The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 39, July 1935 - April, 1936 Page: 170
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
ments as may be needed, and eight valuable negroes, and all the
stock we need besides. This, I believe, would be considered a
good business for a farmer in any country. Now I do not wish
to be understood that everyone who has bought here is doing
as well, or that all who may come hereafter can do so. On the
contrary, I believe that the majority of those who are settled
here or who may settle here in the future, will not make more
than a support the first year, and very little more the second;
but after that, with industry and economy, their advance will be
rapid. The mistake that our people have made is, that they have
expected to make a living here without a personal labor or the
means to buy labor with. We have hired a good deal of outside
labor to work our crops, and our experience is that there is no
profit in it, and it is attended with endless vexation, so that if
a man has not the means to buy a place with the labor on it, as
we did, he had better depend upon his own labor, at least until
he has acquired a sufficient knowledge of the language to secure
him against imposition from the free labor of the country, which
I suppose to be about identical with the freed labor of the Southern
States, with the exception, that the free labor of this country is
more intelligent, and therefore better able to cheat you, which
they will do almost without exception on every occasion.
I do not mean to intimate that every man who might come
here with money could buy a place with labor on it on as favorable
terms as we did. Very few planters here will sell plantations and
slaves at as reasonable terms as we bought ours. I do not know
another instance of as good a purchase having been made. A man
might buy a piece with some improvements and buy negroes in
the cities, as some of our neighbors have done, but the city negroes
soon become disgusted with farm labor and country life, and
become troublesome, and perhaps run away, as happened a few
days ago in the case of some half a dozen belonging to some of
our neighbors.
I have been in the country nearly eight months, and have been
indefatigable in any efforts to make myself acquainted with the
merits of the question of emigration, and yet I must confess
myself diffident in giving a decided opinion upon the whole
question.
While I am anxious to see this country filled up with good
citizens from the Southern States, for the reason that, I believe,
with the proper requisites of industry, economy and perseverance,
they must succeed, I still feel bound to use every caution that
no partial or colored statement of mine, may influence anyone to
come here with expectations which the possession of the requisites
will not enable him to realize.
I will, however, make the following points in regard to the
question of emigration:170
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 39, July 1935 - April, 1936, periodical, 1936; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101095/m1/190/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.