Liberty Sam

Zagor and Chico arrive in Vicksburg, a river port on the Mississippi. There, they witness a slave auction and among the captives is their old friend, Liberty Sam, the Black lieutenant of Manetola. Believed to have died on Britannia Island, Sam has in fact survived, only to be captured and enslaved once again. Despite the unspeakable suffering he has endured, the flame of freedom still burns brightly within him.

Zagor and Chico devise a plan to free their friend. The operation is a success, and along with Liberty Sam, several other slaves are also liberated. Sam recounts how he survived and made his way to the American South. He also reveals his daring plan: to free the slaves from the plantation where he once worked including his beloved, Rebecca, seize the Triton, a slave ship captained by Morrel, and sail back to a land where their skin color is not a mark of shame a home, to Africa. The plan sounds insane, but Zagor throws himself into it without hesitation.

The group reaches the plantation of Archibald Stowe, where Zagor pretends to have captured Liberty Sam and the escapees. That night, he initiates the escape operation, and after a series of challenges, they make it beyond the Mississippi territories.

Following a clash with a group of Wichita warriors, the group arrives at the coast, not far from New Orleans, and prepares a plan to run the Triton aground. Zagor neutralizes the lighthouse guards and extinguishes the beacon. On the opposite side, Chico lights bonfires to lure the Triton into shallow waters.

The plan works perfectly. Liberty Sam and his allies capture Captain Morrel’s ship. Morrel dies in the fight and the surviving sailors agree to sail the former slaves back to Africa. Liberty Sam’s dream is finally about to come true.

A few curiosities: the adventure was originally planned as a three-issue story, but during final scripting, it was reduced to just two. In the original plot, the slavers pursued Zagor and the others beyond the Mississippi, and in the finale, Cotton found the courage to kill Stowe. The villain’s name, Stowe, is a deliberate reference to the writer Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of the famous novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin.