Plantations

Southern Louisiana has quite a few existing mansions from old plantations. Saved from being burned or destroyed, each for different reasons many are open to the public and here the history is of the families who built the mansions and spent their lives there raising cotton or sugar cane
on their thousands of acres using the free labor of their slaves. Rosedown plantation, the first pictured contains mostly furniture from the original family and there is an excellent tour. Pictured here are the back stairs that the slaves had to use. They have not been restored so one can see the wear on the treads.
Further south are Nottoway and Oak Alley. Each grew sugar cane because it is too humid for cotton. Nottoway is the largest house of all the existing plantation houses. It is used as a bed and breakfast and check out time is before the tours begin. I was the only person on the noon tour and my guide has been a guide since the house opened 31 years ago. She was excellent. At Oak Alley the tour was so-so or maybe I'd seen too many houses but that time but the alley of Live Oaks is spectacular. Planted 100 years before the mansion was built they are not 300 years old. All the houses I saw were different and used differently. Greenwood (not pictured) burned down in 1960 leaving standing
cypress columns around the ruins. A New Orleans lawyer obtained the original plans and rebuilt the house. It is used primarily as a movie set although one can rent the house for weddings or other events. Oakley is the plantation where Audabon tutored a child and drew 21 of his birds. (Remember that he shot to birds first)
The history is interesting and is true but when I was at the houses I thought of all the enslaved people, especially the children who were robbed of an independent life and often sold away from their families.