Chapter 8: New Orleans

Apr 22-29

We encountered far more traffic on the lower Mississippi River than on the Missouri. With the wider, more traveled river, our boat continued traveling at night since the moon was full enough to provide some light. After eight continuous days aboard the boat, I was eager to be back on solid ground, able to move around and go places without worrying about missing the boat if I delayed too long making purchases in town. As it was, I had already sent back enough building supplies to fill the warehouses twice, and had even more on order for future delivery.

I had thought St. Louis was a big city; New Orleans was monstrous, especially the waterfront, which took up both sides of the river. I heaved a sigh of relief when I saw the Iowa Dream still docked. Once we debarked, we hired a wagon to take our luggage and us to the Iowa Dream. Captain Roberts wasn’t there, but his new first mate supplied us with his address and directions to his house. The carriage we had hired gladly took us there.

The entire trip to his home, I was rubbernecking, trying to see everything at once. Captain Roberts’ home was a beautiful building, and his wife was quite attractive. She was obviously proud of her husband and lit up when he introduced me to her. “You’re Lucky Jim?” she exclaimed excitedly, hurrying over to hug me. We were invited to stay at their house and have dinner with them. It was odd seeing Negro servants in his home, but he assured me that they were happy, well treated, and paid for their work. He also teased me about being up to six wives now. I riposted that we could use another wedding ceremony once we were underway.

“Jeb,” he called one of the male servants over, “this is the man I told you about,” he said; the servant’s eyes widened in surprise.

Captain Roberts asked about our adventure and we told him all about it. He was incensed to learn that the Black Night had shipped escaped slaves and Free Negroes to slave markets to sell. He actually applauded when I told him what I told Captain Nadeau to do with any of the Black Night crew who misbehaved. “I tried three times to get Nadeau a boat, but someone else always had a favor they called in and they had to hire a different person,” he lamented, glad that Nadeau had a boat now.

“Of course, I have no idea what to do with the boat once it reaches Omaha.” I admitted.

“Don’t worry about that,” he laughed. “He’ll pick up cargo and passengers and head south again. He’ll probably run from Omaha to St. Louis and back.”

When he asked how soon we would be ready to return, I begged off for a couple of days. I wanted to see what I could find to buy here and wanted to be able to wander around the city a little, too.

Apr 30 - May 1

In two days, I filled the better part of three boats with everything I bought, including tons of flour, corn meal, corn, wheat, and all kinds of food staples to help feed so many people for the next year. I also met Aaron, the mining engineer and hired him. He was excited to be given free rein with operating the mine.

Captain Roberts sold the remaining boat that was still in Kansas City, sight unseen, for seventy-five thousand dollars. The person who bought it had seen the boat when it was nearly new. The last night we were there, Captain Roberts took me to meet friends of his. When we left the home of his friends, I had papers making forty-six men, women, and children my slaves. Just before dawn, I had them shackled, for the sake of appearances, and driven in wagons to the Iowa Dream where we led them aboard. As soon as we cast off, the shackles came off.

May 2 - 18

The captain married us the first night after we left New Orleans. Technically, we should have waited until we reached the territories, but I was getting off in St. Louis.

I completed additional “transactions” with someone the Captain knew in several ports on the way north and brought aboard more slaves. By the time we reached St. Louis, I had two-hundred-seventy-three “slaves” aboard. We had almost no other passengers, and a few of the ones we did have gave me surly looks. I could live with that.

May 19

The day before reaching St. Louis, one man’s wife was giving me those surly looks. Then she walked calmly up to me and slapped me. “You shouldn’t even be allowed on the boat with decent people,” she hissed. My laughter set her off and she attacked, fists flailing and nails gouging. By the time we restrained her, she had drawn blood several times.

“You,” I growled at her surprised husband, “come with us,” I ordered, frog marching his wife towards our stateroom.

“Sit,” I ordered the woman as I pushed her towards the bed, watching her as she fell backwards onto the bed. She bounced back up, ready for round two.

She froze when she saw my fist cocked and the look on my face. “I ... said ... sit,” I growled, enunciating each word dramatically. When her husband saw my look, he collapsed into a nearby chair.

“I assume that both of you feel strongly about the slavery issue,” I commented, getting nods of agreement from both of them. “If it would save the lives of all the slaves aboard, would both of you refrain from talking to anyone about slaves, slavery, or me for two days?” I asked.

“You wouldn’t,” the man gasped. The woman was in tears.

“Yes, or no?” I asked threateningly, looking each of them in the eye. Both finally agreed.

“Now, let me explain something to you,” I said in a lot more civil tone. “I’m taking them to Nebraska,” I said.

“Nebraska?” I repeated when neither reacted to the statement.

“But, Nebraska is mostly a free territory,” the man protested.

Smirking, I remained silent. “You’re going to free them?” the woman gasped finally.

“They’re already free. They are just pretending to belong to me, and I only have papers saying that they belong to me to protect them,” I explained. “If anyone else learns about it, we could be attacked or possibly arrested,” I warned.

“Oh, no, look what I did to you,” the woman wailed.

“Sit,” I growled again when she stood.

“You should go to Omaha,” the man suggested excitedly.

“Why Omaha?” I asked, my curiosity piqued.

“There’s someone in Omaha who feels the same way, too. We were going there to find him, hoping to work with him,” he explained.

“Who is it?” I asked. I realized that I hadn’t spent much time there but felt my dad would have said something if he’d heard anything.

“Nobody knows his name, but he singlehandedly took on fifty armed slavers in Leavenworth and defeated them, freeing all five hundred slaves they had gathered illegally.”

“There were only eighteen men in the house, I had an Indian scout with me, and only rescued one hundred eight slaves,” I answered, correcting the greatly exaggerated story. Somehow, I managed not to laugh at the exaggeration.

“You?” the man gasped; I nodded.

“Although we did stop another group capturing steamboats as well as kidnapping free Negroes to raise money for the pro-slavery side,” Emma interjected.

“We saved five hundred more kidnapped Negroes destined for the slave markets and captured the boat used to transport them,” Flo added.

“Could you use an attorney?” the man asked.

“I have no idea,” I admitted. The man seemed to deflate at that comment. “If we do need one, we’ll let you know,” I offered. We finally introduced ourselves. The attorney was George Pate, and his wife was Lydia.

Emma doctored my wounds, two scratches on my right arm, one on my left cheek, and one on the left side of my neck. Captain Roberts was aghast when he saw the scratches, but relaxed when he heard how it happened.

May 20

St. Louis was the northern extent of the contacts the captain had. Once I collected the final eighty-three slaves, I escorted them aboard the boat. My other wives hugged and kissed Madison and me goodbye; Captain Roberts shook our hands and wished us good luck. Aaron and two of the men he brought with him joined Madison and me as we watched the boat steam off. Then we turned towards town. There, I arranged a shipment of goods destined for Omaha. This shipment included more windows, galvanized pipe, pumps, bottling supplies, rope, chain, nails, and the other usual items. I ordered all the lumber I could buy, and six similar shipments to be sent every two weeks. I also bought a lot more food. Deciding that we would need them soon, if not already, I ordered and paid for two complete steam-powered lumber mills, a steam-powered gristmill, and a steam-powered flour mill. They should arrive in about four weeks.

Once I finished ordering everything, I bought a wagon and the mules to pull it. I also bought horses for us to ride and six pack mules, as well as a supply of food before we rode out of town. We made camp for the night several miles south of St. Louis.

May 21 - 23

For the first time since leaving Omaha, I woke up in the morning and went hunting. Madison wanted to go with me but had previously offered to be our cook on this trip. I reveled in being outside in the (almost) wilds again. I brought back a deer, hanging it on the hook I had installed at the back of this wagon the same way I had on our original wagon in Virginia. I definitely missed the braziers. With the lengthening days, we pushed ourselves and our animals, managing nearly twenty-five miles a day. Three days after leaving St. Louis, we arrived at the site of the coal mine in southeast Missouri.

Captain Roberts’ brother, Reuben, actually broke down and cried when we arrived and offered him a job. When he finally calmed down, he related the most recent problem. The same group that bought his mine had bought other mines in the county, mines that produced coal, copper, silver, lead, and gold. The owners had replaced the original miners with slaves between three and six months ago. The slaves were forced to work longer hours to produce more than the original miners had.

There was a lot of violence at first as the original miners sought revenge for losing their jobs. One of the new owners disappeared with the four wagons he was taking to St. Louis. The wagons had been filled with thousands of pounds of gold, silver, copper, and lead ingots hidden beneath a load of coal.

Two weeks ago, Reuben was at the gold mine to borrow some fuse. That night, there was an explosion in the gold mine, killing the overseer and the supervisor, as well as all fifteen of the slaves who were working in the mine at the time. To cover his rear end for letting two drunk men set up explosives in the mine, the foreman sent a report to St. Louis telling them that the slaves did it on purpose.

In reality, the manager and supervisor were drunk when one of the slaves tried to explain about a problem inside the mine. Upset about their drinking being interrupted, the two men went into the mine, planning to set up a blast to clear away the problem. They were too drunk and did something wrong, setting off the blast prematurely, killing everyone inside the mine.

Now the owners were coming with a new crew of slaves, planning to hang the remaining slaves to set an example for the others. Reuben wanted to say something, but the foreman threatened his family if he said anything. The owners were due at the gold mine tomorrow and had already gone to the silver, copper, and lead mines to load the ingots that were ready to go to St. Louis. When they finished loading the gold ingots, they always came here to bury the ingots under coal to hide them.

I didn’t say anything right then but knew from personal experience that the subterfuge worked.

May 24

We left for the gold mine shortly before dawn, arriving two hours later. The owners were already there, and had the previous crew of miners shackled, standing in the back of wagons. The owners were in the process of warning the new group of slaves what would happen if they misbehaved and were getting ready to hang the slaves who had been there when the deadly explosion occurred.

“Stop,” I shouted as Reuben and I rode in. The others stayed back, taking cover in case things got nasty.

I noticed the scowl the foreman gave us when he saw Reuben. Once we dismounted, I told the owners what Reuben said happened. “Is that true?” one of the owners asked the foreman irately.

“I told you to keep yer dang mouth shut,” the foreman growled at Reuben as he went for his revolver. Reuben froze, but I didn’t. My S&W was out of the cross-draw holster before the foreman had his revolver cocked and my shot dropped him before he got a shot off. For a second, there was stunned silence, and then one of the guards for the wagons raised his rifle towards me.

A shot from the woods rang out, and the guard tumbled off his horse. What ensued could hardly be called a gunfight. Deciding that they had to avenge the death of one of their own, the guards tried. I managed to push a still-frozen Reuben behind a wagon as I defended us. Most of the guards fell to rifle fire from the woods. I shot one who managed to sneak around the wagons. The three owners were the last to die, dumb enough to pull guns and aim at us despite the fact that they were unharmed, even after their guards were dead.

“Well, now what?” I thought to myself as I surveyed the carnage and checked on the downed men. Madison and the others rode in to help.

“Now what?” I asked aloud this time since I still hadn’t come up with an answer.

Reuben finally came out of his stupor and came up with an answer. “How many of you men want to stay here, and how many of you want to follow this man to a free territory?” he asked, pointing at me. “You know that you will be blamed for this, even though you had nothing to do with it,” he reminded them needlessly. “Anyone who doesn’t want to go with Jim, raise your hand,” he said. Nobody raised a hand.

I began directing people. “First, pull the wagons over to the smelter. Open the false bottoms and load all the gold. Be sure to spread it out evenly between the six wagons. The men who work in the smelter should help load the gold. The miners should strip these dead men and make a pile of their clothing and weapons. If they have money, give it to my wife for now. Once the men are stripped down, carry them into the mine far enough that we can collapse the mine shaft to hide them.”

The men who were with me began gathering any mules and horses not attached to the six wagons.

“Why six wagons? Didn’t they use four before this?” I asked Reuben.

“That’s how much harder they’ve been working the slaves,” he answered.

Once they stripped the bodies and carried them inside the mine, I had the miners begin bringing out any tools and equipment worth taking. They brought out every conceivable type of mining tool, as well as mining lamps. They also brought out several casks of black powder and six spools of coiled fuse. Molds for the ingots were brought from the smelter, and dozens of gold pans were brought from the stamping mill where the ore was crushed, and the gold separated.

The men loading the gold had a small problem. There wasn’t enough space left in the wagons to load all the gold. I had them take out lead until the gold fit, then put the extra lead on top of the false bottom.

Once the ingots and tools were loaded, we crammed any available food into the wagons, and then tried finding places for everyone to ride. We had the thirty replacement miners and fifteen surviving miners, as well as sixteen men who worked at smelting the gold and five more men who did odd jobs or filled in when someone was sick or injured.

Between the extra horses and mules, and the six wagons designed to carry the ingots, we easily had enough room for everyone, so I had them load as many of the mining tools as they could.

“What about the men from the coal mine?” Reuben asked.

“We’re taking them, too?” I asked, surprised.

“If we don’t, most of them will run away and will end up being caught and punished,” he said. Once our caravan was underway, Reuben lit the fuse for the powder he had left in the mine. It was deep enough that, five minutes later, we only heard a muffled roar from the mouth of the mine behind us.

We made it back to the coal mine before it got too dark to continue traveling. Reuben explained to his men what had happened. He knew that both his supervisor and his foreman were against slavery and would support him. In addition to the wagons we just brought, there were six wagons already in the coal mining camp. Four of them were used to make deliveries of coal to the smelters at the other four mines. Two made a weekly trip into St. Louis for food and other necessary supplies.

By the time I fell asleep, exhausted, all the food and tools from this camp were loaded, too. We had even loaded several jute bags of coal to use for cooking.

May 25 - Jun 7

There were over two hundred slaves at the coal mine, yet we managed rides for everyone. Madison and I hunted, and then scouted the trail like Dawn and I had on our original trip to Omaha. This time, we extended our daily travel to twenty-five miles, pushing the mules since it would be a short trip. The men changed off driving during the day since we traveled from dawn until dark. They stopped for lunch near noon when they reached a stream where the mules could drink and took about half an hour to eat a cold lunch.

The cooks from the gold mine and some from the coal mine cooked breakfast each morning. The remaining cooks from the coal mine rode with Madison and me. We took mules to carry food for that night’s dinner. Once we decided on a campsite for the night, the cooks started dinner, so it was ready when the wagons arrived. Shortly after dinner, everyone but the men assigned as sentries were usually sound asleep.

We stayed south of the Missouri River the entire trip. The streams were fuller this time compared to our trek from St. Louis to Independence, but the weather was warmer, and we only had one day of rain. Game was easier to find along this route, too. Madison and I could both get a deer every day, and even a few pigs a couple of times. The two times we found pigs, we shot six of the porkers, and the men stuffed themselves. Between the plentiful game and the food supplies, we ate well. The Negroes all commented that they’d never eaten so well before in their lives.

Each evening as we ate, they would ask questions about Omaha and our “plantation” as they called it. To them, it wasn’t just a ranch or farm. With the coal mine and two steamboats, they felt it qualified as a plantation. I wasn’t about to argue because I’d never figured out what to call it other than the Lucky J. Madison had suggested calling it an estate, but I felt that sounded too snobbish.

Each night we posted sentries, concerned that someone would discover what we had done and send people to catch us. Each guard had a mule to keep him company. I breathed a sigh of relief when we reached Kansas City with no problems. We camped south of the city.

Jun 8

In the morning, I rode into town to see if I would be able to find a steamboat willing to transport nearly three hundred Negroes, and with enough room to do so. After half an hour of searching in vain, I stopped, astounded. The next boat looked a lot like the Black Night but looked different just the same.

“Could you tell me who the captain of this boat is?” I asked one of the Negro crewmembers who was busy painting the boat.

“It be the same Captain Nadeau that you put in charge, Mister Jim, Sir,” he answered with a grin.

“I’m sorry that I didn’t recognize you, there were too many new faces,” I apologized. He waved off my apology and directed me to Captain Nadeau who ran over and hugged me.