, _Chronicle_, Sept. 24, 1819, reprinted in
_Plantation and Frontier_, II, 196.]
[Footnote 9: _Niles' Register_, XX, 320.]
The call of the west was carried in promoters' publications,[10] in
private letters, in newspaper reports, and by word of mouth. A typical
communication was sent home in 1817 by a Marylander who had moved to
Louisiana: "In your states a planter with ten negroes with difficulty
supports a family genteelly; here well managed they would be a fortune to
him. With you the seasons are so irregular your crops often fail; here the
crops are certain, and want of the necessaries of life never for a moment
causes the heart to ache--abundance spreads the table of the poor man, and
contentment smiles on every countenance."[11] Other accounts told glowingly
of quick fortunes made and to be made by getting lands cheaply in the early
stages of settlement and selling them at greatly enhanced prices when the
tide of migration arrived in force.[12] Such ebullient expressions were
taken at face value by thousands of the unwary; and other thousands of the
more cautious followed in the trek when personal inquiries had reinforced
the tug of the west. The larger planters generally removed only after
somewhat thorough investigation and after procuring more or less
acquiescence from their slaves; the smaller planters and farmers, with
lighter stake in their homes and better opportunity to sell them, with
lighter impedimenta for the journey, with less to lose by misadventure,
and with poorer facilities for inquiry, responded more readily to the
enticements.
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