Away To Sea — Stephen W. Meader

Here is a first class tale of adventure with vivid characters and accurate setting. One spring day back in 1821, Jim Slater stole out of his father's farmhouse before daybreak and ran away to Providence to become a sailor. He signed up with the first ship he could find, and it was only when they were six days out at sea that he discovered he was one of the crew of a slave ship bound for Africa for its cargo. On the return trip there came an opportunity to escape when the ship was in the Gulf of Mexico, near New Orleans. His struggles in the wilderness, his meeting with the naturalist, John James Audubon, and his final homecoming are as exciting and real as if the reader had lived the story himself.