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BRIEF HISTORY

The Beginnings of LA Plantations
Plantation agriculture in Louisiana dates to the early 1700s when the territory was a French colony. After abortive attempts to populate the colony by emptying France's prisons and slums into Louisiana, large tracts were offered to men who would bring in tenants to work the land. But only those who were able to get enough slaves succeeded. By the end of the 1790s, the invention of the cotton gin and the discovery of a way to granulate sugar from Louisiana's sugar cane firmly established the system of cultivating a single crop on large estates as a means to riches and power.

Pre-Civil War Period
At the end of the 1830s, cotton was the big cash crop in northern Louisiana, with more than 2 million acres in production. In southern Louisiana's rich, black soil along the banks of bayous and the Mississippi River, cane ruled over 250,000 acres. By the Civil War, Louisiana had about 1,600 plantations large enough to have at least 50 slaves working on each. These plantations covered more than 40 percent of the land fit for farming. Plantations represented a sizable investment and an equally sizable return. In the 1850s, for example, sugar cane fields were worth as much as $100 an acre, while swamp land on the same estate was valued at $10 an acre. A sugar plantation might easily represent an investment of more than $200,000, including slaves and equipment. But the rate of return was a handsome 9 percent. The investment in a cotton plantation was cheaper because less skilled labor and fewer special tools were needed. A 1,500-acre cotton plantation would represent a total investment of about $100,000, and yield a 7 percent profit.

The Planters' Lifestyle
Except for the Reconstruction years, planters, along with other powerful allies, dominated political life from statehood in 1812 until the early 20th century. With princely power and wealth came the big houses with the stately columns that are a symbol of the Old South. Most of them were built in the 10 years before the Civil War. Early colonial plantations owed their style to the West Indies: simple columns supporting broad galleries ringed with huge windows to allow air to circulate during the semi-tropical summers. But as the 19th century wore on and Louisiana's lords of the land cast about for a suitable style, they settled on the monumental architecture of Greek Revival. It was the fashion of the day for federal buildings, state capitols and parish courthouses, the temples of the American democracy that allowed planters and other self-made men to get rich. "It fitted his conception of democracy that a successful man's house should resemble the Parthenon or, at least the state capitol," architect J. Frazer Smith wrote in "White Pillars," his book on plantation homes.

References
--New Orlean Visitor's Guide: http://www.nola.com/tourism/to_do/plantations.html

LINKS
-- LA Archives Index Of African American Genealogy: General Louisianna African-American genealogy and slave records
-- LA Genweb: General Louisanna genealogical information.

WHERE TO FIND LOUISIANA SLAVERY RECORDS

• Smith, Edith and Lehman, Vivian. No Land...Only Slaves! Several volumes; slave deeds of Bossier Pa., Claiborne Pa., Caddo Pa., DeSoto Pa., and Bienville Pa. For more information about this book series visit http://slaves.8m.com/