The purpose of federalism is for the development of state ,to achieve the balanced between states & to utilize the resources for fulfilling needs of peoples
Their thoughts can't be hundred percent sure without the diaries but they had thoughts on how much hardship they would have to go through the trip across mountains and rocky paths, they also had to survive with minimal resources, so their thoughts on this was probably brave and rough trip, they had no clue if they were gonna survive or what was gonna happen, they territory was unknown.
Vernacular is called pidgin laungage
