Let’s slow down, we’ve been spending lots of time in the French Quarter and on the go but, today, for a change of pace, we chose a road trip and a visit to two of the many plantations along the Great River Road, up the Mississippi. Both of these plantations are sugar plantations, common to this area after sugar was refined in 1795. Unfortunately, sugar is an extremely difficult crop requiring much hand labor and thus sugar plantation owners frequented the slave auctions often. Some had upwards of 200 slaves, each costing between $300 and $600 which would be $8000 - 16,000 now.
It’s about 50 minutes from where we are so we took off early. Our first stop was the Laura Plantation, which bills itself as a Creole Plantation as opposed to an American plantation which the Creoles considered very low class. In fact, marrying an American was almost verboten. It is significant because it has a great number of complete original structures. The name comes from Laura Locoul who lived from - get this - 1861 - 1963: she was 101 when she died. She wrote a book for her children and grandchildren chronicling the lives of the 5 generations of her family who lived in this house. And, what a group of people they were: wealthy sugar planters, slaveholders, Confederates during the Civil War, Creole society in New Orleans and book writers. Finally, Fats Domino’s parents and family lived here and Alcee’ Fortier collected the Brer Rabbit stories here.
Our tour guide was Brooke who led us through the lower level to show us how it was built. Then through the upper level.
And, finally out to the slave quarters. One of the women who ran the plantation after her husband died was Elizabeth and no one ever accused her of being nice, not even her grandchildren. The law said that the owners had to build homes for their slaves - but no one ever said how many families were to live in each home. Elizabeth thought 2 would be fine. In another instance, one of her slaves ran away and, when caught, she branded him on the forehead.
Brooke also told us that a neighbor snuck over at night and wrote down the storied that the slaves told about a trickster rabbit. This neighbor, Alcee Fortier, compiled these stories, translated them and published them at about the same time that Joel Chandler Harris who heard some of the same stories in Georgia published his stories about Brer Rabbit. Interestingly enough, the Cherokee Native American tribe also has a group of stories featuring a sly, clever rabbit.
When we finished our tour of the Laura Plantation, we drove down the road to Oak Alley, another plantation but much more sumptuous than the Laura Plantation. Actually, this plantation was built as a home for the owners whereas the Laura Plantation was built more as a business office with places to live attached.
Here is Oak Alley from the river. About 300 years ago, someone planted two rows 80’ apart with 28 trees, 14 on each side. Later, around 1837 a wealthy Creole sugar planter, Jacques Roman, built a home here for his bride, centered on ‘Oak Alley.’ In the rear of the house is the Back Alley with trees 150 years old leading down to the slave quarters. Usually, the plantation owner and slaves did not live quite so close together but in this case, they did - because of the tree placement. Again we had a good tour with a guide that knew the history of the house.
However beautiful the house and opulent the life style of the owners, one must always remember that it was built upon slave labor. Slaves were the currency for this lifestyle. Oak Alley has quite a few exhibits about slavery on this plantation. Interestingly, when Jacques’ mother died, he and his sister disagreed about what to do with the slaves. His sister wanted to sell them individually which would break up the families. They did this but then Jacques bought them all which kept the families together. Some owners did this but most did not.
As we were walking through the Back Alley towards the slave quarters, we saw a plaque listing the names, ages and worth of slaves on the Plantation as of the death of Jacques.
The home was beautiful. Here’s a dining room setting. Now, the average height of a Creole man was 5’1” and the table was quite short. But the silverware was large. Look how large this silverware is. And, it was set turned over so that the engraved initial would show as a symbol of wealth.
I liked the fan above the table which a slave kept in constant motion during a meal.
Because windows were usually open in the summer to catch breezes, lots of bugs flew in too. Often a jar was placed on the table with a sweet fluid in it to catch the insects. The owner of the house always covered it so guests didn’t have to see the dead flies.
When I used to visit my grandmother who had a horsehair mattress, I slept in one groove and she slept in the other. Deep grooves. Here in the guest bedroom is a long wooden rolling pin which was used by the slaves to roll the bed flat after someone had slept in it. I should have done that at my grandmother’s.
After the tour we wandered the grounds and down through the slave quarters. These homes are in the place where the original slave homes were but these are all replicas. In each one is an exhibit about slave life in the 1800’s: health, clothing, tasks, sugar cane farming, manacles. My favorite exhibit was this wall listing the names of known slaves as a memorial to them. Mostly slaves were unknown but here they are listed.
But, of course, there was also a manacle display. Here are some children’s manacles.
One of the slaves, Antoine, was a skilled gardener and was given pecan trees to graft. He was extremely successful and grafted 100 trees altogether. The then owner of the plantation, exhibited the pecans from these trees at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition and won the top ‘diploma’ for a new pecan type named ‘Centennial’ in honor of America’s centennial. Shouldn’t it have been named the Antoine?
The family did not have good luck: of the 5 children that they had, two died of yellow fever and a third died of something else. One daughter, Louise was insulted when a suitor who had too much to drink tried to kiss her. As she ran away, she tripped, fell and was cut by the iron frame of her hoop skirt. She developed gangrene, and had to have her leg amputated. Thinking she was now damaged goods and that no one would want to marry her, she joined the Carmelite order of nuns in New Orleans. She is pictured on the left while the other 3 are the silhouettes.
Meanwhile, Jacques died prior to the Civil War and, his wife, who was a terrible spendthrift spent too much, earned too little from the plantation, went bankrupt, let the place go and, in the conditions after the Civil War, had to sell it. It changed hands many times until 1925 when Andrew and Jacqueline Stewart fell in love with the house, bought it and began an extensive program to restore it. When Mrs. Stewart died she willed the home to a non-profit foundation which keeps the property up and gives tours. You can now stay in the B&B, eat in the restaurant and shop in the store here.
As we walked the bike trail on top of the levee, we met a couple biking who told us that steamships used to stop at Oak Alley for tours. We could see the remains of a dock and where there was a cement trail leading up to the bike trail where we were.
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