Black Wall Street

The screenplay has several layers: One; how hands-on slave emancipator, black fugitive, Mary Ellen Pleasant became America's first self-made female millionaire. Two; the controversial manner in which Jeremiah Hamilton became Wall Street's first black millionaire. Three; Napoleonic invader, William Walker's conquest of Nicaragua in an attempt to create a slave empire in Central America. Four; America's richest man Cornelius Vanderbilt's (nemesis of Hamilton) battle with William Walker to regain the world's most valuable shipping-routes through Nicaragua. And five; how Darwinist Natural Selection enabled their success. And, brought their lives crashing together on Wall Street, preventing Nicaragua becoming the launchpad of a slave empire throughout the Americas. Beautiful fugitive slave Mary Ellen Pleasant and her heroic husband risk their lives sneaking onto plantations freeing slaves. Mary Ellen, accused of crimes, including the murder of her husband, for the inheritance, flees to San Francisco, at the height of the gold-rush. Mary Ellen services the speculators by forming a catering business, with white-owned hotel hoteliers as her clients. She staffs her business with slaves she frees by pretending to be white, sneaking onto plantations snatching-up slaves and fleeing. The unsuspecting diners; prospectors rich from their gold finds, business leaders and brokers discuss financially sensitive investment opportunities in front of the socially inconsequential black ex-slaves. The information harvested is shrewdly invested on Wall Street in the midst of a bull-market. It frees more slaves and increases the spy ring, creating a virtuous circle: More money, more freed slaves, more spies, more investments, more money. The spy-ring reveals William Walker's quixotic plan for a Central and Southern American Slave empire, to begin in Nicaragua. America is experiencing the fastest commercial expansion in human history. Walker seizes the time and takes advantage of the teetering Nicaraguan Government's offer to help them combat a military-coup. They offer him land in exchange for military support. A San Franciscan bank issues Nicaraguan Land Bonds secured against the Nicaraguan land on his behalf. He plans to sell the bonds to finance insurgents with the promise of land and slaves to work it. Wall Street is not receptive to San Franciscan Bonds. The only person willing and able to move the unwanted bonds on Wall Street is the gifted broker 'Nigger Hamilton'. But it's contingent on Walker helping him to rip-off childhood friend and now rival, the ruthless Cornelius Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt's company has a monopoly taking passengers and cargo from the Atlantic to the Pacific via the Isthmus of Nicaragua by boat. Vanderbilt supported Walker's invasion of Nicaragua in exchange for rights to build a railroad across newly conquered Nicaragua. His shares plummet after Walker's double-cross and plans an attack on both Hamilton and Walker. Vanderbilt has Hamilton arrested and charged. The courtroom battle between Hamilton and Vanderbilt unfolds daily in the press and withers the shipping company's stock price further. Unbeknown to Walker the whole thing is an elaborate set-up by Hamilton and Vanderbilt, designed to corner the stock market. Archey-Lee, a young teenager, recently freed slave, is kidnapped whilst in the care of Mary Ellen and taken to Nicaragua. Silas Soule her friend and member of John Brown's abolitionist all white para-military group, the Immortals, is murdered by one of Walker's American insurgent also destined for Nicaragua. Mary Ellen offers Hamilton and Vanderbilt a money-spinning deal. As a result, the Immortals hunt and find Archey-Lee and Walker, who is executed. The news is fed to the press by Vanderbilt, sending the trio's investment from record lows to a record high and puts an end to the expansion of slavery in the Americas. This story is based on true events.