Whitney Plantation
Whitney Plantation Museum is the only museum in Louisiana with an exclusive focus on the lives of enslaved people. During your visit, you will learn about the history of slavery on a southern Louisiana sugarcane plantation by visiting memorials built to honor enslaved people; as well as original slave cabins, a freedmen’s church, detached kitchen, and a 1790 owner’s house.[1]
The museum is situated on a section of Louisiana’s serpentine river road, known as ‘Plantation Alley.’ The restored antebellum mansions along this route draw hundreds of thousands of visitors a year. This newest attraction gives visitors a realistic insight into life in the antebellum South. Built largely in secret under decidedly unorthodox circumstances, the Whitney Plantation was turned into a museum dedicated to telling the story of slavery, upon land where slaves worked for more than a century. It is the first of its kind in the US.[2]
"Plantation tours are almost equally ubiquitous. At most properties, the visitor experience includes a guided exploration of the plantation home and grounds led by a living historian clad in period garb."[3]
History
Whitney Plantation opened to the public as a museum on December 7, 2014. The plantation’s restoration was funded by the museum’s founder, John Cummings. A trial attorney from New Orleans, Mr. Cummings owned and operated the property for 20 years, from 1999 – 2019. He restored the plantation over a period of 15 years before opening it to the public.
In 2019, John Cummings donated the museum, which is now a 501(c)(3) governed by a board of directors. In its first five years, the museum has welcomed over 375,000 visitors from all over the world.
Today, Whitney Plantation educates the public about the history of slavery and its legacies.[4]
Collection
This collection below is to learn more about the enslaved people who worked the sugar, rice and indigo fields here, as well as the plantation’s owners who grew wealthy off their labor.
Slavery
In this section the museum tells about all the things about slavery. They are the kind of plantation (indigo, sugar cane), enslaved workers, trade slavery, auction of slave and many more.
Louisiana Slave Trade :
The slaves imported in Louisiana were mostly shipped from the harbors of three major regions of the coast of Africa: Senegambia, the Bight of Benin, and West-Central Africa. The majority of the slave force came from Senegambia throughout the Colonial period.
Skills and Pricing :
The price of each enslaved person was determined by many factors such as age, gender, health, personal behavior, and skills. The grown individuals, aged between sixteen and thirty-five years and belonging to the same gender, were generally more expensive than younger and older people. But within the same age range, women were generally less priced. Illness or being a maroon lessened notably the value of a slave. Alexandre, of the Bambara nation, was a carpenter, a barrel maker (cooper), and a good domestic. He was only thirty years old but was estimated at fifty piastres because he was sickly. Manuel, a twenty-three year old Creole, was described as voleur et maronneur (a thief and a maroon) and priced 400 piastres. Most of the workforce on the plantation was composed of field hands, some of them also referred to as bons domestiques (good servants) or habiles à la garde des troupeaux (good herdsmen). The two sugar makers (sucriers) both belonged to the Bambara nation of West Africa: Alexis, fifty years old, estimated 250 piastres; and Barnabe, thirty years old, estimated 1,000 piastres. The latter was also a scieur de long (sawyer), and a good house Negro. François, a fifty-year-old “griffon” (Afro-Indian), was estimated 900 piastres despite his age. Besides being a good domestic and a carpenter, he was more importantly a tonnelier (cooper), a trade much needed in a refinery for the production of the sugar containers called boucauts (hogsheads). Skills made the difference between two individuals of the same age and gender, and without any defaults.
Plantation Ownership
In this section the museum tells the history of Plantation ownership and the list of the owner
Up to 1752: Widow Bernard Vickner.
- 1752-1770: Ambroise Haydel.
- 1770-1774: Widow Ambroise Haydel and children.
- 1774-1776: Louis Girard Pellerin then Antoine Albert.
- 1776-1820: Jean Jacques Haydel Sr.
- 1820-1839: Jean Jacques Haydel Jr. and Marcellin Haydel.
- 1840-1860: Marie Azélie Haydel.
- 1860-1867: Succession Marie Azélie Haydel.
- 1867-1880: Bradish Johnson
- 1880-1909: Pierre Edouard St. Martin and Théophile Perret.
- 1909-1928: St. Martin and Perret’s heirs.
- 1928-1946: Mathilde Louise Perret and George Henri Tassin.
- 1946-1990: Alfred Mason Barnes of New Orleans.
- 1990-1999: Formosa Chemicals and Fiber Corporation.
- 1999-2019: John Cummings
- 2019 – present: The Whitney Institute, 501(c)(3)