Tues - Laura Plantation

Laura was the first plantation we went to today.  It has lots of history that is documented as one of the owners, Laura, wrote her memoirs and they were found in St. Louis.  The stories we heard from the tour guide all came from these writings.

The plantations in this region all grew sugar cane and this is one of the big pots they used to boil down the syrup from the canes.

The colors used on the homes let you know who lived there - the Creoles who spoke French had colorful homes, the Americans who spoke English usually had white or very pale colored homes.

It may be hard to tell from this picture, but plantations all had a narrow river front on the Mississippi but went very deep.  The homes were usually built about a quarter mile from the river and their crops were behind the homes.

Even the interiors of the Creole homes were colorful.  They were used to carry on the business of the plantation and each room had a specific purpose.  Most owners stayed in their homes during the growing and harvesting season, April to December, and then went to New Orleans for three months and partied!

The Laura home had a fire in the 1990's and the back part of it was damaged.  This picture shows not only some of the fire damage but also the way it had been constructed.  Lots of extra work went into the foundation to make it sturdy as there is no rock in this area - it's mostly silt from the river!

Since the plantations had to be self sustaining you could find vegetable gardens, blacksmiths, coopers, etc all on the land.

These posters may be hard to see but they listed all the slaves on the plantation and what their value was - each had different talents and some were more valuable than others.

Again, we learned a lot more about the life and workings of plantations than we can explain right now.  It's amazing what challenges our country and its citizens endured and were influenced by in our short history.