Isaac Zane of the Marlboro Ironworks apparently used to cast pots, kettles and other items and take them by the wagon load to I-81 (the Great Valley Road) and at a camp would stand on his wagon and throw out a pot. It would klang and bounce rather than break and his entire stock would be gone very quickly. Apparently, 150,000 people a year went down that road headed for Cumberland Gap and the "West". That's big picture "migration".
I would agree that the bigger picture is interesting.
Until the 1832 publication of Edmund Ruffin's Essays On Calcareous Manures that totally turned around the depletion of tobacco mono cropping of Tidewater and lower Piedmont soils, what else were the non-inheritors of the gentry going to do but migrate to the "west", however that was defined as the Ohio Valley to Kentucky and then the Mississippi Valley depending upon the time of interest.
Lyle Browning
On Sep 5, 2014, at 4:21 PM, Craig Kilby <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> The recent discussion on Virginia out-migration has focused entirely on how many Virginia slaves were sold at auction to deep-south plantations. One estimate now has the number up to 800,000 poor souls.
>
> Left out of this discussion is out-migration in general. White families with only a few slaves moving west. Particularly after the War of 1812 to places like Missouri and Arkansas--by the thousands. I think if one is going to do statistical analysis of migration, one should not focus solely on the figures of Virginia's population changes and then make assumptions. One should take into consideration the huge increase of populations of new slave states like Missouri and Arkansas, and perhaps then draw more solid conclusions.
>
> I also have to take exception to the term "forced migration" of those slaves who went with the thousands of small slave-holding white families westward. This was not the Batan death march. These family units lived and worked together and, I would hazard, talked about the move, its pros and cons, before just taking a whip to their few slaves and ordering them to get a move on.
>
> I fully understand that many modern historians make a good living reminding us of the evils of slavery, but sometimes I wish they would take a look at the broader picture of humanity in general, and go beyond the borders of the Old Dominion in doing so.
>
> Craig Kilby
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