The night Samuel decided to steal himself, the Mississippi River was running high and fast from spring floods, dark as spilled ink, and cold enough to kill a man in 20 minutes. He stood on the Eastern Bank in stolen clothes, a dead overseer’s shirt and pants taken from a laundry line 3 hours earlier, with nothing else except a kitchen knife tucked into his belt, and a piece of oil cloth wrapped around a tinder box that probably wouldn’t stay dry anyway.
Behind him, 200 yards through the trees, Richardson Plantation was sleeping under a quarter moon. ahead of him. The river churned and twisted, carrying broken tree branches and debris downstream at a speed that suggested crossing it was suicide. Samuel was 23 years old, born enslaved, and he’d spent every one of those years learning that slow death was still death.
The only question was whether you died on your knees or on your feet. He stepped into the water. March 1849, Richardson Plantation, Warren County, Mississippi. Three weeks earlier, Master Edmund Richardson died on a Tuesday afternoon, choking on a piece of steak at his own dinner table, while his wife screamed, and his three sons stood watching, none of them moving quickly enough to save him.
By Wednesday morning, his eldest son, Marcus, had called in the estate lawyer and the slave auction representative. By Wednesday afternoon, Samuel understood he had maybe 2 weeks before being sold down river to the sugar plantations in Louisiana, where the average life expectancy for a field worker was 7 years, and most didn’t make it past five.
Samuel had been Richardson’s personal servant for eight years. The enslaved man who brought his coffee, laid out his clothes, helped him dress when gout made bending over impossible, listened to him complain about cotton prices, and lazy field workers in the general decline of southern civilization. Richardson had never beaten Samuel, had actually treated him with a distant, proprietary kindness, the way some men treated valuable horses.
But kindness didn’t prevent Samuel from being property, and property got liquidated when estates needed settling. Marcus Richardson didn’t want personal servants. He wanted cash to pay his gambling debts. The lawyer estimated Samuel would bring $1,200 at auction. He was young, healthy, educated enough to read and write, which increased value for household work, and light-skinned enough to pass for white in dim lighting, which made him useful for certain kinds of service work, where visibility to white society mattered.
$1,200. That’s what 23 years of life was worth on paper. Samuel had two weeks to decide whether to accept that valuation or do something dramatically stupid that would probably get him killed. He chose stupid. Planning an escape required three things: timing, route, and a destination where being caught was unlikely.
Timing was determined by the estate sale schedule. Samuel would be auctioned on April 1st in Nachez along with 40 other enslaved people from Richardson Plantation. That gave him 2 weeks during which supervision was actually looser than normal. The overseers were busy inventorying property and preparing for the auction.
And Samuel, as a house servant, had more freedom of movement than field workers. Route was trickier. North meant crossing Mississippi, then Tennessee, then Kentucky. All slave states with active patrol systems and harsh penalties for harboring runaways. East meant Alabama and Georgia. Same problem. South meant Louisiana, which was worse than Mississippi.
West meant crossing the river into Arkansas, then heading toward Indian territory and eventually free states. But that required surviving the river first. The Mississippi River had killed more escaping slaves than any patrol system. It was nearly a mile wide in places, had currents that could pull a strong swimmer under, and was patrolled by boats looking for exactly what Samuel was planning.
But it was also the fastest way to put distance between himself and Richardson Plantation. Cross the river, he’d be in Arkansas. keep moving west. He’d eventually hit Indian territory where the rules were different, less organized. From there, maybe north through Kansas territory toward free states. It was a terrible plan with maybe a 10% chance of success, which was still better odds than the sugar plantations.
Destination was the easiest part to figure out because Samuel had been hearing about it for months. California. Gold strike in 1848. People flooding west from everywhere, making fortunes, disappearing into a new territory where nobody asked too many questions about backgrounds. [snorts] If Samuel could make it to California, he could disappear into the chaos, maybe even make enough money to buy forged freedom papers. That was the dream anyway.
The reality was that he first had to survive crossing a river that had already killed three people. this month. According to newspaper reports, Master Richardson had read aloud at breakfast. Samuel spent the next week preparing with the kind of methodical patience that had kept him alive for 23 years. He stole food from the kitchen in small amounts, cornbread, dried meat, hard tap biscuits, hiding it in his quarters.
He stole the dead overseer’s clothes from the laundry line on a night when the overseer was sick and nobody was watching. He stole a knife from the kitchen by waiting until the cook turned her back, slipping it into his shirt, walking away like nothing happened. He studied the river from a distance, watching its currents, identifying where the flow seemed slowest.
He noticed that the eastern bank had a slight curve about a/4 mile north of the plantation’s main dock, creating a small eddy where debris collected. That would be his crossing point. The current there was slightly less murderous than elsewhere. He listened to conversations between white men discussing river crossings, patrol schedules, boat traffic.
He learned that patrols ran most heavily on weekend nights when escaping slaves were more likely to attempt crossings. Week nights, particularly late week nights after midnight, had less coverage, and he watched Marcus Richardson studying the man who would soon own him temporarily before selling him. Was cruel in a casual, unreflective way.
He’d backhand a slave for moving too slowly, would casually discuss selling families separately over breakfast, saw enslaved people as livestock that sometimes needed correcting. He wasn’t personally interested in Samuel beyond the $1,200 he represented, which meant Marcus wasn’t watching Samuel carefully, wasn’t expecting him to run.
House servants didn’t run. They had it too easy, too comfortable. Only field workers ran, and even then rarely, because the consequences were so severe. Samuel was counting on that assumption. On March 28th, 3 days before the scheduled auction, Samuel made his final preparations. He wrapped his stolen food in oil cloth and hid it in the hollow of a tree near the river.
He hid the stolen clothes in the same location. He memorized the route from the quarters to the river, exactly which trees to pass, which paths to take to avoid the main roads and the overseer’s house. That night he lay in his narrow bed in the servants quarters, and listened to the sounds of the plantation settling down for sleep.
The main house went dark by 10:00, the overseer’s houses by 11. By midnight, only the distant sounds of dogs and the occasional voice of a patrol guard making rounds. Samuel waited until 2:00 in the morning, the absolute dead of night, when even patrol guards were tired and inattentive. Then he stood up, dressed in his regular clothes, and walked quietly out of the servants quarters. Nobody stopped him at first.
House servants sometimes moved around at night, fetching things for the master, dealing with emergencies, performing the invisible labor that kept the plantation functioning. Samuel walked with purpose, like he was supposed to be there, heading toward the main house like he’d been summoned.
But once he was past the main house, he broke into a run. He ran through the darkness, navigating by memory and moonlight. his bare feet silent on dirt paths. He reached the tree where he’d hidden his supplies, grabbed them, kept running, changed clothes while moving, pulling off his houseervant shirt and pulling on the dead overseer’s clothes.
The shirt was too big, the pants too long, but in darkness he’d look like a poor white man, not an escaping slave. He reached the river at 2:30 in the morning. The water was black and fast, carrying debris, making sounds like tearing fabric as it rushed past. The temperature had dropped, and mist was rising from the surface.
Samuel could barely see the Arkansas bank through the darkness and mist, maybe 3/4 of a mile across, maybe more. Somewhere behind him, a dog barked, then another. They’d noticed he was gone. probably wouldn’t realize he was running until morning count, but the dogs had sensed something wrong. Samuel didn’t hesitate. Hesitation was death.
He tied his supplies, food, tinder box, knife into a bundle using the oil cloth and his shirt, creating something that might float if he could keep hold of it. Then he waited into the Mississippi River at the point where the current seemed slowest. The cold hit him like a physical blow. The water was 45°, maybe 50.
Cold enough that his legs went numb within seconds. He pushed forward, water rising to his waist, then his chest, then his shoulders. His feet left the bottom, and the current grabbed him immediately. The river was stronger than he’d anticipated, pulling him downstream, spinning him sideways. He kicked hard, trying to angle northwest toward where he thought the Arkansas bank should be, but the current was faster than his swimming.
He was being carried downstream at speed, the water churning around him, pulling him under every few seconds. His bundle started to slip. He grabbed it tighter, but that meant only one arm for swimming. The river pulled him under again, water filling his mouth and nose. He surfaced gasping, coughing, kicked harder. Something large, a tree branch, a log, slammed into his shoulder.
Pain shot through his arm, but he couldn’t stop, couldn’t pause. He was maybe a third of the way across and already being pulled a/4 mile downstream. If he didn’t reach the far bank soon, he’d be swept so far south that he’d end up in Louisiana anyway. Samuel kicked with everything he had, ignoring the cold, ignoring the pain in his shoulder, ignoring the water trying to pull him under.
His lungs burned, his legs were cramping, the bundle was getting heavier, dragging him down. He should let it go, should drop the supplies and focus on swimming. But without food, without the knife, his chances of survival on the other side dropped to almost nothing. So he held on and kicked harder.
The far bank appeared through the mist. Muddy shore, willow trees, darkness. Samuel angled toward it, fighting the current that wanted to pull him past. His foot touched bottom for half a second, lost contact, touched again. He was in the shallows, but the current was still strong enough to knock him down.
He crawled forward on hands and knees, water rushing around him, bundle clutched against his chest, got his feet under him, stood, fell, stood again, stumbled forward until he was out of the water, collapsed on muddy ground, coughing up river water, shaking from cold so violent his teeth were chattering. He’d made it across. He was in Arkansas, free territory.
No, Arkansas was a slave state, but he was across the river, which meant the Richardson plantation patrols couldn’t immediately follow. They’d have to cross by boat, organize a search party, get dogs across. That bought him hours, maybe a full day if he was lucky. Samuel lay on the muddy bank for 60 seconds, letting his body recover enough to move.
Then he forced himself to stand, grabbed his soaked bundle, and started walking west. Behind him, across the river, dogs were barking, voices shouting, lights moving through the darkness. But Samuel was already gone, disappearing into Arkansas wilderness, heading west towards something that didn’t have a name yet, but felt like the first real choice he’d ever made in his 23 years of life.
The choice to steal himself and see what happened next. Behind him, slavery, auction blocks, sugar plantations, death on someone else’s schedule. ahead, probably death on his own schedule, but at least it would be his choice. Samuel made it to California in 8 months, which was either a miracle or proof that desperation could carry a man farther than hope ever could.
The journey wasn’t dramatic. There was no grand adventure, no heroic moments, no clear narrative of triumph. It was just eight months of walking, hiding, stealing food, working odd jobs for a few days before disappearing, sleeping in barns and forests, and once in a church basement, where a sympathetic minister asked no questions, and offered no prayers.
He crossed Arkansas on foot, moving at night, sleeping during the day. made it to Fort Smith after two weeks, gaunt and exhausted with blisters that had opened and bled and opened again until his feet were more wounded than skin. He stole new boots from a trading post better quality than the overseer’s boots he worn through and kept walking.
In Indian territory, he worked for 3 weeks at a Creek trading post, loading wagons, mcking stables, doing work that paid in food and a place to sleep, and no questions asked. The Creek man who ran the post looked at Samuel’s light skin and northern accent he’d been practicing, and made a decision not to care whether the story Samuel told was true.
“You running from something?” the man asked once, after Samuel had been there a week. Aren’t we all?” Samuel answered. The man nodded and never asked again. Samuel saved every cent he earned, $4 in 3 weeks, which was barely anything, but it was his, earned, not given, and that made it worth more than the sum.
He bought basic supplies, better clothes, a bed roll, dried food, a canteen. Then he joined a wagon train heading west through Kansas territory, pretending to be a freedman from Pennsylvania named Sam Masters, using the forged papers he’d purchased from a printer in Fort Smith, who specialized in exactly that kind of documentation for exactly that kind of customer.
Nobody on the wagon train questioned his story. They were all running from something. debt, failed marriages, criminal charges, the grinding poverty of eastern cities. Samuel’s invented past was no less believable than anyone else’s real one. By December 1849, Samuel reached Sacramento. He was 23 years old, weighed 30 lb less than when he’d left Mississippi, and had $6 in his pocket.
$6 and the absolute certainty that he would never be anyone’s property again, even if that meant dying in a ditch somewhere in California. The gold fields were chaos. Tens of thousands of men from everywhere. Americans, Mexicans, Chinese immigrants, Europeans, freed blacks, escaped slaves, criminals, ministers who’d abandoned practices, lawyers who’d abandoned clients.
All of them digging in rivers and hillsides, living in tents and shanty towns, fighting over claims, drinking rock gut whiskey, gambling away fortunes, dying of disease and violence and accidents at a rate that would have shocked people back east. if anyone back east had cared about what happened to the desperate men who’d fled west. Samuel arrived in Sacramento in December with $6 and a plan that was less a plan and more a desperate gamble disguised as strategy.
Most miners were working the obvious claims, riverbanks where gold had been found, hillsides that showed color, areas where someone had struck it rich last month. They’d work a claim until it played out, then abandon it and move to somewhere more promising. Competition was fierce for good claims. Men fought, sometimes killed over a few yards of riverbank that might contain a fortune.
Samuel couldn’t compete in that environment. He didn’t have the money for proper equipment, didn’t have the physical strength after 8 months of near starvation, didn’t have the connections to get good claims. But he had something most of these men didn’t. Patience. Cultivated over 23 years of surviving slavery by being methodical and invisible.
So instead of fighting for new claims, Samuel bought abandoned ones. The system was simple. Miners would stake a claim, work it for a few weeks or months, decide it was played out, abandon it, and move on to somewhere more promising. The abandoned claims sat empty, legally still belonging to whoever had originally staked them, but functionally abandoned.
Samuel would find the original claim owners, usually in Sacramento saloons, usually broke and drunk and bitter about their bad luck. He’d offer them to buy their claim for $5 or $10. The owners would laugh, tell him he was buying worthless dirt, take his money, and consider him a fool. Then Samuel would go to the worthless claim and work it properly. Most miners were impatient.
They dig the easy surface gold, pan the obvious riverbank deposits, then leave when the gold wasn’t literally lying on the ground anymore. They didn’t have the patience for the hard work of actually mining, following veins deeper, processing more dirt, working systematically instead of frantically. Samuel had patience.
He’d spent his entire life doing work that required methodical attention to detail. He approached gold mining the way he’d approached being a house servant, carefully, systematically noticing what others missed. His first claim was on the Amaran River, 20 m from Sacramento. The previous owner had worked it for 6 weeks and found maybe $50 in gold before deciding it was played out.
Samuel bought it for $5. He built a sale box using lumber he bought with his last dollar and nails he bartered for. He dug deeper into the riverbank, following a thin vein of goldbearing quartz that the previous owner had ignored because it required actual mining instead of surface panning. He processed dirt methodically, running hundreds of pounds through his sale box every day.
In the first week, he found $8 in gold. In the second week, $16. By the end of the first month, he’d recovered over $80 from a claim the previous owner had considered worthless. Samuel bought more abandoned claims, worked them systematically. Some produced nothing. Some produced enough to justify the work.
One, a hillside claim in the foothills east of Sacramento that had been worked briefly and abandoned had a vein of goldbearing quartz that the previous owner had somehow missed entirely. Samuel followed that vein for 3 months, digging deeper into the hillside, processing tons of ore. The gold wasn’t easy. He had to crush quartz, process it carefully, extract tiny amounts of gold from pounds of rock.
It was brutal work that left his hands bloody and his back screaming. But by June 1850, 14 months after arriving in California, Samuel had $42,000 in gold. $42,000, more money than his former owner, Edmund Richardson, had made in a decade of running a plantation with 200 enslaved workers. Samuel stared at the gold, pounds of it, carefully accumulated in a leather pouch he kept hidden, and understood something fundamental about the world.
Wealth wasn’t about working hard. Everyone worked hard. Enslaved people worked themselves to death and died with nothing. Wealth was about controlling resources, about being patient when others were frantic, about seeing value where others saw worthlessness. Wealth was about being free to keep what you earned instead of having someone take it.
By 1852, Samuel had moved from mining to investing. He bought mining equipment and rented it to other miners. He loaned money at interest to prospectors who needed supplies. He opened a general store in Sacramento, selling tools and food and supplies at prices that would have been robbery back east, but were just normal business in California.
He was careful about his identity. Sam Masters was a freed man from Pennsylvania, never enslaved, legally free his entire life. He had papers to prove it, forged papers, but good forgeries purchased from a specialist in San Francisco who supplied half the black prospectors in California with documentation.
He was also careful about his appearance. He dressed well, but not ostentatiously. He spoke educated English, but not so educated that it drew attention. He paid his debts immediately, kept his word in business dealings, and cultivated a reputation as someone reliable in an environment where most men were unreliable. By 1853, he was worth over $200,000.
By 1854, he’d crossed half a million. His general store had expanded to three locations. He owned shares in mining operations, freight companies, and San Francisco real estate. He was one of the wealthiest men in California, black or white, and almost nobody knew his real story. But wealth didn’t erase memory.
It didn’t erase the knowledge that his mother was still enslaved in Mississippi. That his two younger sisters, Eliza and Ruth, 8 and 6 years old, when he’d escaped, had been sold to different plantations, and he had no idea where they were or if they were even alive. It didn’t erase the nightmares where he was back at Richardson Plantation, where Marcus Richardson was selling him down river, where he was drowning in the Mississippi River while dogs barked from the shore.
Samuel could afford anything money could buy. He lived in a fine house in Sacramento. He ate in the best restaurants. He could have surrounded himself with luxury that would make Edmund Richardson look poor by comparison. But every time he read a newspaper from the South. Every time he saw a runaway slave notice or an advertisement for a slave auction, something cold and angry settled in his chest. He’d escaped. He’d gotten rich.
He’d built a new life where nobody could own him. But the system that had owned him was still functioning, still buying and selling people, still treating human beings as property to be liquidated when estates needed settling. And Samuel had enough money now to do something about that.
The idea came to him in October 1854 when he was reading a New Orleans newspaper in his Sacramento office. There was a notice about plantation sales, several Louisiana properties being liquidated due to owner deaths or bankruptcy. The advertisements listed acorage, buildings, equipment, and chattles, the euphemism used for enslaved people, as if they were all equivalent assets.
Samuel stared at one advertisement in particular. Richardson Plantation, Warren County, Mississippi. 800 acres, mainhouse, quarters, equipment, 147 chattles, owner deceased, estate liquidated. Serious inquiries only. Richardson Plantation, where Samuel had been born, where he’d spent 23 years as property, where he’d stolen himself one night and crossed a river that should have killed him.
The plantation was for sale, and Samuel had enough money to buy it. The idea was insane. Returning to Mississippi was dangerous, even with forged papers, even with wealth, even passing as white. There was always the risk someone would recognize him. Marcus Richardson might be dead, but other people who’d known him might still be alive.
But the more Samuel thought about it, the more perfect it seemed. He could buy the plantation that had once owned him, then free everyone enslaved there, then destroy the records so nobody could reclaim them, then burn the whole thing to the ground. It wouldn’t fix the system, wouldn’t free everyone, wouldn’t bring back the years he’d lost or find his mother and sisters, but it would be something.
One plantation destroyed, 147 people freed, one small piece of revenge against a system that had treated him as livestock. Samuel made his decision in November 1854. He would return to the South not as Samuel escaped slave, but as Samuel Wellington, wealthy white investor from Boston, looking to purchase southern agricultural properties.
He would buy plantations, free the enslaved people, destroy the ownership records, and disappear before anyone understood what had happened. It was dangerous. It was probably stupid. It would risk everything he’d built over 5 years. But Samuel had spent 5 years being safe, being careful, building wealth in a place where nobody knew his past.
And every night he still had nightmares about the auction block. Maybe it was time to do something about that. Samuel spent the next three months preparing. He hired a lawyer in San Francisco, a white man with flexible morals who specialized in helping wealthy clients navigate complex property transactions. The lawyer helped create Samuel Wellington, complete with fake background, fake business credentials, fake references from Boston banks that existed but had never heard of him.
He practiced being Samuel Wellington. Practiced the accent northeastern, educated, slightly nasal, practiced the mannerisms, confident without being aggressive, wealthy without being ostentatious. Practice the story. Third generation Boston merchant family made money in shipping, now looking to diversify into southern agriculture.
interested in troubled properties he could acquire at a discount and rehabilitate. He bought appropriate clothes, expensive but conservative, the kind of clothes a Boston businessman would wear. He bought luggage with SW monogrammed on it. He created the entire performance of being someone he wasn’t, which was ironic because he’d spent 5 years in California performing Sam Masters Freriedman.
Now he was performing Samuel Wellington, white investor. Somewhere underneath all the performance was the real Samuel, whoever that was. But Samuel had been enslaved for 23 years, had been running for 5 years, and he honestly wasn’t sure who the real version was anymore. Maybe there was no real version. Maybe survival meant becoming whoever you needed to be to stay alive and accomplish what needed accomplishing.
In February 1855, Samuel boarded a steam ship in San Francisco heading to Panama. From there, he’d cross the ismas and catch another ship to New Orleans, then travel up river to Mississippi. He carried $40,000 in bankd drafts. He carried forged identification. He carried the absolute certainty that this was either the smartest or stupidest thing he’d ever done, and he wouldn’t know which until it was too late to change his mind.
As the ship pulled away from San Francisco, Samuel stood on deck, watching California recede into the distance. He had arrived there six years ago with $6 and a stolen name. And now he was leaving as a wealthy man, returning to the place that had tried to kill him. Behind him, safety, wealth, a life he’d built from nothing.
Ahead, the South, slave states, plantations, the system that had owned him. And somewhere in Mississippi, Richardson Plantation was waiting to be purchased by a man it had once considered property. Samuel smiled slightly, a cold expression that had nothing to do with happiness. He was going home, not to stay, not to settle, but to burn it all down and walk away.
And this time, he’d be the one deciding who got sold. Samuel returned to Mississippi in April 1855 as a man who technically no longer existed. Samuel Johnson, enslaved, escaped, wanted, was legally dead or lost somewhere in Arkansas, presumed drowned or caught or killed, forgotten by everyone except possibly the Richardson family, who’d lost $1,200 in potential auction revenue six years ago.
Sam Masters, Freriedman prospector, the identity he’d used in California, stayed in San Francisco, maintained by business partners and lawyers who would keep that name alive and legitimate while Samuel was gone. Samuel Wellington, wealthy white investor from Boston, third generation merchant family interested in acquiring troubled southern agricultural properties at discount prices, stepped off a steamboat in New Orleans on April 12th, 1855.
Carrying custom leather luggage, wearing a perfectly tailored gray suit, speaking with a northeastern accent he’d practiced for 6 months, nobody recognized him. Nobody suspected. He was simply another wealthy northerner come to profit from southern financial troubles. And God knew there were enough of those lately.
Cotton prices had been terrible for 3 years running. Plantations were overleveraged. Estates were being liquidated. Southern pride meant plantation owners would rather sell to damn Yankees than admit they couldn’t manage their properties properly. Samuel checked in to the St. Charles Hotel, the finest in New Orleans, the kind of place that would never have let Samuel Johnson through the door, except maybe through the service entrance to empty chamber pots.
He paid for a suite in cash, which the desk clerk accepted with a particular smile wealthy white men received from people whose job was to facilitate their comfort. In his room, Samuel stood at the window, looking out over New Orleans, and felt absolutely nothing. No triumph at being here, no fear of being recognized, nothing except cold calculation about what came next.
He’d spent six years becoming someone new. But standing here preparing to return to Mississippi, Samuel understood something he’d been avoiding. He wasn’t new. He was the same person who’d crossed a freezing river in stolen clothes 6 years ago, except now he had money and better shoes. The anger hadn’t gone away. The nightmares hadn’t stopped.
He just gotten better at burying them under business transactions and property investments. Well, time to dig them up and do something useful with them. Samuel spent three days in New Orleans establishing his credibility. He met with lawyers, bankers, property assessors, the whole ecosystem of white men who facilitated selling plantations the way they’d once facilitated selling people.
He presented his credentials, his bank references, his interest in acquiring undervalued agricultural properties with rehabilitation potential. The men he met with were enthusiastic. Northern money was welcome, particularly northern money that asked few questions and paid cash. Samuel made it clear he was looking for troubled properties, estates in probate, plantations with debt problems, owners who died without clear succession.
“I’m not interested in successful operations,” Samuel explained to one banker over lunch at Antoine’s. “If a plantation is running profitably, the current owners should keep it. I’m looking for situations where liquidation is inevitable, but could benefit from a buyer willing to pay fairly and quickly. The banker nodded approvingly.
This was the kind of vulture capitalism the South grudgingly respected. At least it was honest about what it was doing. Within 2 days, Samuel had a list of 18 properties across Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Plantations whose owners had died, gone bankrupt, or simply failed. Some were being auctioned by courts.
Others were being sold privately by estates desperate to settle debts. Richardson Plantation was on the list. Samuel stared at the entry in the property catalog his lawyer had prepared. Richardson Plantation, Warren County, Mississippi. 800 acres improved land. Main house needs repair. Slave quarters functional.
Equipment varied condition. 147 chattles documented current estate ownership in probate following death of Marcus Richardson 1854 heirs willing to entertain reasonable offers Marcus Richardson was dead the son who’d planned to sell Samuel down river who’d inherited Edmund Richardson’s plantation and Samuel along with it who’ driven Samuel to risk drowning in the Mississippi River was dead at 38 killed in a hunting accident.
According to the property notes, Samuel felt nothing about that either. No satisfaction, no closure, just the cold observation that Marcus Richardson’s death made this transaction simpler. I’d like to inspect this property first, Samuel told his lawyer. Arrange a visit for next week. Of course, Mr. Wellington, I should note the property has been somewhat neglected.
The heirs are cousins living in Virginia. No interest in plantation management, just want to liquidate quickly. You’d be doing them a favor. How quickly? If you made a reasonable cash offer, could close in 2 weeks, maybe sooner if you’re willing to pay extra for expedited probate. Samuel smiled slightly. Let’s inspect it first, but I’m prepared to move quickly for the right property.
The journey to Richardson Plantation took 2 days by riverboat and carriage. Samuel traveled with his lawyer and a property assessor, maintaining the performance of Samuel Wellington, asking intelligent questions about soil quality, discussing cotton yields, evaluating the plantation as an investment rather than the place where he’d spent 23 years as property.
He arrived on April 20th, midafter afternoon, the sun high and brutal in that particularly Mississippi way that turned the air into something thick enough to choke on. The main house, the grand white structure that had seemed enormous when he was a child, was just a moderately large two-story building with paint peeling and shutters hanging crooked.
The slave quarters hadn’t changed. same wooden structures, same dirty yard, same feeling of deliberate poverty imposed by people who had everything. The current overseer, a man named Dawson, who had been hired by the estate to keep things running until the property sold, met them at the main house. Mr. Wellington. Dawson was maybe 50, weathered skin, suspicious eyes.
Wasn’t expecting you until tomorrow. We made good time, Samuel said smoothly, shaking hands. This is my lawyer, Mr. Arseno, and my property assessor, Mr. Bowford. We’d like to tour the property, examine the buildings, review the cattle’s documentation. Of course, though, I should mention some of the slaves are getting restless.
They know the property is being sold, worried about being split up or sold down river. You might see some attitude. Samuel kept his face neutral. I’m sure they’ll behave appropriately. They toured the property for 2 hours. Samuel walked through the main house where he’d served Edmund Richardson breakfast for 8 years, brought coffee, listened to complaints about cotton prices.
He walked through the plantation office where Marcus Richardson had met with the auctioneer to arrange Samuel’s sale. He walked past the quarters where he’d slept in a narrow bed and planned his escape. Nothing felt familiar, or everything felt familiar but distant, like visiting a place he’d read about but never actually experienced. His lawyer and the assessor discussed building conditions, repair needs, land quality.
Samuel participated in the conversation, asking appropriate questions, but mostly he was noticing other things. The fields looked depleted. years of intensive cotton cultivation without proper soil management. The equipment was poorly maintained. The quarters were in worse condition than he remembered, roofs leaking, walls warped, and the people.
There were 147 enslaved people listed in the estate documentation. Samuel saw maybe 30 during the tour. field workers returning from the cotton fields, house servants moving through the main house, a group of children playing in the quarter’s yard. He made himself look at them without recognition, made himself see them the way Samuel Wellington would see them as property being evaluated, as assets included in the purchase price, as chattles whose value would be calculated against the total offer.
One woman, maybe 35 years old, dark-skinned, exhausted, was carrying water buckets from the well. She looked up as Samuel’s group passed, and their eyes met for half a second. Samuel saw recognition flicker across her face, a confused expression like she’d seen a ghost or remembered something from a long time ago, but couldn’t quite place it.
He looked away quickly, continued walking, kept talking to his lawyer about something irrelevant. But that moment stayed with him. Someone had almost recognized him. After 6 years, after thousands of miles, after becoming someone completely different, someone had looked at him and seen something familiar.
This was dangerous, more dangerous than he had anticipated. That evening, back at the main house, Samuel reviewed the estate documentation with Dawson and the Richardson family lawyer who’ traveled from Nachez for the inspection. The papers listed everything: acorage, buildings, equipment, livestock, and 147 chattles with names, ages, estimated values, skills, health conditions.
Humans reduced to inventory lines. Samuel read through the list methodically, keeping his face neutral until he reached entry number 43. Josephine Johnson, female, age 52, house servant, good health, literate, unusual, value estimated $400. His mother. Samuel stared at the entry, keeping his breathing steady, his hands relaxed on the paper.
The lawyer and Dawson were discussing something about equipment valuations. Nobody was watching him. Josephine Johnson, age 52, which was right. House servant, which meant she’d been moved from the quarters to the main house at some point in the six years since he’d left. Literate, which was dangerous.
Enslaved people who could read got beaten or worse. But apparently she’d managed to convince the Richardson family she was useful enough to keep. value estimated $400. His mother’s life quantified in the same document as plows and wagons. Samuel carefully turned the page and continued reading. Entries 78 and 91 were his sisters.
Eliza Johnson, female, age 14, house servant, good health, value estimated $800. Ruth Johnson, female, age 12, field worker, light duty, fair health, value estimated $600. They were here, all three of them, still at Richardson Plantation, still enslaved, still alive. Samuel had spent six years assuming they’d been sold, scattered across the South, lost to him forever.
He’d made peace with never seeing them again, never knowing if they were alive or dead. And they were here 15 ft away, probably in the quarters of the main house, going about their evening routines while Samuel sat in the plantation office reading their estimated dollar values. Mr.
Wellington, your thoughts on the overall valuation? Samuel looked up at the lawyer, forced himself to focus. I need to inspect the chattles more carefully before committing to the estate’s estimates. Some of these values seem optimistic given current market conditions. Of course, of course. We can arrange a full inspection tomorrow. The estate is motivated to close quickly.
I think you’ll find them amendable to reasonable negotiation. Excellent. Samuel closed the documents. What price is the estate hoping for? 85,000 for the complete property, land, buildings, equipment, all chattles. We believe that’s fair given the acreage and labor force included. Samuel pretended to calculate.
In reality, he’d already decided he’d pay 90,000 if necessary. Whatever it took to close quickly, but appearing too eager would raise suspicion. The property has obvious maintenance issues, Samuel said carefully. The soil is depleted. Several buildings need significant repair. I’d be comfortable at 70,000, assuming the cattle inspection confirms the estate’s valuations.
The lawyer’s expression suggested he’d expected exactly this kind of negotiation. I’ll communicate your offer to the heirs tonight. You’ll have an answer by tomorrow afternoon. Samuel stayed in the main house that night. The Richardson family lawyer insisted, said it was appropriate for a potential buyer to experience the property fully.
a bedroom on the second floor, the same hallway where Edmund Richardson had slept, where Marcus Richardson planned Samuel’s auction. Samuel lay in a bed that was probably worth more than his mother’s estimated value, and stared at the ceiling. His family was here, 15 ft away. His mother, who taught him to read by candle light, who’d slapped him when he was 14 to save him from an offer that would have gotten him killed.
his sisters, who’d been eight and six when he escaped, who’d grown up without him. He could walk downstairs right now, could find them, could tell them who he was, that he’d escaped, that he’d come back. But that would ruin everything. If he revealed himself, if anyone discovered that Samuel Wellington was actually Samuel Johnson, escaped slave, returned, and possibly wealthy, the entire plan would collapse.
He’d be arrested, probably hanged, and the Richardson plantation would be sold to someone else who’d keep everyone enslaved. So instead, he lay in a dead man’s house, and made himself wait. Tomorrow he’d inspect the chattles, would look his mother and sisters in the face without acknowledging them, would evaluate them like property, because that’s what Samuel Wellington would do.
And then he’d buy them. Buy the plantation. Buy his own family. Buy the place that owned him. And then he’d burn it all down and walk away. Just had to stay cold a little longer. Had to keep performing. Had to keep being nobody and everybody except himself. Samuel closed his eyes and practiced breathing steadily, the way he’d learned to do when he needed to seem calm while drowning in a freezing river.
Outside, Mississippi night sounds, crickets, distant voices from the quarters, a dog barking somewhere. Inside, Samuel Wellington slept peacefully in a plantation house he was about to destroy. Inside that, Samuel Johnson escaped, wanted, legally dead, waited for mourning with the kind of patience that only comes from spending 23 years as property and 6 years becoming someone else.
Tomorrow he’d finish what he started the night he crossed the Mississippi River. Tomorrow he’d buy his freedom again, one last time, and this time he’d take 147 people with him. The cattle inspection began at 9:00 the following morning, which was both extremely early and perfectly normal for a plantation where enslaved people started working before dawn, and bias evaluated human beings like livestock before the day got too hot.
Samuel stood in the plantation yard with Dawson, the overseer, the Richardson family lawyer, and his own property assessor. All of them holding clipboards with the estate documentation listing 147 names, ages, estimated values, and skills. The enslaved people were being assembled in groups, house servants, field workers, craftsmen, children, organized for function, for efficient inspection.
This was standard procedure. Samuel had read about it in newspapers, had heard wealthy men discuss it in California saloons, had known intellectually that this was how the system worked. But standing here about to participate in it, about to evaluate his own mother and sisters like property to maintain his cover was something else entirely.
We’ll start with the house servants, Dawson announced. Most valuable chattles best maintained. Mr. Wellington, you mentioned wanting to verify health and skills personally. Yes, Samuel said, his voice steady. I’ve learned that estate valuations tend to be optimistic. I prefer direct assessment. 15 house servants were lined up in front of the main house.
Samuel walked down the line slowly, pretending to evaluate, asking prefuncter questions about skills and health, while actually looking for his mother. She was seventh in line. Josephine Johnson, 52 years old, his mother. She’d aged more than six years, should account for, hair completely gray now, face deeply lined, hands that showed decades of work, but her posture was straight, her eyes clear, and when Samuel stopped in front of her, she looked directly at him with an expression he couldn’t quite read.
“Name?” Samuel asked, even though he was holding documentation that listed her. Josephine, sir. Her voice was the same. Exactly the same as he remembered. The papers say you’re literate. Is that accurate? A pause. Being literate was dangerous. It could get you sold, beaten, suspected of helping runaways. But lying to a potential buyer was also dangerous. Yes, sir.
Master Richardson, the elder one. God rest him. He had me teach his children to read when they were young. He said it was easier than hiring a tutor. I learned alongside them. This was a lie. Samuel knew it was a lie. Their mother had taught herself to read using stolen newspapers and taught Samuel the same way. But it was a clever lie, one that made her literacy seem like the master’s idea rather than her own dangerous initiative.
useful, Samuel said neutrally. Can you manage household accounts, correspondence? Yes, sir. I’ve been managing the household since Miss Richardson passed. May she rest in peace. Samuel made a notation on his clipboard, his handwriting steady despite everything. The estate values you at $400. That seems reasonable.
He moved on without waiting for a response, continued down the line, forced himself to evaluate 12 more people while knowing his mother was standing 10 ft away. Probably recognizing something familiar about him, but unable to place it after 6 years and the impossible transformation from enslaved house servant to wealthy white businessman.
The field workers were inspected. Next, 90 people assembled in the cotton field, organized by age and capability. Strong young men in front, most valuable, $1,600 to $2,000 each. Women and older workers behind them, children in the back. Samuel walked through the groups with his assessor, discussing muscle tone and visible health issues like he was evaluating horses.
The assessor, Bowfort, a professional Samuel had hired in New Orleans specifically because he was thorough and amoral, kept up a running commentary about optimal worker ages and depreciation rates for aging chattles. Samuel found Ruth in the third group, 12 years old, listed as field worker, light duty.
She was thin, looked younger than 12, had a visible scar on her left forearm that wasn’t mentioned in the documentation. “This one’s injured?” Samuel asked Dawson. “Old burn scar happened two years ago. Touched a hot kettle, healed fine, no impact on work capacity.” Ruth stared at the ground while they discussed her. Samuel wanted to say something, wanted to acknowledge her, wanted to.
He made a notation and moved on. Eliza was in the house servants group inspected earlier, 14 years old, valued at $800, listed as having excellent department and appearance suitable for refined household service, which was a state language for light-skinned enough to be visible in white society. Samuel had evaluated her third in line before finding their mother, had asked her three questions about sewing skills and literacy, while she’d answered politely with downcast eyes.
And the whole interaction lasted 90 seconds. 90 seconds with his younger sister, who had been 6 years when he escaped, who was now 14 and looked terrified of the white men evaluating her like livestock. and Samuel had moved on to the next person in line because that’s what Samuel Wellington would do. The inspection took 4 hours.
By 1:00, Samuel had personally evaluated all 147 enslaved people, had confirmed the estate’s valuations were mostly accurate. He found three cases of overstated health conditions, and negotiated down accordingly, and had approved the final purchase terms. $73,000,” Samuel said to the Richardson lawyer over lunch at the main house. “The estate’s valuations were inflated in several cases, and the property maintenance needs are extensive.
That’s my final offer.” The lawyer telegraphed the heirs and received a response within the hour. Accepted. Closing would occur in Nachez in 5 days. Expedited probate approved. cash payment expected at the time of transfer. On April 26th, 1855, Samuel Wellington purchased Richardson Plantation for $73,000 cash.
The transaction was legally recorded. Documentation was filed with Warren County. Ownership transferred cleanly. Samuel now owned 800 acres, a main house, various outuildings, equipment, livestock, and 147 human beings, including his mother and two sisters. He’d bought himself out of slavery by crossing a river 6 years ago. Now, he’d bought his family the same way.
Samuel waited exactly 3 days before implementing his plan. 3 days of being the new owner, meeting with Dawson about harvest schedules, discussing plantation management, acting like he intended to operate the property normally. On the third night, April 29th, after everyone had gone to sleep, Samuel walked to the quarters alone.
He’d sent Dawson to Nachez on an errand that would keep him away overnight. The house servants were in the main house. The field workers were in the quarters, exhausted from 12-hour days in the cotton fields. Samuel knocked on the door of the first quarters building. A woman opened it, maybe 40 years old, exhausted, confused why the new master was at her door at 10 at night.
I need everyone assembled in the yard, Samuel said quietly. Everyone who can walk, bring the children. 5 minutes. Confusion and fear crossed her face. Late night assemblies usually meant beatings or announcements about sales, but you didn’t question the master. Yes, sir. Word spread quickly. Within 10 minutes, nearly all 147 people were assembled in the quarters yard, illuminated by torches Samuel had lit.
They stood in uncertain groups, fear and confusion obvious on every face. Samuel stood on the quarter steps so everyone could see him. He was still wearing Samuel Wellington’s clothes, expensive suit, polished boots, the costume of a wealthy white plantation owner. My name is not Samuel Wellington, his voice carrying across the yard.
My name is Samuel Johnson. I was born on this plantation 29 years ago. I was owned by Edmund Richardson for 23 years. 6 years ago when Marcus Richardson died and the estate was being liquidated, I was going to be sold down river to the sugar plantations. So I ran. I crossed the Mississippi River at night and should have drowned, but didn’t.
I made it to California, found gold, got rich enough to come back here and buy this plantation. Dead silence in the yard, people staring at him like he was speaking a foreign language. I know you don’t believe me,” Samuel continued. “I know I look white and talk like a northerner, and you’ve never seen me before, but Josephine Johnson,” he pointed to where his mother was standing in the crowd.
She’ll remember, “She taught me to read when I was 8 years old using stolen newspapers. She slapped me when I was 14 because a white man offered too much money for me, and she knew what that meant. She Samuel, his mother’s voice, barely a whisper, but it carried in the silence. Yes. She pushed through the crowd, stopped 5 ft away, stared at his face in the torch light.
Samuel saw the moment recognition finally clicked. Not his face, which had changed, but something in his eyes or voice or the way he stood. “Oh my god,” she whispered. “Oh my dear God, you’re alive. you. Her legs gave out. Samuel caught her before she fell, held her while she made sounds that might have been crying or laughing or both.
The crowd was murmuring now, confusion turning to something else, hope maybe, or disbelief, or the terrifying possibility that what this white-l lookinging stranger was saying might actually be true. “I bought this plantation,” Samuel said, still holding his mother. so I could do what comes next. As of right now, you’re all free.
Every one of you. I own the documentation that says your property, and I’m declaring that documentation void. You’re free. Nobody moved. Free was a word that meant something different when white men said it. Usually, it meant freed immediately arrested or sold or hunted down. I know you don’t believe that either, Samuel said.
So, here’s what’s going to happen tomorrow morning. Wagons will arrive. I’ve arranged transport to Cairo, Illinois, free state across the border. There are people there who will help you settle, find work, establish new lives. You can go or you can stay. But this plantation is finished. I’m burning the ownership records tonight.
and in three days I’m burning the main house. Anyone who wants to stay in Mississippi after that can try, but you’ll have no documentation, no protection, no legal status. Your best chance is getting north. This is a trick, someone called from the crowd. Masters don’t free slaves. They sell them and call it something else.
You’re right, Samuel agreed. Masters don’t free slaves. But I’m not a master. I’m property that bought itself back and decided to take you with me. He released his mother gently, walked to the center of the yard. Eliza Johnson. Ruth Johnson, where are you? His sisters pushed forward through the crowd.
Eliza was crying. Ruth looked shocked, not processing. Samuel looked at them both. I’m your brother. I know you don’t remember me. You were too young when I left, but I’m your brother, and I came back for you, for all of you.” He turned to face the entire crowd again. “Tomorrow morning, wagons arrive. You have until then to decide. Pack light.
We’re not taking anything that isn’t essential. Money, clothes, tools, if you have them, nothing else. The plantation’s assets stay here to burn.” Why? An older man, maybe 60, stepped forward. Why come back? Why spend all that money? Why risk everything? You were free. You were rich. Why? Samuel had spent six years preparing for this moment.
But he still didn’t have a good answer. Because I had nightmares every night about being back here, he said finally. Because I made money in California while you were still here working for free. Because my mother taught me to read and my sisters grew up without me. And this entire system needs to burn. Because I could. That’s why. The old man studied his face, then nodded slowly. That’s reason enough.
The wagons arrived at dawn. 12 wagons. Drivers all paid in advance. Routts planned to avoid major roads and patrol areas. Samuel had spent $4,000 arranging transportation and another 6,000 paying contacts in Illinois to receive 147 freed people and help them establish new lives. $10,000 to free his family. Another $63,000 to buy the plantation.
$73,000 total to destroy the place that owned him, worth every cent. By 9:00, the wagons were loaded. Most people were going, 132 of 147. 15 chose to stay, mostly elderly people, too frightened of the unknown or too tired to start over. Samuel gave them money and told them to scatter before the plantation attracted attention.
His mother and sisters were in the first wagon. Samuel had spent an hour that morning with them. His mother telling him about the six years he’d missed. His sisters asking questions about California and gold and how he’d survived. It wasn’t enough time. Wouldn’t ever be enough time. But it was more than he’d thought he’d ever have again.
“Come with us,” his mother said as the wagons prepared to leave. “You’ve done enough. You freed everyone. Now save yourself. I will, Samuel promised. But I have to finish this first. I’ll meet you in Cairo in three weeks. What if you’re caught? I won’t be. She held his face in her hands, studying him. You were always stubborn.
Stubborn enough to cross a river that should have killed you. Stubborn enough to come back to hell to pull us out. stubborn enough to burn it down on your way out. “I learned from the best,” Samuel said. She kissed his forehead, climbed into the wagon, and the convoy rolled out, heading north. Samuel stood in the plantation yard, watching them disappear until the dust settled, and Mississippi was quiet again.
Then he walked to the plantation office, gathered every document related to ownership of the 147 people he just freed, bills of sale, transfer records, estate inventories, everything, and burned it all in the fireplace. Without documentation, the people who’d left were legally nothing. No proof they’d been enslaved here, no way to track them, just ghosts who’d vanished overnight. Good.
Samuel stayed at Richardson Plantation for three more days alone, except for the 15 people who’d chosen to remain, who all left within 48 hours anyway, once they realized he was serious about burning everything. He spent those days destroying evidence. He burned financial records. He scattered the livestock to neighboring farms, telling them he was liquidating assets before returning north.
He sold equipment at below market prices to nearby plantations, asking no questions, keeping no records. By May 3rd, Richardson Plantation was functionally destroyed. The building still stood, but everything that made it a working plantation was gone. Workers, records, resources. On evening of May 3rd, Samuel walked through the main house one last time, the same hallways where he’d brought coffee to Edmund Richardson, the same bedroom where he’d slept the night before buying his family, the same office where Marcus Richardson had planned to auction him. He’d brought
lamp oil. He poured it methodically throughout the main house, floors, walls, furniture, curtains. Then he walked outside, lit a torch, and threw it through a window. The house caught fast. Fire climbing walls, spreading through rooms, consuming everything. Samuel stood in the yard watching it burn.
And finally, after 6 years of nightmares and cold calculation and performing identities that weren’t his, he felt something. relief, anger, satisfaction, grief for the years lost, joy that he’d gotten them back. All of it mixed together into something too complicated to name. The main house burned until it was nothing but blackened timber and ash.
The quarters stayed standing. Samuel had left them deliberately. Let someone else figure out what to do with slave quarters when there were no slaves left to quarter. When the fire was out and the sun was rising on May 4th, Samuel walked away from Richardson Plantation for the second and final time.
He didn’t look back. Samuel made it to Cairo, Illinois by May 15th. Found his mother and sisters settled in a boarding house already establishing new lives. His mother had found work as a seamstress. Eliza was working at a dry good store. Ruth was attending a school for freed children. The first time she’d been allowed formal education.
They were adapting, learning to be free in a place where freedom meant something real instead of just a word white people used before taking it back. Samuel stayed with them for 6 weeks, used his remaining money to help other freed people from Richardson Plantation find work and housing. Watched his family become something they’d never been allowed to be.
People, not property. In late June, he told them he was going back to California. Why? Eliza asked. You have money, you have family, you could stay here. Because Sam Masters still exists in California. Samuel explained, “That identity, that business, those investments, they’re real. Samuel Wellington is finished, but Sam Masters is still making money, and I can use that money to do this again.
” “Again?” His mother stared at him. “Samuel, you’ve done enough. You freed people. You destroyed the plantation that owned us. What more?” There are more plantations, Samuel interrupted. More people still enslaved. I have money. I have a system that works. I can do this 8, 10, 12 more times if I’m careful.
Buy plantations, free everyone, destroy the records, burn the buildings, disappear. You can until they are caught maybe. But until then, why waste the opportunity? His mother shook her head. My stubborn son. Stubborn enough to save us. Stubborn enough to keep saving strangers until it kills you. There are worse ways to die. Samuel returned to California in August 1855 as Sam Masters, legitimate businessman, wealthy investor, no connection to the mysterious Samuel Wellington, who’ purchased and then apparently abandoned Richardson Plantation in Mississippi. Over the next
decade, he bought nine more plantations across Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Georgia. Always as a different identity, different names, different backgrounds, different legal documentation, always the same process. Buy the plantation, free everyone, destroy the records, burn the buildings, disappear. By 1865, when the Civil War ended slavery permanently, Samuel had freed over 800 people, spent nearly his entire fortune doing it, started with a million in 1855, ended with $40,000 in a small house in Sacramento. He destroyed 10 plantations,
bankrupted the families who’d owned them, created chaos in county records across four states that made it nearly impossible to track the hundreds of people who’d simply vanished overnight from legal ownership. The war made his work obsolete. Emancipation freed 4 million people at once. Samuel’s 800 was nothing compared to that.
But it was something. 800 people who didn’t wait for the war. 800 people who got out years early because one escaped slave came back with gold money and impossible determination. Samuel died in Sacramento in 1889, age 63. His obituary listed him as Sam Masters, prospector and philanthropist, supporter of freed men’s schools and civil rights organizations.
It didn’t mention Richardson Plantation or the 10 plantations he destroyed or the 800 people he’d freed. It didn’t mention Samuel Johnson, escaped slave wanted in Mississippi for stealing himself. It didn’t mention Samuel Wellington, the white investor who never existed except on paper. Only his mother knew all the identities, all the stories, and she died in 1872, taking most of the secrets with her.
His sisters, Eliza and Ruth, published a memoir in 1995 titled The Brother Who Became a Ghost. It told some of the story, but they’d been six and 8 when he escaped, and even after reuniting, they’d only known pieces of the full narrative. The complete story died with Samuel. The man who’d crossed a freezing river with nothing but desperation, found gold in abandoned claims, became a millionaire, went back to buy his own family, and spent a decade destroying the system that had tried to destroy him.
He’d started with nothing except the absolute certainty that death was better than slavery. He’d ended with almost nothing except the knowledge that 800 people were free because he’d been stubborn enough to cross a river that should have killed him. That was enough. That had to be enough.
On his deathbed, his last words were reported to be, “I stole myself and bought myself and lost myself and found myself and freed myself 800 times. Nobody understood what he meant, but Samuel did.
