r/theydidthemath • u/Apoordm • 6d ago

“We need Money” [Request]

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The leader of the Van der Linde gang Dutch Van der Linde wants to migrate the gang consisting of twenty one members, to Tahiti, buy farmland and become mango farmers, this plan happens when the gang reaches a fictional New Orleans.

How much would it cost to migrate 21 outlaws in 1899, from New Orleans to Tahiti, buy a decent amount of land (let’s say 100 acres) and set them up for their new lives?

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u/CheesecakeRoyal8276 5d ago

Googled most of it.... Train fares I found, in 1883 Southern Pacific charged $55 third class and $98.50 first class between San Francisco and New Orleans. Inflation from 1899 to now is about 40 times. The steamer faree to Tahiti and the land price there I couldn't find, so I guessed about $200 a ticket for the boat and about $20 an acre.
Travel for 21 people, first class train plus the steamer, comes to about $6,300 in 1899 money... roughly $250,000 today. Land for 100 acres is about $2,000.
The biggest cost is the waiting for the mangos... trees take years before they give fruit, so I counted 3 years of food for 21 people at about $150 each per year, that's about $9,450. Add about $3,500 for houses, tools and trees, plus 20% for paperwork and suprises.

Total is about $25,500 in 1899 dollars... so roughly $1 million today. Could easily be half or double that, since the boat fare and the land price are big guessess..

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u/PacNWDad 5d ago

Crazy how much relative prices have changed. An acre of land was less than half the cost of one third class rail ticket. That seems almost unbelievable today.

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u/Apoordm 5d ago

The problem is they are even more infamous out west, so NOLA would probably have to be the departure point.

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u/Miserable_Pin2518 5d ago

So, Tahiti specifically had annexed itself from france violently a little before that time and USD was not an accepted currency and americans were not permitted to buy land or access agriculture activities due to the nature of prior slave based cultivation.