Disinterred

Chapter Two - History and Misery

     Lockhart, "come in this is Stevens."  Ahh...Lockhart here, detective we just picked up the dogs along with five more men from the sheriffs department to help us with the search of the area you want us to cover.  That's all the men you could get Lockhart?  Damn we're gonna be out there all night!  I'm heading over to my father in laws place to ask him a few questions about the history of this area.  

     Did you get some new leads detective?  It's just a hunch Lockhart, but it's worth exploring I've found that following my instinct often leads me to uncover things I never would have looked into if I would have done the latter.  You boys start with the area where you found the shoes and I'll be there shortly.  And Lockhart, you men be careful.  Yeah but.....Detective I was wondering what you meant about the latter.  What would that be?  The latter deputy is doing everything by the book.

     Hello, Dan what brings you out my way?  Well, Dad I was wondering if you could tell me a little bit about the history of the Gentry farm?  Ah, the Gentry farm, you mean the Gentry plantation?  I see that area contains an array of rivers, levees, and adjacent land all running into swamp land that surrounds the cotton fields.  

     It's a time capsule of historic land marks and sights.  There is a smorgasbord of  monumental sized plantation houses, most built by wealthy cotton planters in the Greek Revival style all over this area.  Most of which are abandoned and haven't been lived in for years.  How come we don't know more about this Dad? I would think people would want to live in them.

     Well, many of these old plantations houses are so far back in the delta that they are impossible to get to by vehicle.  Even more impossible now with all the flooding from the hurricanes.  You would have to go by horseback.  

    The roads that were used to get the product out are all washed out and impassable now so over time nobody bought the property and it stop exchanging hands.  After that, most people just forgot about what happened here and some chose to forget. 

     It was still densely populated after the war, but there was streak of murders that occurred right after war.  It was believed that the slaves who did not know the Union won the war ended up killing their owners to escape.  They cut off their owners heads.  Nobody knows what happened to them.  How many were there Dad? There was three plantation owners close to this area other than Gentry.  Did you say three?  Yes three.

     In 1857 there were slave villages that lined the banks of the Mississippi river for as far as the eye could see.   There is a lot of history in this neck of the woods son and a lot of suffering too.  The slaves were worked so hard during this time that many died from exhaustion.  Their escape attempts were futile because of the thick swamp that surrounds the area for miles and when they tried to escape they usually would succumb to the elements.  

     Many were eaten in their sleep by monstrous gators as the laid down to rest on whatever dry patch of land they could find.  Yeah, they didn't have many choices and to try to escape was a death sentence.  Many did escape through the postal service, but one of Gentry's sons put an end to that in this town.  

     He took a young slave girl in here twenties as someone to fulfill his desires.  Surprisingly she fell in love with the young master and started teaching him their language.  He then used this newly acquired knowledge to follow the slaves and find out where the packages where being dropped off.  He then paid the postal workers to bring all the packages back to the farm to be burned.  It is estimated that over twenty-five or so slaves were burned alive in their boxes while awaiting shipment.

     The powerful message sent by Gentry's son ended almost all escape attempts on their plantation after that.  The slaves learned that one of their masters had learned how to speak their native language and in response came up with a whole other language and a way to communicate that nobody could understand except for them.