Enslaved Africans who worked as cooks on plantations had access to food supplies that aided runaways, and the cypress swamps of Louisiana became a magnet for runaways and free blacks. A common bond developed between African runaways and Native American tribes, and together they resisted capture, plotted, helped one another escape, and intermarried. They developed shared knowledge of medicine, geography, agriculture, and technology. Africans brought to America were forced to use plants and herbs available in the regions where they lived; many knew plants brought from Africa, but Native Americans taught them about the unfamiliar environment. The wilderness vegetation and seeds sown by many provided sustenance for freedom seekers of the Louisiana Underground Railroad. A creole song, Bas de Flueve, says that these free people of the swamp gathered berries, dwarf palmettos roots, and sassafras and went to New Orleans to trade.