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Thus there was a flow of wealth towards the west
to pay for these new purchases. The overgrown plantations soon began
to look tattered and almost desolate. "Galled and gullied hill-sides
and sedgy, briary fields" [Footnote: Lynchburg Virginian, July 4,
1833.] showed themselves in every direction. Finally the planter
found himself obliged to part with some of his slaves, in response
to the demand from the new cotton-fields; or to migrate himself,
with his caravan of Negroes, to open a new home in the Gulf region.
During the period of this survey the price for prime field-hands in
Georgia averaged a little over seven hundred dollars. [Footnote:
Phillips, in Pol. Sci. Quart., XX., 267.] If the estimate of one
hundred and fifty dollars for Negroes sold in family lots in
Virginia is correct, it is clear that economic laws would bring
about a condition where Virginia's resources would in part depend
upon her supply of slaves to the cotton-belt. [Footnote: Collins,
Domestic Slave Trade, 42-46.


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