Billy "Opium Junior" was born in 1830 in Missouri. His family became wealthy in the 1800s by establishing the first opium drug dealing business in the United States, transporting opium from China to Mexico and selling it. They used slave labor in laboratories to process the opium and hid it among normal merchandise on barges traveling along the Mississippi River. However, a rival group destroyed their barges and merchandise. When Billy's father was killed negotiating with the rivals, Billy armed the family's slaves and launched a surprise attack to defeat the rivals, restoring peace to their business along the Mississippi.

1. By Carlos Iniestra

2. I´m Billy “Opium Junior”, I was born in Missouri in 1830. Oh I remember 1800s.
Life in the Mississipi was simple in those days. We had a family of slaves taking
care of our necesities and our barges where constantly transporting the things we
used to sell.

3. We were one of the richest families in those times. The opium drug dealing was the
perfect way of making money. We became the first family to sell opium in all the
United States.

4. At the beginning only one small laboratory
was full of slaves we had bought talking
care of our opium brought from China to
Mexico and to my family.
My family started transporting the drugs
in the barges with a lot of normal
mercancy on the top so that it wasn´t
suspicious.
When my father Jimmy “Opium Father”
decided to make the business bigger we
bought new boats and we put two more
laboratories.
With ten slaves in each laboratory things
looked awesome for us. We felt like we
were at the top of the world.

5. But one day our rivals at the other side of the Mississipi, the “Mississipi Papis”
armed their boats and destroyed all our barges and the mercancy they were
transporting.

6. My father took a boat to cross the river and talk to them but their leader was with
him aboard and he didn´t loose the opportunity to kill him.

7. I decided to leave the business, but first I was going to finish them. I always had a
good relation with slaves so I told them to stop working on the opium and come with
me. I armed them and we went on a barge between mercancy so we could have the
surprise factor against them.

8. When we arrived we shoot all the people we saw in their territory. We won that
small war and I know my father was proud wherever he was.

9. Life returned to how it was and we started living in peace with all Mississipi people.
And I worked then only with the barges, transporting things from other people.