the conflict which arose between newcomer homesteaders and Native people occurred in Minnesota on the land of the Dakota.
In 1851, the Sisseton and Wahpeton bands of the Dakota signed the Treaty of Traverse des Sioux, which along with another treaty, ceded to the US most of southern and central Minnesota. In return, they received approximately $1.7 million, about 7.5 cents per acre. About $300,000 was set aside to pay for relocation expenses and to prepare the Dakota reservations and schools.
The US government kept more than 80 percent of the money, with the Dakota only receiving the interest on the amount, at 5 percent for 50 years. However, the US Senate changed the terms of the treaties, and eliminating the reservations which had been side aside for the Dakota, leaving them with no place to live.
Before releasing badly needed cash and goods, Congress required the Dakota to approve this change. They were allowed to live on the land set aside for them until it was needed for white settlement.
By 1858, the Dakota had only a small strip of land in Minnesota. They had no access to the land upon which they had hunted for generations, so the had to rely on treaty payments for survival. This money was inadequate for their needs and often arrived late.
By the summer of 1862, most of the Dakota were starving. Since their payments were late, many traders cut off credit to Dakota families. They were unable to get food from stores, and the government agent in charge refused to distribute available food in warehouses until annuity payments arrived. In response to being told the Dakota were starving, one trader famously said, “let them eat grass.”
Protesting to the governmental agent, Little Crow, a Dakota leader argued: “We have waited a long time. The money is ours but we cannot get it. We have no food but here these stores are filled with food. We ask that you, the agent, make some arrangement so we can get food from the stores, or else we may take our own way to keep ourselves from starving. When men are hungry, they help themselves.”
Little Crow’s words proved to be true. In August of 1862, four young Dakota men murdered five white settlers. Some of the Dakota seized the moment to declare war to reclaim their homelands from whites, and attacked settlements near the Redwood Agency, an American administrative office. In the raids on the day after the initial attack, more than 200 settlers were killed and more than 200 women, children, and other civilians were taken hostage.
The war lasted for about 6 weeks. The governor of Minnesota called up militia, and several thousand Americans went to war against the Dakota, finally ending the resistance in late September.
More than 2,000 Dakota were taken prisoner during the fighting. Many were tried at federal forts for crimes committed during the war. Three hundred and three were found guilty and sentenced to hang, but President Lincoln commuted all but 38 of the sentences. An estimated 4,000 spectators came to witness the hangings. It remains the largest official execution in American history.
Those who had been spared execution were sent to a military prison in Davenport, Iowa, where at least 120 died during their imprisonment. In November 1862, about 1,700 Dakota people, mostly women and children, who had not been sentenced to death or prison, were removed to an internment camp at Fort Snelling. On the way, they were greeted by angry mobs of settlers who attacked the Dakota, beating even children.
Watch the brief video below from the Minnesota Historical Society's digital exhibit on the US-Dakota War to learn more about their experiences.
How do you think the US-Dakota War impacted future interactions between Native people and white homesteaders in other parts of the West? Let us know in the Answer Garden below, or access it here.
Next, we'll turn to two other significant violent engagements between Native nations and American settlers during the years of the Civil War.
Sand Creek Massacre
The Sand Creek Massacre was an attack led by Colonel John Chivington and 700 soldiers from the 3rd Colorado Volunteer Regiment on a camp of Cheyennes and Arapahoes at the end of November 1864. The massacre occurred in the context of tense relations between Natives and settlers in Colorado. As settlers began to access both land and gold in the region with increasing intensity, they wanted the Cheyenne and Arapaho out of the way. Civic leaders made an effort to secure legal transfer of land through treaties, although the “absolute right” of settlers to force Native removal wasn’t really questioned.
Under one such treaty, the Fort Wise Treaty, six out of the forty-four Cheyenne chiefs relinquished Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho land title to all of Colorado Territory in return for a new reservation, a stipend, farming equipment, and supplies.
However, the Fort Wise Treaty was only signed by a minority of Cheyenne leaders. Others refused to sign treaties ceding land to American settlers. Indeed, one continent of Cheyenne and Arapaho warriors known as the Dog Soldiers—a military society which formed into a separate band—continued to occupy their homelands, engaging in skirmishes with American buffalo hunters, miners, and soldiers.
Throughout 1863 and 1864, John Evans, the governor of Colorado Territory consistently warned of an impending war between Natives and settlers. In June of 1864, four months before Sand Creek, he issued a proclamation advising “friendly Indians” to surrender to the Army or face retribution: “The great Father is angry and will certainly hunt them out and punish them, but he does not want to injure those who remain friendly to whites.”
A few weeks later, Evans established a citizen militia to “Go in pursuit of all hostile Indians on the plains.” [2]
The War Department authorized the creation of a 100-day volunteer regiment under the command of John Chivington. Before launching their attack on the Cheyennes and Arapahoes at Sand Creek, they marched from Denver to Fort Lyon. The commander at the fort was not expecting them, but reportedly agreed that “some of those Indians ought to be killed.” He detailed 125 regulars from the 1st Colorado Regiment to join the campaign.
The US soldiers surprised the sleeping camp, and when they charged in, Cheyenne Chief Black Kettle raised the American flag, believing that the camp was under US protection. The soldiers fired on the camp until more than a hundred Cheyenne and Arapaho people lay dead. Soldiers then mutilated corpses and gathered scalps and other body parts as souvenirs and trophies. Those slaughtered at Sand Creek were among those who had tried to accommodate with settlers in diplomatic agreements. Two of the chiefs who had signed the Fort Wise Treaty three years earlier, Black Kettle and White Antelope, were killed in the massacre.
Chivington wrote to the Rocky Mountain News to describe the massacre as “one of the most bloody Indian battles ever fought on the plains.” However, federal authorities launched three investigations into the incident—one from the War Department, and two under the House and Senate. In each investigation, the government concluded that the slaughter was unwarranted and despicable. John Evans was removed from the governorship and Chivington received sharp criticism.
Among the Cheyenne, many survivors of the massacre rejected mediation fin favor of all out war. At a council meeting, Cheyenne warrior Leg in the Water asserted, “we have now raised the battle-axe until death.” US forces would engage in violent conflict for the next twelve years with the Cheyenne and other Plains nations, culminating in the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876. (We'll return to this battle in Module 6.)
In Colorado, a monument at the state capitol includes the Sand Creek Massacre and the 3rd Colorado Regiment’s role in it on its roster of “great Civil War battles.” In your opinion, should Sand Creek be considered a battle of the Civil War? Answer in the poll below, or access the poll here.
Navajos' Long Walk
The last violent incident between Native people and the US military which occurred in the Civil War era was the Navajos’ “Long Walk.” Colonel Edwin Sumner established Fort Defiance in 1851 in the heart of Navajo territory. This lead to increased conflict over access to grazing lands which surrounded the fort. In 1860, Navajo warriors launched an unsuccessful attack on Fort Defiance, leading New Mexicans and the army to agree that it was necessary to wage war on the Navajos.
In 1862, James Carleton, the governor and commander of New Mexico Territory, implemented a plan to relocate Navajos and Mescalero Apaches to a reservation at Fort Sumner, New Mexico, utilizing the Indian Removal Act of 1830 as justification. There, Navajos and Mescaleros would learn the “arts of civilization”—they would be instructed in Christianity, learn to become farmers, and send their children to American schools.
In a letter sent to his superior, Carleton summarized his reasoning for removing the Navajos:
“Soon they will acquire new habits, new ideas, new modes of life: the old Indians will die off and carry with them all latent longings for murdering and robbing: the young ones will take their places without these longings: and thus, little by little, they will become a happy and contented people.” [3]
The governor enlisted Kit Carson, a famous trapper, soldier, and former Indian agent, to force the Navajos to surrender and relocate. Carson and his soldiers destroyed the Navajo harvest and waged an indiscriminate war against them.
Navajo scholar Jennifer Denetdale has written about how Carson’s forces murdered Navajos who surrendered. Hearing stories about this practice, many Navajos refused to surrender. Carson continued his scorched-earth tactics, and by late 1863, thousands of desperate Navajos had turned themselves in at American forts.
They were forced to march to the Bosque Redondo reservation, about 300 miles away from the Navajo homeland. Hundreds died in the 18 days of marching. Navajos remember their ancestors' stories about having to abandon those who could not keep pace with the group.
Approximately 11,000 made the trek to the reservation. More than 2,500 died there. They spent four years living with inadequate shelter and food, and were unable to make the barren land work for them.
In 1868, after American military officials asked Navajo leader Barboncito why they had not been able to improve their lives on the reservation, he responded: “Our Grandfathers had no idea of living in any other country except our own and I do not think it is right for us to do so as we were never taught to...It was told to us by our forefathers that we were never to move east of the Rio Grande or west of the San Juan rivers and I think that our coming here has been the cause of so much death among us and our animals.”
After Americans suggested moving the Navajo to Oklahoma, he replied, “I hope to God you will not ask me to go to any other country except my own.” [4]
Part III: Reconstruction Era Restrictions in the West
In Part III, we’ll consider the impact of the transcontinental railroad on the social and political landscape of the American West. Which do you think stimulated more population growth in the West: the Homestead Act or the transcontinental railroad?
Chinese Labor and the Railroad
Railroads created an enormous demand for labor. By 1880, approximately 400,000 men labored in the railroad industry. Much of the work was dangerous and low-paying and companies relied heavily on immigrant labor. In the late nineteenth-century, Chinese workers provided that labor. By 1880, over 200,000 Chinese migrants lived in the US.
Construction of the railroad required blasting and digging through mountains, grading, leveling, and clearing trees, stumps, and rocks along irregular slopes with steep drop-offs, and building tunnels using dangerous explosives and chemicals.
A large workforce was needed to keep the trains running as well. Jobs included brakemen, who ran on top of moving trains to manually turn the brakes on each car. Any slip could be fatal—especially in bad weather. They were responsible for coupling the cars, attaching them together with a large pin. This was a dangerous job that could lead to the loss of hands or fingers.
In 1865, the Central Pacific Railroad arranged with labor contractors to recruit large numbers of workers directly from China. Throughout the construction of the railroad, ships regularly brought additional workers. Most came from the Guangdong province.
Labor representatives from companies would pay for the cost of the voyage from China and in return, a worker would sign a contract to work for a number of years. They were provided with food, medical care, shelter, and wages.
After the railroad’s completion, migrants either returned to China or went to work in agriculture, mining, building levees, or moved to cities and towns to work in domestic service or manufacturing.
Chinese laborers faced discrimination and hostility from white laborers who believed they undercut wages. In 1885, at a labor camp in Rock Springs, Wyoming, a group of white miners attacked Chinese laborers, killing 28 and threatening the rest. The riot was only stopped with the assistance of US troops.
A report signed by 559 Chinese laborers and submitted to the Chinese Consul after the massacre stated, “We never thought that the subjects of a nation entitled by treaty to the rights and privileges of the most favored nation could, in a country so highly civilized like this, so unexpectedly suffer the cruelty and wrong of being unjustly put to death, or hunger, and cold, and without the means to betake themselves elsewhere.”
In California, legislators took action to limit Chinese immigration. They passed laws which were supposedly designed to protect free white labor from “coolie” competition. Using anti-slavery rhetoric, they used the Thirteenth Amendment (which abolished slavery) as a rationale for preventing Chinese migrants from entering the country.
In 1867, the Democratic candidate for governor, Henry Huntley Haight, argued that continuing to allow Chinese immigration would ensure that “all the serfs and scum of pagan countries” would claim equal citizenship in the US. Slaves who had “lived for centuries in abject obedience to one of the most despotic governments which ever existed” would degrade American institutions. [5]
This debate was not just about “free” labor, but was tied to strong racial stereotypes. Chinese men were stereotyped as coolie slaves who did not understand democracy. Chinese women were stereotyped as prostitutes and victims of human trafficking.
During Reconstruction, the California legislature refused to ratify the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, because they did not want to extend equal protection and/or suffrage to Chinese people. Included in your required reading for this module is an excerpt from California’s 1879 Constitution:
"…provided, no native of China, no idiot, insane person, or person convicted of any infamous crime, and no person hereafter convicted of the embezzlement or misappropriation of public money, shall ever exercise the privileges of an elector in this State.”
During the Reconstruction era, it had been Democrats’ goal to exclude Chinese immigrants. As Reconstruction ended, Democrats and Republicans united behind this concept.
In his 1874 annual message to Congress, President Ulysses S. Grant, a Republican, stated: “the great proportion of the Chinese immigrants who come to our shores do not come voluntarily…but come under contracts with headmen, who own them almost absolutely.”
Congress passed two laws which severely restricted the number of Chinese immigrants who could legally enter the country.
Chinese Exclusion Laws
The first was the Page Law of 1875. Horace Page, a California Republican, framed the law as a way to exclude enslaved Chinese prostitutes, in accordance with the Thirteenth Amendment. The Page Law set the stage for the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 by targeting specific undesirable groups of “unfree” Chinese rather than the Chinese as a whole.
The act assumed that virtually all Chinese women entering the US were coming to work as prostitutes. Prostitution was widespread in the American West. In the especially male-dominated society of California, many immigrants—not only Chinese, but women from Latin America and Europe as well as Anglo-American women—traveled west to take advantage of the dramatic demand for their services.
However, similar to the experiences of male Chinese miners, it was mainly Chinese prostitutes and brothels who were subject to moral condemnation and legal suppression. Chinese immigrants were characterized as dangerous to white families. Additionally, the arrival of Chinese immigrants coincided with the development of germ theory. There was a belief that different racial groups carried distinct germs to which they were immune but others weren’t. Many believed that Chinese immigrants carried diseases that could kill whites. Chinese women who worked as prostitutes were viewed as the carriers of these germs and diseases. [6]
Under the Page Law, customs officials were charged with determining whether immigrants from China were arriving for “lewd or immoral purposes.” The burden of proof placed on women to prove they were not entering US to work as a prostitute.
In order to even board the ships bound for the US, women and to undergo interrogations about their morality, and had to present a certificate of good moral character. When they arrived in the US, they had to answer more questions and submit paperwork and photographs. The Page Law effectively closed off Chinese female immigration.
The Chinese Exclusion Act suspended the arrival of Chinese laborers to the US for a period of 10 years. There were exemptions for diplomats, travelers, and students. The act was extended in 1892, and then in 1904 it was extended indefinitely. It stayed in force until World War II.
Although it was ostensibly only meant to exclude Chinese laborers, most prospective immigrants from China labored in some way, and could be denied entrance. Indeed, the effect on immigration was dramatic. In 1882, 39,579 Chinese immigrants arrived before the exclusion deadline. In 1887, immigration officials permitted just 10 Chinese immigrants to land in the US.
One last poll to close out Module 3. After reviewing Part III, decide whether Chinese exclusion was motivated more by racial prejudice or economic fears. Answer the poll below, or access it here.
Conclusion
Increased migration of a diverse group of homesteaders led to 270 million acres of land passing into the hands of individuals—producing approximately 400,000 owner-occupied farms.
An increase in homesteaders after 1862 exacerbated tensions with Native American tribes and led to violent conflict.
Both Democrats and Republicans used antislavery rhetoric to advocate the restriction of “unfree” Chinese immigration into the United States after Reconstruction.
Citations
[1] Brent M.S. Campney, This is Not Dixie: Racist Violence in Kansas, 1861-1927 (Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2015), 66.
[2] Karen R. Jones and John Wills, The Wild West Defiled: The American Indian, Genocide, and the Sand Creek Massacre (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009), 184.
[3] Jennifer Nez Denetdale, Reclaiming Diné History: The Legacies of Navajo Chief Manuelito and Juanita (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2007), 70.
[4] Denetdale, Reclaiming Diné History, 75.
[5] Stacey L. Smith, Freedom's Frontier: California and the Struggle over Unfree Labor, Emancipation, and Reconstruction (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2013), 210.
[6] Eithne Luibhéid, Entry Denied: Controlling Sexuality at the Border (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002), 35-37.
If you were a Black local officeholder living in the deep South at the end of Reconstruction, what would you do?
Personally I would leave. Even if I were being force to leave, my emotions and mentality would have made me want to migrate elsewhere so my future family lived a better life.
The north likely had lots of economic opportunities due to its economic strength and size. It was extremely economically powerful at this time and therefore had lots of opportunities.
With the violence and hostilities, it was important for Black folks to keep their families safe out of fear. The choice to migrate was a fair and sensible choice. While leaving behind what you sought to build up and gain is a struggle. It is the tale of many refugees who seeks safety and comfort from their oppressive neighbors.
To follow up on the comments on Chinese exclusion: Jenny, Whitney, and Ngoc all made the case for racial prejudice as the main basis for Chinese exclusion. Whitney noted that because the majority of Chinese immigrants "labored" in some way, the language which supposedly provided an economic rationale for exclusion in effect targeted the vast majority of would-be Chinese immigrants. There are plenty of examples of how Chinese immigrants were not given the same level of respect as other groups--Jenny gave the example of the assumption that "all" Chinese women were prostitutes.
It is hard to separate out economics and race in this question because they are so closely tied together, but you can see in these examples how "solutions"…
If you were a Black local officeholder living in the deep South at the end of Reconstruction, what would you do?
I would choose to leave, by staying things will only get worse by the situation I am in. if weren't able to own any property and were treated equally there is no point in staying.