I'll grant your point, Jorge, to this degree: change was forced upon many people, if they wanted to survive. Their choices may have been more limited than today (it would be interesting to try to compare markets to see which is actually the freer one, ours today or the pre-Industrial American one), but individuals were forced only away from something, not into a specific job. I imagine many resisted the change as long as possible; I imagine others who could make the choice, chose to pack up and move elsewhere.