In what location does the novel, James, open?

Hannibal is the town in Missouri where Jim and Huck live at the start of the novel. This place defines their sense of home, although both Jim and Huck live unsettled lives in this location. The two characters ultimately flee Hannibal when Jim realizes his white overseers want to sell him and when Huck fakes his own death to escape his violent father. They realize that they cannot stay in Hannibal thereafter, because the townspeople have associated Huck's murder with Jim's disappearance.