The Outlaw Years the History of the Land Pirates of the Natchez Trace - Tapa dura

1930. Robert Coates studies the outlaws who preyed on traffic along the Natchez Trace from Natchez all the way to New Orleans from about 1880 to 1885. Among other violent and lawless acts, they planned to build an empire using the labor of stolen slaves. They stole and pillaged to the extent that this period is sometimes referred to as the outlaw years, as bands of land pirates roamed the country in search of riches.

A Yale graduate, Robert M. Coates went to Paris in 1921 and became a member of the expatriate set that included F. Scott Fitzgerald. His first novel, "The Eater of Darkness, "was published by Rob-ert McAlmon's now legendary Contact Press, which also published Hemingway. Returning to this country he obtained a job on the "New Yorker "with the help of his friend James Thurber, and was a staff member until his death in 1973.