From Maine to Florida on the Atlantic coast, the forefathers of those hardy sons who are now stocking this fair land, have, from necessity, in a hard and stubborn soil, inured their hands to labour, and their habits and taste of life to sobriety and economy, which will ensure them success in the new world.
This rich country which is now alluring the enterprising young men from the East, being commensurate with the whole Atlantic States, holds out the extraordinary inducement that every emigrant can enjoy a richer soil, and that too in his own native latitude. The sugar planter, the rice, cotton, and tobacco growers—corn, rye, and wheat producers, from Louisiana to Montreal, have only to turn their faces to the West, and there are waiting for them the same atmosphere to breathe, and green fields already cleared, and ready for the plough, too tempting to be overlooked or neglected.
As far west as the banks of the Mississippi, the great wave of emigration has rolled on, and already in its rear the valley is sprinkled with towns and cities, with their thousand spires pointing to the skies. For several hundred miles West, also, have the daring pioneers ventured their lives and fortunes, with their families, testing the means and luxuries of life, which Nature has spread before them; in the country where the buried tomahawk is scarce rusted, and the war-cry has scarcely died on the winds. Among these people have I roamed. On the Red River I have seen the rich Louisianian chequering out his cotton and sugar plantations, where the sunbeam could be seen reflected from the glistening pates of his hundred negroes, making first trespass with the hoe. I have sat with him at his hospitable table in his log cabin, sipping sherry and champaigne. He talks of “hogsheads and price of stocks,” or “goes in for cotton.”
In the western parts of Arkansas and Missouri, I have shared the genuine cottage hospitality of the abrupt, yet polite and honourable Kentuckian; the easy, affable and sociable Tennesseean; this has “a smart chance of corn;” the other, perhaps, “a power of cotton;” and then, occasionally, (from the “Old Dominion,”) “I reckon I shall have a mighty heap of tobacco this season,” &c.
Boys in this country are “peart,” fever and ague renders one “powerful weak,” and sometimes it is almost impossible to get “shet” of it. Intelligence, hospitality, and good cheer reign under all of these humble roofs, and the traveller who knows how to appreciate those things, with a good cup of coffee, “corn[22] bread,” and fresh butter, can easily enjoy moments of bliss in converse with the humble pioneer.
On the Upper Mississippi and Missouri, for the distance of seven or eight hundred miles above St. Louis, is one of the most beautiful champaigne countries in the world, continually alternating into timber and fields of the softest green, calculated, from its latitude, for the people of the northern and eastern states, and “Jonathan” is already here—and almost every body else from “down East”—with fences of white, drawn and drawing, like chalk lines, over the green prairie. “By gosh, this ere is the biggest clearin I ever see.” “I expect we had’nt ought to raise nothin but wheat and rye here.”—“I guess you’ve come arter land, ha’nt you?”
Such is the character of this vast country, and such the manner in which it is filled up, with people from all parts, tracing their own latitudes, and carrying with them their local peculiarities and prejudices. The mighty Mississippi, however, the great and everlasting highway on which these people are for ever to intermingle their interests and manners, will effectually soften down those prejudices, and eventually result in an amalgamation of feelings and customs, from which this huge mass of population will take one new and general appellation.
It is here that the true character of the American is to be formed—here where the peculiarities and incongruities which detract from his true character are surrendered for the free, yet lofty principle that strikes between meanness and prodigality—between literal democracy and aristocracy—between low cunning and self-engendered ingenuousness. Such will be found to be the true character of the Americans when jostled awhile together, until their local angles are worn off; and such may be found and already pretty well formed, in the genuine Kentuckian, the first brave and daring pioneer of the great West; he is the true model of an American—the nucleus around which the character must form, and from which it is to emanate to the world. This is the man who first relinquished the foibles and fashions of Eastern life, trailing his rifle into the forest of the Mississippi, taking simple Nature for his guide. From necessity (as well as by nature), bold and intrepid, with the fixed and unfaltering brow of integrity, and a hand whose very grip (without words) tells you welcome.
And yet, many people of the East object to the Mississippi, “that it is too far off—is out of the world.” But how strange and insufficient is such an objection to the traveller who has seen and enjoyed its hospitality, and reluctantly retreats from it with feelings of regret; pronouncing it a “world of itself, equal in luxuries and amusements to any other.” How weak is such an objection to him who has ascended the Upper Mississippi to the Fall of St. Anthony, traversed the States of Missouri, Illinois, and Michigan, and territory of Ouisconsin; over all of which nature has spread her green fields, smiling and tempting man to ornament with painted house and fence, with prancing steed and tasseled carriage—with countless villages, silvered spires and domes, denoting march of intellect and wealth’s refinement. The sun is sure to look upon these scenes, and we, perhaps, “may hear the tinkling from our graves.” Adieu.
[21] Poor Chadwick! a few days after the above occasion, he sent his portrait to his mother, and started for Texas, where he joined the Texan army, with a commission from Governor Houston; was taken prisoner in the first battle that he fought, and was amongst the four hundred prisoners who were shot down in cold blood by the order of Santa Anna.