I've spent a lot of time recently thinking about a man I don't know much about.

I don't know what he looked like.

I don't know how old he was.

I don't know where he was born or where he died.

What I do know is his name, Richard.

He was enslaved and he was on last island in 1856.

Last island, Yield-Denier.

Back then they spoke French in southern Louisiana and that island was about as far south as it

got.

Last island was a resort, a place where everybody who was anybody went for the cool salt breeze.

The wealth of America's slaveocracy would go there in the summer to have balls, parade

down the promenade, relax.

But behind their leisure was a hand of slave power that ran everything.

I know a little bit more about the man who owned Richard.

Thomas Mill was a Frenchman.

He ran a sugar plantation out in the bayou.

Mill took his family to their mansion on last island in summer.

On August 9th, a Saturday night, they danced in a grand ball on a local hotel.

But on Sunday, they looked out into the waves and felt the bracing winds approach.

A storm was coming.

That night, the winds grew stronger.

The sions of last island panicked and packed themselves into a hotel.

...