The Life and Adventures of Jonathan Jefferson Whitlaw

Book excerpt: Jonathan Jefferson Whitlaw was born to a Mississippi squatter family that got ahead and bought better land far from their squatter site. There the neighbors are a family German immigrants, who have worked their land in the Louisiana forest without using slaves. The Whitlaws promptly purchase two slaves and send Jonathan to school in Natchez where he gets the training he needs to work as a confidential clerk for Colonel Dart, owner of the largest plantation in the area. Whitlaw is soon in charge of punishment of the slaves. He is also scheming fo acquire some land of his own but after some frustration, concentrates on exposing the Blighs, who hide runaway slaves, in the hope of buying their land on the cheap after they've been ruined.