One major appeal of his Louisiana project that is little emphasized in the traditional teaching of American history was to lessen that risk by using the Mississippi River Valley and the cotton plantations that began lining its banks as an escape valve for Virginia. His view was that a second great migration of slaves westward out of the Founder’s state and out of places like the Carolinas, Maryland, and Georgia would lift the ratio of whites to Blacks there, and reduce the risk of Black revolutionary violence.
