I am now convinced that I done very wrong in coming here with the hope of bettering my pecuniary condition alone and I now declare and humbly ask God to enable me to perform my promise [that] if I am again permited to [return to] a land of peace and quietude that with the proceeds of honest industry I will strive to be content.

Alexander Ramsay of Parke County, Indiana, September 23, 1849
 

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Bowie knife
c. 1850
Autry Museum of Western Heritage
Los Angeles