most of those problems dint exist for them in the 1800s
and exploration is what drives man, well, europeans anyway
no, they prolly thought they had a better shot here in civilization than to try and recreate it there
but in essence giving up more than their new found freedom, but the freedom to strive in the process
Maybe I’m a cynic. Yes, exploration drives man — of a certain type, which we admire.
But...looking around, I think most people don’t want to rock the boat, revolt against the king, travel the Oregon Trail. They run a risk/benefit analysis and decide security beats freedom, by a nose. They don’t like rules and taxes, but predictability has a lot of appeal. Responsibility, that’ll keep a body awake nights.
In other words, holding one’s hand out is less of a strain than holding one’s head up.
Don't overlook the impact of life sucking miserably during the Little Ice Age (roughly AD 1300 to early or mid 1800's). A huge desire for Europeans exploring was to find more crop land and spread out. It's what you do when centuries long cooling periods make crop yields go way down and also create a lot of deaths by plague.
Cities depopulate when nearby small patches of land can no longer feed the town. If you think people moved out of cities during covid, imagine life during the Little Ice Age in Europe with anywhere from 40% to 60% of people dying from the Black Plague. Nations/tribes take over each other lands and spread out to grow lots of crops whenever the little bit of land you owned before doesn't produce enough crops to feed your folks. The same with wanting to get away from sick folks.
Abolition happened about the time the Little Ice Age bottomed out and turned into the Modern Warm Period. The climate is so good for crops now the U.S. government as to pay farmers to keep from growing too much food. An argument could be made it's not a Europeans-are-different-from-blacks thing as far as wanting to explore goes. It may be simply that blacks weren't free (at least in the Americas) at a time when exploring was necessary for survival. But during the Little Ice Age plenty of blacks in Africa did a lot of taking over each other's land and such. In fact, it's how the black slave trade was supplied.