Traveling
thence through the Indian country, safety would be assured by a junction
with other migrants. Speed would be greater on horseback, but the route was
feasible for vehicles, and a traveler would find a tent and a keg of
water conducive to his comfort. The Indians, who were generally short of
provisions in spring and summer, would have supplies to spare in autumn;
and the prevailing dryness of that season would make the streams and swamps
in the path less formidable. An alternative route lay through Georgia;
but its saving of distance was offset by the greater expanse of Indian
territory to be crossed, the roughness of the road and the frequency of
rivers. The viewing of the delta country, he thought, would require three
or four months of inspection before a choice of location could safely be
made.[14]
[Footnote 14: _Plantation and Frontier_, II, 197-200.]
The procedure of planters embarking upon long distance migration may be
gathered from the letters which General Leonard Covington of Calvert
County, Maryland, wrote to his brother and friends who had preceded him to
the Natchez district. In August, 1808, finding a prospect of selling
his Maryland lands, he formed a project of carrying his sixty slaves to
Mississippi and hiring out some of them there until a new plantation should
be ready for routine operation.
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