Black Life on the Mississippi: Slaves, Free Blacks, and the Western Steamboat WorldAll 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 C. Buchanan paints a more complete picture of the Mississippi, documenting the rich variety of experiences among