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Excerpt from The Emigrant's Guide: To the Western States of America; Or, Backwoods and Prairies
America is the land of freedom, notwithstanding her Negro Slavery! Freed from the antiquated and absurd traditions of European States, which weigh like an incubus upon the energies of their peoples, and in the enjoyment of an unencumbered energy, she stands forth the most favoured land under the broad heavens. Hitherto she has enjoyed her freedom to some purpose, and has shown the world that "in order to be free, a man is not now-a-days obliged to repel the arts and sciences, to have nails like claws, and a filthy beard."
The great Emigration Field in the Mississippi Valley, consisting of the States of Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Indiana, embraces a territory of 360,000 square miles, or three times the extent of Great Britain and Ireland, of surpassing fertility, watered by a system of rivers unequalled in the world. To this fine country would I direct the attention of Emigrants. These States all contain Prairie or Cleared Land, with suitable alternations of Forest. A picture of any one of them gives a fair representation of all the rest, and in this work my object is to convey distinct ideas of the people and country.
There is all the difference in the world between the American seaboard and the interior, in the manners of the people. On the coast, the manners of older countries in some measure prevail, and a just estimate of the true character of the people cannot be formed from that source.
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