Black Life on the Mississippi: Slaves, Free Blacks, and the Western Steamboat World

All along the Mississippi - on country plantation landings, urban levees and quays, and the decks of steamboats - nineteenth-century African Americans worked and fought for their liberty amid the slave trade and the growth of the cotton South. Offering a counternarrative to Twain’s well-known tale from the perspective of the pilothouse, Thomas Buchanan paints a more complete picture of the Mississippi, documenting the rich variety of experiences among slaves and free blacks who lived and worked on the lower decks and along the river during slavery, through the Civil War, and into emancipation. By exploring the complex relationship between slavery and freedom, Buchanan sheds new light on the ways African Americans resisted slavery and developed a vibrant culture and economy up and down America’s greatest river.