IX
THE SLAVE SHIP
A Hurricane Brings Odd Guests to His Colony for the Governor, Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville—Voodoo in Rag-time
SHOUTING of white men, screaming of black ones, startled Anthony as he came down the main street of the port town called New Orleans in honor of the regent duke of France.
"That must be a brawl in the slave-mart," was his first thought as he began to run. He wanted to be at hand if the Sieur de Bienville needed him to help quell it.
Several bad colonists, with worse slaves, had joined the Mississippi French by crossing over from the West Indies in small boats at amazing risk. They navigated from point to point in fair weather through the Gulf of Mexico. The heavy seas were avoided when possible. The waterways in the protected channels between the coast-line islands had made the voyage possible. Vessels now entered the Mississippi by way of the east through Lake Pontchartrain, a much safer path than through the Delta.
They had brought with them blackamoors and several kegs of rum.
New Orleans had not been glad to see them. But the Sieur de Bienville had given each slave-owner a parcel of land on which to build shelters and lay out gardens. He hoped to keep the masters busy and the negroes so separated that they would work quietly. He tried to make both classes add to the usefulness of the port. The very good plan did not prove a success. In less than a week here were the new-comers back in the heart of the town, turning the orderly market-place into a scene of riot. Drunken owners were beating drunken servants.