Today we toured two old and beautiful plantations, The Laura and Oak Alley. The Laura Plantation was originally the Duparc Plantation. Guillaume Duparc, a French Navel veteran of the American Revolution, acquired the property in 1804. At its largest the plantation was 12,000 acres and produced sugar cane. It is surprising that even today, sugar cane is a major crop in southeast Louisiana. It was prime real estate for the area as it was located on high, cleared ground. As all plantations were, it fronted the Mississippi. At one point over 100 plantations existed on the river between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. The map below shows every plantation from Baton Rouge and New Orleans at one time. The white area in the lower middle is the Laura Plantation.
View of the Laura Plantation. The interesting thing is that the main house is painted in a colorful sort of pattern. This was uncommon for houses of the era but popular among the Creole residents. Most non-Creole buildings were painted white. The term Creole has a few meanings and it has changed since the early 1800's. Back when Guillaume Duparc received the land, the term "Creole" referred to "a white descendant of French settlers in Louisiana and other parts of the southern US." Today, Creole is defined more as "a person of mixed European and Black descent, especially in the Caribbean."
Construction on the house started in 1804 and was finished 11 months later. The work was done by highly skilled slaves, most likely from Senegal. Its construction is typical for the era and uses local cypress for the superstructure and red fired brick for walls. The beams of the house were made near the river, numbered and then moved to the building site where they were joined with pegs. It took a craftsman about 30 minutes to make one joint in the beams.
Example of the joinery. You can see the red brick walls of the basement, also the storage area.
Below you can see the original beam markings. In effect it was assembled as a kit. There are 30 of these beam that the house is built on.
Life sized statues of Guillaume Duparc and his wife, Anne 'Nanette' Prud'Homme, who came from the old Louisiana Prud'Homme family. Nanette took over the plantation operation 1808 after her husband, Guillaume died. Nanette was very French and very Catholic. Creole is the non-Anglo-Saxon culture and lifestyle that flourished in Louisiana before it was sold to the United States in 1803 and that continued to dominate South Louisiana until the early decades of the 20th century. Until then, native birth in Louisiana, the French language and Roman Catholicism were the benchmarks for identity in this Latin-based society that included people of white, black and mixed-race ancestry. In essence, Creole identity was in opposition to American, English-speaking, Protestant identity. Nanette was determined to raise her children as Creole.
You can not discuss or talk about the plantations without talking about the slaves that did all the work. Originally, the plantation started with 17 slaves, most likely from West Africa, Senegal and that area. As the plantation became more successful, hundreds of slaves lived, died, were born or bought and sold until1860. It is on the backs of these men, women and children that plantation owners became wealthy.
This is an example of the slave quarters used on plantations. it is a simple structure that housed two families whether the family was two or ten. Cooking was done outside. The cabin is about 20 feet by 40 feet. Any furniture, cookware, dishes, etc, were cast offs from the plantation owners household. Sugar plantations were the absolute worst to be a slave at. Sugar cane is a difficult plant to grow and processing it is hard. Other crops tended by slaves, once harvested, would be sent to others for processing. Sugar Cane was not only planted, tended and harvested by slaves but also processed. The processing was hard, dangerous and miserable work. It was not unusual for slaves to work 18 hour days during the harvesting/processing of the cane. Once pressed, the liquid were boiled in large vats to turn it into sugar. In early summer the cane fields are prepared, by hand. Late summer or early autumn the cane is planted. In the spring the harvesting of the cane is taking place. It was miserable, hard back breaking labor. It is estimated that a plantation that had 100 slaves, and used them to grow, harvest and process the cane would kill them all within 19 years. This would require the constant resupply of slaves to be on going. The vast majority of the slaves would die in anonymity with their lives and stories being lost to the world.
Inventory and valuation of the plantation slaves on the death of G. Duparc. This was necessary to pass the property to Nanette Duparc. Slaves were valued by the type of work they were trained to do. The lowest were the field slaves who were the laborers. Skills like masons, gardeners, drivers all were valued according to the demand for them.
Contrast the difference between the slaves living conditions with the owners living conditions. It is light-years apart.
So why is it known as the Laura Plantation? Laura was the granddaughter of Nanette, the original owner. Nanette had three children that survived the harsh conditions of this part of the country, a daughter and two sons. Times were changing, with the sale of Louisiana to America, the Creole culture and way of life were at odds with the American Anglo-Saxon way of life. Nanette ran the plantation business with a heavy and profitable hand. She "retired" in 1829 and gave control to here three children in a formal document of incorporation. Elisabeth outlived here two brothers and ran the family business for 47 years and guided the plantation through the Civil War and the reconstruction period that followed but divided the plantation between her two children, Emile and Aimee in the 1870's. Aimee's children eventually returned to France where her descendants still live today. Emile would re-baptize the plantation in honor of his daughter, Laura. Laura did not like the old Creole way of life and adopted more and more of the Anglo-Saxon customs. She despised the use of human beings as chattel, and as a result married a businessman from St. Louis. in 1891 and decided to move to St. Louis. She sold the plantation in 1892 but as part of the sale, the plantation was to forever be called "Laura." She raised one son and two daughters. After the death of her only grandson, who had no children of his own, there were no more surviving members of Laura's family.
The family lineage of the Laura Plantation. Laura, died in 1963.
It was then on to the Oak Alley Plantation. While not a large in size as the Laura Plantation it more than makes up for it in splendor
The stately oaks from which Oak Alley gets its name. The plantation operated as a sugar plantation and latter as a cattle ranch. It is designated as a National Historic Landmark due to its architecture, landscaping and its development of the pecan nut as we know it today. In 1836 the owner, Valcour Aimee, exchanged this property with his brother-in-law, Jacques Roman, for another plantation owned by Roman. The mansion was constructed by the slaves that Roman had and was completed in 1839. Unfortunately, due to the valuable original furnishings on the inside and the number of visitors, we were not allowed to take pictures inside the mansion.
Thanks to the Oak Alley Foundation, this site is preserved and the story of the people, both enslaved and free is being researched, preserved and told.
This event that resulted in a mass market for the pecan today, took place here in 1846. It was due to a talented slave who was trained and worked as a gardener.
In 1876 the new pecan, now called the Centennial Variety, was entered in the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia where it won an award. The trees are now found throughout the southern states and is a staple in southern cooking. It was at one time a considerable cash crop for Southern Louisiana. Although Antoine's original trees were cleared for more sugar cane fields after the Civil War, a commercial grove had been planted at nearby Nita Plantation. Unfortunately, the Nita Crevasse (river break) of 1890 washed away Nita Plantation and all remains of the original Centennial pecans.
One of the interesting things about this plantation is its commitment to try and recognize the slaves as individuals. Throughout the plantation, exhibits are established that try and show the history of individual people that were enslaved and who worked on the plantations.
Located in one of the restored slaves quarters, is this wall with the names of the slaves who worked on this plantation. Not much is known about most of these individuals, their stories lost to history.
Displays such as this one attempts to show you more about the person that labored on the plantation. Information on the enslaved individuals is hard to come by. On the plantation grounds an exhibit exists that allows you to pick a name and on the screen, the information uncovered through the study of different documents that exist in dusty government offices both here and in France, attempt to humanize that person. Such things as names of children, the children's father, where the person came from are presented in order to bring that person to life.
This is a beautiful area in which so many people suffered for the wealth of a few. The role that societal norms play is strange. On one hand you have the Latin influence of the French, women were able to hold, buy and sell property. The laws of inheritance were familial and the role of the Catholic Church is immense. On the other hand, the Anglo-Saxon influence after the the Louisiana Purchase resulted in the loss of the ability to buy, sell and hold property by women, the Church had little role and inheritance laws were much more relaxed. It was a time of change in an area that changes very little over time. It is nice to see that the history and impact of all peoples in this area are now being looked at. The Big Muddy has seen it all and will continue to quietly, most of the time, slip past on the way to the Gulf.
Tomorrow, Susan takes her sea plane ride over the Delta and we visit New Orleans City Park for Cafe Du Monde beignets!
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