Popular novel, first published in 1900. The story begins: "Just before the beginning of the civil war between the States there was a large and valuable plantation on the Alabama River on which there were several hundred slaves, said farm being in what is known as the "black belt of Alabama," having a river front of several miles, and annually producing five hundred bales of cotton, fifteen thousand bushels of corn, besides oats, wheat, hay, mules, horses, hogs, cattle, sheep and goats in abundance.”