Chapter 10: New Orleans

Sep 27, 1857

Captain Roberts and the Iowa Dream arrived nearly on schedule. I met the boat at the docks to make sure we had rooms reserved for our cargo and for all nine of us. When he heard what we were transporting, Captain Roberts had us load it after dark, and leave several of our men aboard to guard it overnight. He agreed that the Mint in New Orleans was the best place to sell it, even the copper. He had sold everything to the Mint the time I stayed behind to take care of the pirates in Kansas City. The captain spent the night in our home again.

Sep 28

We left before dawn in the morning. Our departures were frequent enough now that only those people who were already up waved at us as we left. Even though we’d eaten, I smelled bread cooking somewhere in town and it made me hungry again. I learned that we now had several large, community bread ovens that were busy every day.

Although dressed “properly,” Mrs. Caldwell carried her own weapons just like my seven wives did. Each of us carried an Enfield, two repeating rifles, a shotgun, an S&W revolver, and a Colt Navy revolver. I had a second Colt, and my bow. The girls insisted that I take my fancy buckskins along in case I had occasion to wear them.

The captain loaded us with coal instead of wood to start the trip back. I noticed that he had added lanterns hanging out far beyond the bow like Captain Nadeau had. Between those and the light from the moon, he would sometimes sail after dark, too. Between moving his departure time up to six a.m. and using coal for the first part of the trip to eliminate two wooding stops, we steamed into St. Joseph just as the last rays of the sunset disappeared in the sky.

His crew made sure the freight and passengers were unloaded, any new freight was loaded, and the boat was fully loaded with coal before they retired for the night. Several men took turns standing guard all night.

At dinner, Captain Roberts asked if he and his wife could move to Libertyville. The slavery/anti-slavery argument was becoming increasingly heated and violent. Both he and his wife were known to hold anti-slavery sentiments, and he was increasingly worried about leaving her alone. Aside from their secret contacts through the Underground Railroad, they had few close friends in New Orleans. Their children were grown, having married and moved away in the last few years to escape the ire directed at their parents. I agreed excitedly.

Next, we discussed my shopping lists. Again, he had a suggestion. He knew that James Callahan, my agent in the Missouri side of Kansas City, was also starting to worry about the increased cross-border violence from Kansas. Captain Roberts suggested having him move to St. Louis. From there, he would have access to a dependable telegraph line to send orders, and railroads to transport our purchases rapidly to St. Louis where he could load them aboard boats bound for Omaha. It would speed up delivery of the goods we wanted. I thought it sounded like a great idea.

Then I raised Mingo’s concern, and could see the internal battle the Captain began waging. “Jim,” he answered slowly and thoughtfully nearly a minute later, “I never thought I’d tell someone this, but you should buy the female slaves. It won’t be cheap, but you should get as many as you can afford. It will effectively free them from the yoke of slavery, even if it goes against my nature to buy them,” he sighed.

“I’ll need at least five hundred,” I warned him.

“Five hundred? That would cost you between $250,000 and $500,000,” he gasped.

“Okay,” I replied calmly. He just stared at me unbelievingly.

“You must have an awful lot of gold in those crates,” he said.

“And silver and copper,” I added. “I agreed to help the Sioux by buying one of their sacred places to keep other white men from moving into the area and desecrating it. Originally, one of the chiefs told me about the site of the coal mine we opened right next to the river. A second chief told me about a location where we can open a gold mine. We haven’t begun the gold mine yet but started clearing the streambed of the gold there. We haven’t even worked a mile of more than ten miles of stream and have made enough to buy nearly four million acres of land,” I explained.

“Four...” he exploded incredulously.

“Most of it is their sacred site, but we added three hundred thousand acres to the west of us by buying more than half of the county there. It includes a broad, fertile valley that will be perfect for growing crops. I was thinking about buying even more land and giving the Sioux more room to roam, but I think we first need to find women for the Negro men to marry. At least the single white women and single white men are about equal in number.”

“You’re not worried about having so many Sioux Indians running around up there?” he asked.

“No, Jim’s a Sioux chief, too. My people respect him immensely for buying Paha Sapa for us,” Flower announced proudly. “They are telling all the other tribes they meet to leave us in peace, as well as telling them that Paha Sapa is now safe thanks to Jim.”

“They call him Firehair,” Madison giggled, starting everyone at our table laughing.

Sep 29

Once again, we left at six a.m. We built the bigger coal/wood bin while we sailed yesterday, the same as we did for the Freedom, and Captain Roberts filled it last night. With the early departure and not having to stop so often for wood, we made Leavenworth, and then Kansas City the same day, although, it was dark when we got to Kansas City. Once the boat unloaded and reloaded on the Kansas side of the river, we steamed in the dark to the Missouri side. While the First Mate supervised what was going on at the boat, Captain Roberts and I rode to James Callahan’s house.

He and his wife were relieved and excited about moving to St. Louis. He was sure they could leave here in a few days, so I gave him a copy of my shopping lists. Surprisingly, he thought he could have a lot of it when we sailed north again. I told him to ship it aboard any boats headed that way because the Iowa Dream would have an exceptional number of passengers on the return trip. I also told him to get a letter of credit from the bank here and transfer the funds to the same bank in St. Louis.

When I thought about the account in Leavenworth, I asked him to check it if he had time. If there was enough in it, I wanted him to see if Captain Scott would order us more rifles. “I can order rifles for you,” he replied, so I added fifty cases of repeating rifles, twenty-five cases of Enfields, two hundred cases of the paper cartridges for the Enfields, and an equivalent number of Minié balls for both rifles.

Sep 30

With our early departure and being loaded with coal, as well as sailing at night (albeit slower than during the day) we made St. Louis well before dawn two days later.

Oct 2 - 7

We found the train station and bought Mrs. Caldwell a ticket. I gave her enough extra money to take care of any expenses that might arise. She took her Colt and S&W revolver with her, leaving her rifles with us. After she received a hurried and emotional goodbye from her daughters, we rushed back to the boat.

I was pleasantly surprised that there had been no attack as we passed Kansas. Later, we enjoyed sleeping uninterrupted each night after we passed St. Louis. Traveling at night as much as conditions allowed, we shaved a day off the usual time it took to reach New Orleans.

In the port cities Captain Roberts suggested, I paid someone to post a notice in the paper and in the port that I would be buying female slaves on my return trip, listing the date Captain Roberts estimated that we’d be back.

Oct 8

We docked in New Orleans mid-afternoon. Captain Roberts sent one of his crew ahead to warn his wife of our arrival. Two of their paid servants came back with carriages to take the women to the house and brought horses for the captain and me. Captain Roberts also sent word to the mint, and they were waiting for us. He stayed with the boat until everyone and everything was unloaded. Then he posted guards.

While we waited at the dock for our crates to be unloaded, I made the rounds on the dock, explaining that I wanted to buy more than a hundred female slaves. I learned about a slave auction being held the following Monday and got the names of several people who were reportedly selling slaves, as well as directions to find them.

When the crates were all loaded into the wagons, Captain Roberts and I accompanied the parade of wagons to the mint, where I met the man in charge. Each crate was opened, and an ingot taken out to be assayed. I pointed out the two different batches of gold, explaining that there might be a slight difference in the purity of the gold between the two batches, but didn’t explain that one batch was taken from a Missouri mine.

The captain and I left the mint just before supper, after watching our crates being locked up securely for the night.

Mrs. Roberts was ecstatic to learn that they would be moving. She hired men the next day, and over the next five days, their entire household was packed, crated, and then loaded aboard a boat bound for Omaha.

Oct 9

I received the preliminary assay late this morning. Evidently, the gold we smelted was slightly purer than the gold smelted in Missouri, even though the same men smelted it. I think they were trying to do a better job since they were being paid, not forced to do the work. That, and I wasn’t constantly haranguing them about working faster.

The director of the mint gave me two hundred thousand dollars in gold coins, and one million dollars in Federal Bank drafts. The remainder he would issue to me when the full assays were complete.

While the Roberts packed their home, I spent the days visiting the people I heard were selling slaves. By the time I got to the first place, they had already sold the strong, young males, leaving women, children, and older men. Seeing that some of the older men were related to the women and children, I went ahead and bought the remaining slaves, especially since I got an exceptional price.

That first slave owner explained that the economy was bad enough that other owners only wanted younger males, and the market for older males and female slaves was very weak right now.

I encountered the same issue several more times in the next few days. By the time of the slave auction Monday, I already had almost three hundred females, along with a similar number of children and older men. Remembering the conditions in the underground rooms where the slaves in Leavenworth slept, I felt bad making them sleep on blankets on the floor of a warehouse located near the docks. I promised that they would each have a bed soon after we reached our destination. I made sure to feed them well every day, and had my wives buy inexpensive mattresses, paying someone to take them aboard the Iowa Dream. I made sure it was warm enough inside the warehouse, and that each of them had shoes, decent clothing, and plenty of food.

Oct 12

Monday, before the auction began, I had to fight down my outrage at the way the slaves were treated. Unlike my last few experiences buying slaves, here they were poked, prodded, groped, and checked the same way I’d check a horse I was interested in buying. I watched, outraged, as several of the younger women were groped and prodded repeatedly in their most intimate places.

Before the auction started, I spoke with one of the men in charge and managed to buy two lots of slaves. One lot had twenty-five female slaves and seven older male slaves. The second lot had thirty-seven females, although ten of them were much too young to be considered as wives for a few years. I got them for less than half of what I had expected to pay. It was obvious that the auctioneer knew enough about current trends to know he’d have a hard time selling them, if at all, and didn’t want to waste time trying.

Bidding on the younger male slaves was brisk. The auctioneer sold off a few men, then brought in several women to sell. It was quickly obvious that I was the only person willing to bid on the women, so the auctioneer finally struck a deal with me for the women, children, and older males. Quietly, I insisted that he sell me any of the younger males known to be the father of one of the children. I promised to pay the average price of the young male slaves that had sold so far. I ended up with thirty-seven of the fathers, more than two hundred-fifty females, and four hundred-fifty children and older males.

Now all I had to do was figure out how to get them home to Libertyville. Captain Roberts nearly exploded in surprise when he heard how many I bought. “Dang, Jim, that must have cost a fortune,” he gasped. He relaxed when I explained about buying the women, children, and older men for less than half of what he had estimated. Just the thirty-seven younger male slaves cost almost half of what the four hundred-fifty children and older men cost.

I don’t know if it was Providence, or just my luck again, but the Tippecanoe arrived Monday night carrying a heavy load of cotton. I told the captain not to take on cargo or passengers as I had over fourteen hundred slaves to transport. He started to say something but saw me wink at him. The captain told me that the Freedom should arrive tomorrow, or the next day. That news lifted a huge weight off my shoulders, and I began to breathe again.

Oct 13

When the Freedom arrived, I was waiting for her. Captain Nadeau laughed so hard he had to sit down when I explained about the passengers we would be taking to Libertyville.

Oct 14

This morning, I received the remainder of my money from the Mint. They issued $563,276 in gold and silver coins of various denominations and issued five million dollars in Federal Bank drafts of denominations between ten thousand and a million dollars. Those bank drafts would buy an awful lot of land.

While I was at the Mint, Captain Roberts completed the deal to sell his house, albeit for much less than it would have been worth a year or two ago. Still, he made money on it compared to the original cost to build it. Shortly before noon, our three boats sailed north. Only after we were underway did we tell the slaves what we planned to do. I could see they were afraid to believe me, but reasoned that they would find out soon enough, especially since many of the crew on all three steamboats were Negroes from Libertyville who had already been freed.

Oct 16

The Iowa Dream led our three-boat convoy this morning. All three boats had loaded up heavily with coal in Donaldsonville last night. After I saw several men sneaking around on the docks, watching us, we kept watch all night, but there was no attack.

Late in the morning, we rounded a sharp bend of the river; there was an island in the middle, narrowing the channel significantly. We weren’t even to the southern tip of the mile-long island when Captain Roberts began blasting the steam whistle. “Pirates!” he shouted between blasts of the whistle. My wives and I joined the available crew on the upper deck. From there, we could see eight boats filled with men in the half-mile wide channel. A quick head count showed eighty men coming towards us. The captain sent one crewman each to watch port and starboard, both fore and aft in case anyone else tried to join the fracas, or in case anyone got aboard.

We hurried the slaves into the staterooms and the dining room, filling the rooms. The rest were told to lie flat on the aft deck. We didn’t wait for the pirates to take the first shot. My wives and I began emptying the boats of pirates with our Enfields before we were in their range. To their credit, our other two boats pulled alongside us when Captain Roberts slowed down to allow us more time before reaching the pirates.

By the time we were in range for our repeating rifles, two of the boats near the island were sinking. From our elevated vantage, I shot at the center of the boats and hit the bottom. The big Minié balls from the Enfields did quite a lot of damage to the bottom and the two boats headed for the nearby island. My wives managed to sink two more boats. Those two boats tried to make it to the far shore and failed. The men in the boats drowned, unable to swim in all of their clothing, if they knew how to swim at all.

With seventy rifles pouring lead into the remaining six boats, the pirates didn’t stand a chance. We ended up with six wounded, none seriously. Three were on our boat, with the other three split between the other two boats. Aside from the fifteen men who made it to the island, none of the pirates survived.

When we turned toward the island to pick the surviving pirates up, the fifteen survivors became twelve survivors when they started firing at us. The rest realized their situation was hopeless and surrendered. When we took them prisoner, I found it humorous having white men shackled aboard a boat filled with former Negro slaves.

We only lost one more surviving pirate before the men spilled their guts, figuratively, not literally. They were simply a gang of pirates with no pro-or anti-slavery sentiment, although they happily sold any slaves they captured. They supposedly earned a great deal of money through the sale of slaves, as well as from the cash and valuables they stole from the boats they robbed.

Their spy in New Orleans had telegraphed to let them know about a man who bought more than a thousand slaves. He sent word again when we left, along with the names of the boats.

For some reason, the pirates thought that they could attack each boat separately and didn’t expect all three boats to respond to the attack together--obviously, not the brightest minds around. They led us back to their place. Only ten slaves were at the farmhouse, and all ten were busy working when we arrived. The prisoners explained that they kept the slaves they couldn’t get good money for and let them take care of the crops, livestock, and house.

I had to break down the locked doors since the key was at the bottom of the river with the leader. The cellar held seven young women shackled to the concrete floor. Upstairs was simply a very large farmhouse. The leader’s room had their loot in it, and we gathered it up and took it with us. The sheer volume of cash made this a large haul. The seven women were glad to be free and eagerly joined us, as did the ten slaves. We took the food from the house to help feed everyone, as well as the limited livestock they had.

The pirates’ horses were aboard by the time we got back. We lost half a day and stopped in Baton Rouge for the night.

Oct 17 - 28

I took an hour the next morning to buy the eleven female slaves offered for sale in Baton Rouge. Using coal as often as possible, we made excellent time on our way upriver. When we had to stop for wood, we had plenty of volunteers to help chop and load. We would have made even better time had we not stopped in each of the ports where I had left word about buying slaves when I made my trip north, and had Captain Roberts not visited his contacts for the Underground Railroad.

We ended up with forty-seven more passengers from the Underground Railroad, and more than a hundred that I bought in the different ports. As it was, we still made St. Louis two days faster than normal. Captain Roberts explained that while we had filled the boat with passengers, they weighed much less than the heavy freight he usually carried. Hence, the boat used less fuel and went faster and farther between fueling stops.

My wives and the rescued women counted the money we took from the pirates to keep from being bored, ending up with more than six hundred thousand dollars. I’m sure that counting so much money relieved a lot of their boredom. A lot of time in bed with my wives, as well as one or two of the rescued women who volunteered each day, helped relieve the boredom even more.

I put the rest of my time to good use each day, writing letters of manumission for the slaves. Once word got out about the first batch, the slaves started to get excited. My wives and the rescued white women helped write them, as well as six slaves aboard who knew how to write. Two of them ran over to our other boats once when we stopped for wood, and came back with eleven more slaves who knew how to write.

As slaves received their letter aboard the Iowa Dream, they would change places with slaves on our other boats when we stopped. By the time we reached Libertyville, each of them proudly carried their letter with them as they debarked, and I wasn’t sure my hand would ever recover.

Oct 29