... I like the country as well as I expected and its inhabitants rather better; and I have seen the spot where, if it be the will of Providence, I hope one day to live with my family.... Were the inhabitants as resolute and industrious as the Northern people, and did they understand how to manage as well, they would become rich; but they are not generally so. They seem to have no idea of improvement in their cattle, sheep, or hogs, nor to know the use of enclosed pasture-field for their stock, but spend a large portion of their time in hunting for their cattle, sheep, and horses; and the same habit continues from father to son.... By comparing them with people of other parts of the country, I can see new and abundant proof that knowledge is power. I think we may be very useful to them on many accounts, were we disposed. May God in mercy keep us all, and enable us to get wisdom; and with all our getting and losing, to get understanding. It would be very much more satisfactory if Mr. Sanborn had published the full text of that part of this letter which treats of the habits of the people, and of the labor conditions existing there. The question of labor was of paramount importance in Brown's Virginia venture. He was an optimist, and in his optimistic forecast saw that the care and cultivation of a thousand acres, and the operation and development of a tanning business would, in time, require a large establishment, necessitating, probably, the labor of a number of slaves. This question then arises: Did John Brown intend or expect to own, ultimately, the necessary slaves to operate this property, or did he intend to hire them from others. His letters consistently abound in minute detail. It is therefore improbable, in the opinion of the writer, that he discussed the manners and customs of the white people of that section with his wife, and wrote of minor conditions existing there, without making some reference to the black people of the country; and to the more important questions of slavery and labor--matters in which he would have a deep personal and pecuniary interest. Mr. Villard did not fail to comment, with surprise, upon the omission of the subject from Brown's letter. He said:[59] But his letter to his family from Ripley, Virginia, April 27, 1840, already cited, is peaceable enough and his hope of settling his family there is hardly consistent with his anti-slavery policy of later years. Indeed, while recording his pleasure that the residents of the vicinity were more attractive people than he thought, he had nothing to say about the institution of slavery which he then, for the first time, really beheld at close range.