Finally. The German Coast, where Whitney Plantation is located, was home to 2,797 enslaved workers. Sugarcane was planted in January and February and harvested from mid-October to December. 48. The core zone of sugar production ran along the Mississippi River, between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Between 1880 and 1946, the plantation was owned Pierre Edouard St. Martin, Théophile Perret and later generations of their families. This would change dramatically after the first two ships carrying captive Africans arrived in Louisiana in 1719. Community Rules apply to all content you upload or otherwise submit to this site. The Wall of Honor But those aren't the reasons you should go to see it. Here visitors are exposed to a museum and exhibits sharing the general history of slavery in Louisiana and the United States. This juice was then boiled down in a series of open kettles called the Jamaica Train. 27. *. Peguy, 65 years, African, field hand, sold to Pascal Labarre, $225. Gurine Luta, 36 years, American, carter & ploughman, sold to Felix Garcia, $ 1525. They raised horses, oxen, mules, cows, sheep, swine, and poultry. Wallace, Louisiana Somehow it seemed appropriate over the US Independence Day holiday to make a point of going up the Mississippi River from New Orleans to finally see John Cummings’ Whitney Plantation and what he is calling the “Story of Slavery.”The Plantation had earned a long review some months ago in the New York Times Magazine as a unique, if eccentric, museum built to … 32. 59. 52. In 1712, there were only 10 Africans in all of Louisiana. The Slave Quarters 17. Constructed by the Hayden family prior to 1815, the Big House is said to be one the finest surviving examples of Spanish Creole architecture and one of the earliest raised Creole cottages in Louisiana. This cane was frost-resistant, which made it possible for plantation owners to grow sugarcane in Louisiana’s colder parishes. Anne, 38 years, field hand, sold to A. Degruis, $550. At its height, its enslaved workforce produced up to 407,000 pounds of sugar during a single grinding season. In doing so, it turns the traditional plantation story inside out. 23. The names, Vietnam Memorial style, are very powerful, though oddly some of the quotes alongside them are sometimes repeated on the same slabs, which seems a bit slipshod for something so significant and substantial. They need well-wishers, visitors, and support, because this is a story that needs to be told and must be told, and Cummings is to be saluted for the effort. When you stand in front of the shackles and whips as well as the legal documents that sentenced forty men to death for daring to escape from Whitney only to be beheaded, and when you enter  a courtyard with a series of sculptures depicting this, you want to look away, but you shouldn't. 35. Thousands were smuggled from Africa and the Caribbean through the illegal slave trade. Designed and sculpted by Woodrow Nash, each terracotta figure represents one of the more than 30 formerly enslaved men and women who were interviewed by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s about their experience in Louisina as children. The walking tour at Whitney Plantation, which operates rain or shine, begins at the Antioch Baptist Church. Maybe that's because the slaves are honored there. It's about the lives of the enslaved people who worked in the sugar cane fields, beginning at age five. 42. In 1999, troubled by the way plantations have been romanticized by modern generations, New Orleans-based attorney John Cummings purchased the 1,700-acre property with the intentions of restoring it as a museum dedicated to telling the story of slavery. Andrew King, 36 years, American, field hand, sold to Pascalis Labarre, $11,00. Those who were caught suffered severe punishment such as branding with a hot iron, mutilation, and eventually the death penalty. Most were razed during the 1970s. Helene, 50 years, American, field hand, sold to J.B. Lotorez, $400. The Carriage House In 1822, the larger plantation owners began converting their mills to steam power. At first, it seems to be full of children, but then a visitor sees that they are life-size sculptures representing former slaves. Named after an enslaved blacksmith who served three generations of the Haydels, the plantation’s blacksmith shop was rebuilt in 2005 after the original was destroyed by a hurricane in 1965. Enslaved men typically worked to produce the dye from the plants. For more information visit: https://www.whitneyplantation.com/whitney-plantation-tour/, Article by Ennis Davis, AICP. They built levees to protect dwellings and crops. Because of the harsh nature of plantations – from labor to punishment – enslaved people resisted their captivity by running away. Mental illness did not prevent the sale of Sery, a twenty-five-year-old female described as an “idiot” and sold for $105, the lowest price recorded that day. In addition to enslaved Africans and European indentured servants, early Louisiana’s plantation owners used the labor of Native Americans. Andrew Rolling, 32 years, American, carter & ploughman, sold to Marcelle Bienvenu, $1,275. Marianne, 56 years, Congo, field hand, sold to Etienne Villeré, $300. If you want to go to other grand plantations along the river road, you can. Albert Patterson, age 90, remembers when the plantation was sold twice before the Civil War, the property including the "fine men an' women" working there. The tour, led by a guide from the local area who has made a study of the place, starts in a small wooden church. The sugar districts of Louisiana stand out as the only area in the slaveholding south with a negative birth rate among the enslaved population. The Whitney Plantation recognizes the roots of racism that are tied to the ignorance of slavery, so they are working to end this and educate everyone sufficiently. Azor, 11 years, house servant, sold to Lucien Wells, $725. I was mystified why enough was not enough in impact rather than understanding the need to gild the lily. It actually couldn’t be easier to find, once you have been there. Paul, 51 years, African, distiller, sold to George Haydel, $475. Terence Le Blanc (1774-1857), his father in law, was Judge and ex-officio notary public of the same parish during many decades in the first half of the 19th century. In the batterie, workers stirred the liquid continuously for several hours to stimulate oxidation. Gairie, 20 years, American, carter & ploughman, sold to Drausin Gaudet, $1,450. After 17 years of restoration, owner John Cummings, a former attorney and New Orleans native, opened The Whitney Plantation as a museum in December 2014. A view of the exhibits and grounds are guided and that helps fill in the gaps of the story. Death was common on Louisiana’s sugar plantations due to the harsh nature of the labor, the disease environment, and lack of proper nutrition and medical care. Suzanne, 51 years, Congo, field hand, sold to John Hoover, $350. Lucy, 18 years, Creole, servant, sold to Jose Marti, $925. The acts of sale to be passed at the cost of the purchasers before Felix Grima, Esq., notary public. Little Guim, 50 years, African, sold to Mr. Etienne Villere, f.c.m., $170. Currently, two of the cabins at Whitney today are original to the Haydel property. Documentation from the Sacramental Records of the Archdiocese of New Orleans reveals that the enslaved children were subject to high mortality rates. In 1795, there were 19,926 enslaved Africans and 16,304 free people of color in Louisiana. Little Guim (Jim), a fifty-year-old African, and Marianne, a fifty-six-year-old Congo slave, were probably delivered from the horrors of slavery when they were bought by Etienne Villeré, a free man of color and a possible relative. 37. This is a work in progress. It might change the way you look at things. © 2020 Advance Local Media LLC. 53. This would change dramatically after the first two ships carrying captive Africans arrived in Louisiana in 1719. In this early period, European indentured servants submitted to 36-month contracts did most of the work clearing land and laboring on small-scale plantations. The museum is now open. We're still not sure how to deal with it, or to have a national conversation about it or even how to teach it in our public schools. Corine, 16 years, Creole, servant, sold to Samuel Mac Cutchon fils, $950. Charles, 32 years, American, carter & ploughman, sold to Marcelle Bienvenu, $1,375. These sales were officially recorded before Felix Grima on June 27, 1840. The long marble slabs get short shrift on the tour, because there are simply too many names, meaning too many slaves, but that’s the point after all. *Between 1823 and 1863, 39 children died at this plantation. François, 65 years, African, has an hernia, sold to Pascalis Labarre, $225. This invention used vacuum pans rather than open kettles. Click here for visitation and safety guidelines. The plantation museum, founded by John Cummings, an attorney from New Orleans, was opened to the public in 2014. Click here for visitation and safety guidelines. 57. Click here for visitation and safety guidelines. Enslaved workers had to time this process carefully, because over-fermenting the leaves would ruin the product. Marie Jeanne, 18 years, Creole, servant, sold to Douradon Bringier, $700. Known as America’s first slavery museum, the Whitney Plantation dates back to 1752, when German immigrant Ambroise Heidel acquired the land, earning great wealth in the cultivation of indigo. The historic structure was donated to Whitney when the congregation constructed a new chapel in 1999. 21. Under French rule (1699-1763), the German Coast became the main supplier of food to New Orleans. 5. Just before the Civil War in 1860, there were 331,726 enslaved people and 18,647 free people of color in Louisiana. 36. The twenty-three slaves he purchased were also acquired in the name of Achille Lorio, his partner and co-owner of a plantation located in St. Charles parish. Guimilas, 32 years, American, carter & ploughman, sold to Philip Young, $1,025. All rights reserved (About Us). Lanaux, $325. Field hands cut the cane and loaded it into carts which were driven to the sugar mill. Located 46 miles west of New Orleans, Whitney Plantation is a museum and historic district that is devoted to sharing the un-sugarcoated story of slavery. In addition, it is one of the very few historic American houses known to have received decorative wall paintings on both its exterior and its interior. The Kitchen Guilbert, years, American, carter & ploughman, sold to Felix Garcia, $1,175. The Haydel slaves exposed and sold by auctioneer Joseph Le Carpentier comprised a majority of young males and females, with eight infants and many elderly people, twelve of them born in Africa, and affected by ailments such as asthma, hernia, and the piles.

Reba Cast Now, Isle Of Wight County Death Records, Fff France, Have You Started Yet Meaning, Kaytranada Igloofest, National Post, Why Don't We Hooked Roblox Id,