Free Faith and Betrayal by Sally Denton

that if a free man marries a slave, all the children of that marriage are the property of the owner of the mother. But if a free woman marries a slave, the children are free. I was shown a gentleman of color who is what we should call “managing clerk” in one of the largest stores in this city. He is the property of a rich proprietor in the neighborhood. He pays his master $500 annually and his salary is $1,000. He is married to a free woman, quite a light mulatto, by whom he has a family. They live in a very handsome house, which is the property of the wife, as a slave is not allowed to possess real estate. They keep a carriage and four servants, and this is by no means a singular case. It is a common occurrence for masters to hire out their slaves in this way at a salary of from fifty to seventy dollars per month, out of which they pay their masters an agreed-upon sum. The rest is their own.
    Struggling to understand an arrangement clearly more complex than she had gathered from the British literature on the subject, she remained unconvinced of its benign aspects as presented by her hostess. “In spite of all of this,” she wrote of the apologia, “the system is a horrible one to English minds. Well might Sterne [an apparent reference to Laurence Sterne, the English clergyman and author of
The Life and Opinions of
Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
] say, ‘Oh, Slavery, disguise thyself as thou wilt, thou art a bitter drought.’ ” Like many of her British compatriots, Jean Rio thought slavery a crime against humanity as well as a sin against God—a cruel and antiquated system that had been abolished throughout the British dominions nearly twenty years earlier.
    With melancholy, she left Mrs. Blime to join her family still ensconced on the anchored
George W. Bourne.
“I should have greatly preferred spending a few more days with this truly amiable, generous lady and her family,” she wrote. Loaded with “presents consisting of the delicacies of the climate accompanied with several bottles of French brandy and claret,” she returned to the ship that had been her home since January. “We agreed on, and separated with, I believe, a mutual feeling that we should meet no more on earth.” Such partings were now taken in stride, so accustomed had Jean Rio become to the string of good-byes in her life. But years later she would remember her brief stay in New Orleans with a wistful curiosity. What if she had stayed?

CHAPTER FIVE
    Snags and Sawyers
    ON MARCH 23, 1851, the steamboat Concordia pulled alongside the ship and the Saints’ trunks and other luggage were transferred to the boat that would carry Jean Rio’s party 1,250 miles up the Mississippi to St. Louis, Missouri. It would take four men to carry the piano up the ramp, and, as always when the instrument was transported, Jean Rio watched with concern. All the other passengers from the ocean crossing—including the five converts for whom Jean Rio had bought passage—had left New Orleans immediately upon their arrival, not having the resources to sightsee there. They were en route to a Mormon way station in Alexandria, Missouri, a base camp for setting out for Council Bluffs. Now, after Josiah’s death at sea, Jean Rio’s group numbered eleven— she and her six children, her son Henry’s young wife, and her three in-laws on her husband’s side.
    The 499-ton side-wheel paddleboat had been built in Cincinnati four years earlier and was commanded by Captain William Cable. Jean Rio made a point of befriending the captain, from whom she was determined to glean all the necessary and useful information for the forthcoming journey. The flat-bottomed wooden vessel had its engines and boilers on the deck. The “firemen who have an uninterrupted view of the country” constantly stoked open holes on either side with fuel. Descending to the “hurricane” deck, she came upon a five-foot-wide open gallery filled with chairs to accommodate the passengers. A low railing