A Haunted History of Louisiana Plantations

by Cheryl H. White PhD, W. Ryan Smith MA

Overview

Beyond the façade of stately Louisiana platations are stories of hope and subjugation, tragedy and suffering, shame and perseverance and war and conquest.

After sixteen workers chopped down most of the Houmas House's ancient oak trees, referred to as "the Gentlemen," eight of the surviving trees eerily twisted overnight in grief over the losses wrought by a great Mississippi River flood. An illegal duel to reclaim lost honor left the grounds of Natchez's Cherokee Plantation bloodstained, but the victim's spirit may still wander there today. A mutilated slave girl named Chloe still haunts the halls of the Myrtles Plantation in St. Francisville. Cheryl H. White and W. Ryan Smith reveal the dark history, folklore and lasting human cost of Louisiana plantation life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781626198753
Publisher:	Arcadia Publishing SC
Publication date:	09/25/2017
Series:	Haunted America
Pages:	128
Sales rank:	621,050
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

William Ryan Smith holds a master of arts degree in heritage resources from Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Louisiana, and works in healthcare administration. He makes his home in Shreveport with his wife, Leslie, and three sons, William, Jack and Colin. This is his first work with The History Press.

Cheryl H. White is an associate professor of history at Louisiana State University at Shreveport, where she teaches medieval and early modern European history. She also has a great interest in the local and regional history of her home state. She has authored four other titles with The History Press and has written or edited several other historical works for other academic presses and journals.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

"In Houses Which Are Old"

A PRIMER TO THE LOUISIANA BIG HOUSE

In houses which are old — the forms of whose very walls and pillars have taken body from the thoughts of men in a vanished time — we often sense something far more delicate, more unwordable, than the customary devices of the romanticist: the swish of a silken invisible dress on stairs once dustless, the fragrance of an unseen blossom of other years, the wraith momentarily given form in a begrimed mirror. These wordless perceptions can be due only, it seems, to something still retained in these walls; something crystalized from the energy of human emotion and the activities of human nerves. — Clarence John Laughlin, author, Ghosts Along the Mississippi

The landscape of Louisiana today is dotted with visible reminders of a long-lost age, particularly in those areas along the old arterial rivers of the state. The age of the great plantation echoes across more than a lifetime of separation, with profound cultural and historical impacts that once wrought the state's identity from the primitive colonial past and continue to shape its character today. The fabled antebellum period throughout the Deep South was home to an economic system that would quickly pass into the pages of history, but not without leaving behind a rich and intriguing narrative.

After the Civil War, the plantation estate remained for a time — evolving, flexing, straining but not breaking until it was at last vanquished by mechanized farming through the slow and strangling death of the last great holdouts to the Industrial Revolution. That resulting heritage, this residue of the agrarian country estates, the enslaved families, those peeling façades and crumbling pillars contain a shared memory that perpetuates still. The plantation encounter today is framed within the context of a distinctively original folklore — occasionally light and interesting, often mysterious and dark but universally compelling. There is in them something at once horrific and grand, something both pure and irreverent, both stately and remote, something uniquely Louisianan.

It is through that colorful lens of haunted folklore that this work seeks to tell some familiar history in a new way. Scattered throughout the plantation chronicles of Louisiana are tales of ghosts said to haunt stately mansions, evidence of lively superstitions of both slave and free populations. There are vestiges of fascinating social reactions indicative of a bygone era, all of which frame a way of life that breathed its last as the cacophony of the petroleum-powered farm-all tore open the alluvium in neatly furrowed lanes. Certainly, there are many footprints through time that shape this particularly unique journey of Louisiana history, most of which are rooted in the very land itself, with both ancient and contemporary cultural influences.

Long before the Europeans set eyes on Louisiana, the vast wilderness of marshy swamps and bayous throughout the south and deep timber forests of the north was home to Paleo-Amerindians. The now-identified major tribes of the Caddo, Tunica, Natchez, Atakapa, Choctaw, Houma and Natchez settled the region millennia before Sieur de La Salle claimed all the lands drained by the great Mississippi River in the name of French King Louis XIV in 1682. There can be no question that their culture, even in assimilation with that of new peoples, would leave an imprint on the future. Throughout much of the French colonial period in Louisiana, the native population far outnumbered the European expatrié. Yet with inevitable conquest and colonization, the unique civilizations of these ancient people were threatened to near-extinction. Soon enough, the arrival of the French, Spanish and African peoples would gradually but dramatically transform the subsistence farming and nomadic lifestyles and small-scale farming of the natives into a much larger and commercially successful agricultural economy.

Colonial authorities issued grants of large sections of land in Louisiana (concessions) to people of already distinguished wealth and influence. These earliest Europeans would produce a distinct class known as Creoles — those born in Louisiana of either French or Spanish descent — while intermarriage with Africans would beget the Creoles of Color. Many people settling in the new territory of Louisiana received smaller plots of land known as habitations, usually only a few acres, which were gradually consolidated by agreement into larger farms. With the passage of time and influence of new technologies, both of these kinds of land grants resulted in the development of what would become a plantation system, distinguished from farms primarily by sheer acreage and gross crop production. These were truly for-profit enterprises. While many people believe that such plantations were always characterized by large stately mansions surrounded by thousands of acres of rich land, this is not really an accurate depiction of the typical planter's built environment. Most dwellings were not as grand as popular culture has portrayed them to be, but of those that were, the surviving ones are nothing short of wonders. These houses form the crux of the "mystifying landscape" of planter society. Louisiana is fortunate to have many diverse examples.

Under these conditions, the migration patterns of Europeans to Louisiana merged with an existing native culture and then was further augmented by the arrival of the Africans. Because Louisiana was first a French colony, then Spanish, then French again, due to the complexities of war and treaty transfers, the territory was unique from most of the remainder of what would become the United States in at least one significant way. With the exception of a brief occupation of a few southeastern parishes, Louisiana was never a wholly British colony. This meant that the cultural mix of Louisiana was destined to be different from surrounding states and even the remainder of the emerging nation.

In addition, Louisiana's geography and topography was marvelously original. Being home to some of the most extensive wetlands in the United States means that large portions of the state are marshy, if not completely under water. As the drainage basin of the fourth largest river in the world, the Mississippi delta region features a complex network of rivers and bayous that originally were not only water sources for the populations of both natives and settlers but also major highways of transportation in a thick wilderness. All of this contributes to an emerging cultural composite that would distinctly frame Louisiana's history. There is perhaps no greater living expression of this uniqueness than the Louisiana plantation landscape.

After meager successes in tobacco and indigo, the first major cash crop of Louisiana was sugar cane, although this did not become particularly profitable or widespread until the early nineteenth century. Trial and error mostly characterized Louisiana's earliest efforts to produce sugar beginning in the 1750s, in a desperate attempt to match the ever-rising European demand for the tropical crop. As Caribbean natives began to come to Louisiana, they brought a new variety of sugar, and while more suited to the climate, it was also not successful on a large scale. Not until the early 1800s did Louisiana begin to consistently produce sugar, and once news of the crop's success began to spread, more and more lands throughout the southern regions of the state were converted to its production. On the eve of the Civil War, Louisiana was producing approximately half of the sugar that was consumed in the United States. Today, some of the old sugar cane plantations of Louisiana are storied and stable reminders of the still important place that agricultural production plays, even in a now global market.

By the second quarter of the nineteenth century, cotton had become another significant cash crop grown in a large plantation setting. Again, it required agricultural innovation to make this possible. In the case of cotton, it was Eli Whitney's 1793 invention of the cotton gin (short for engine) that was responsible for a farming revolution. By the time the Civil War broke out in 1861, Louisiana was producing approximately one-sixth of the nation's cotton and was responsible for the largest share of cotton exported to Europe. Unlike sugar, which tended to be exclusively a large-scale plantation crop, many smaller farms in Louisiana also grew cotton, with fewer resources and laborers.

Centrally important to supporting a plantation economy was, of course, the harsh reality of slave labor. Sugar and cotton were both labor-intensive crops until later improvements in machine agricultural technology came along in the twentieth century. This meant that large numbers of laborers were necessary in the plantation system, most of whom were provided by African slaves, often imported by way of the Caribbean and major ports in the southern United States. The selfsufficiency of major plantations, along with their relative isolation from one another, meant that they became communities unto themselves with local customs and traditions based on a shared institutional history. The lore associated with these communities originates within just such a context; it is the isolation of a local culture that finds expression in the tales that have been handed down.

The scope of an undertaking such as this is necessarily limited by the fact that Louisiana has preserved a great deal of its plantation history. Many of the state's original plantation homes and some associated structures still exist. In a few rarer and more remote examples, entire plantation cultural landscapes remain largely intact. Poverty, rather than wealth, is historic preservation's first friend. In total, those places that have been designated National Historic Landmarks or placed in the National Register of Historic Places number well over one hundred, and that is a fraction of what once existed. Some of these buildings are deteriorating despite efforts to save them, and their landscapes are being swallowed up once more — either by nature reclaiming its own or by suburban sprawl or industrial production. Not all of the survivors are open to the public. The focus of this work is, therefore, directed at admittedly a mere handful of plantations but features those with remarkably resilient folklore that helps tell the history of not only the place but also, importantly, the lives of the people who once lived there. How we interpret these relic landscapes are reflections on how we view ourselves as Louisianans.

There are yet other avenues of exploration available. Anyone intrigued by Louisiana history knows that no surviving plantation is complete without at least one ghost story. This makes for a compelling incentive for tourism, but such stories are also a product of a culture that once perpetuated superstition. Visitors today flock to these places not just to admire the architecture or grand sweeping environs of antebellum homes but also to encounter the past through the lens of the paranormal. In Vacherie, the iconic Oak Alley Plantation is purportedly home to at least four ghosts: that of Jacques Roman, whose family built the home in the 1830s; his wife, Marie; and daughters Josephine and Marie, as well as former slaves. Reports of ghostly apparitions persist, drawing thousands of visitors each year but providing a unique lens through which to focus and retell the incredible history of one of Louisiana's oldest surviving sugar plantations.

Much the same can be said of Houmas House, Nottaway, Edgewood and San Francisco Plantations, to name just a few within the scope of this book. Others, such as Melrose Plantation nestled along the Cane River near Natchitoches, feature histories that truly set them apart in rather unusual ways. Melrose was built by and for free people of color, which would be remarkable enough, but it was also home to famed twentieth-century folk artist Clementine Hunter. It is not hard to imagine that Melrose would produce a compelling lore all its own, including the fortune that spared Melrose from the fires of the Union army that destroyed many other Natchitoches-area homes and structures.

The traditional stories produced within communities are at the heart of folklore. This differs from the discipline of history, chiefly because folklore both derives and departs from the written record. A critical characteristic of folklore demands that it be passed down from generation to generation through oral tradition, and the stories explored herein rise to that challenge.

CHAPTER 2

The Gentlemen by the River

HOUMAS HOUSE

In the present time, what once was has a mystical quality. Here, under the shade of massive oaks draped in lichen and laced in memories, there are sprawling and fragrant gardens. The stories about the big house they shelter and beautify are fascinating and indicative of unexpected allure in the shadow of the altogether obvious grandeur. In the Louisiana moonlight, the trees themselves are illuminated as specters of an era that has long since passed away. Indeed, there once were many more, but those that remain hold fast to the mystical legends of Houmas House. It is said that one of the plantation's owners named the oaks "The Gentlemen." Throughout the years, they have been known to personify human emotions over events affecting the place and its history. Here, there is a connection between flora and southern heritage strong enough to make a Natchez magnolia blush. There are intriguing tales to summon from the pages of documented history, but let the traveler begin with what the senses can readily assess.

William Howard Russell, an English journalist who visited Houmas House in 1860 while reporting for the London Times, summarizes almost exactly the first impression any traveler might have today:

An avenue lined with trees and branches close set, drooping and overarching a walk paved with red brick, led to the house, the porch of which was visible at the extremity of the lawn with clustering flowers, rose, jessamine, and creepers clinging to the pillars, supporting the verandah. The view from the belvedere on the roof was one of the most striking of its kind in the world.

The impressive grounds not only feature the Classical Revival mansion known today as Houmas House but also boast an original small house from the late eighteenth century, as well as the strikingly interesting garçonnières that reflect the French colonial desire for separate housing of young men of the family once they reached adolescence. While Russell's account appeared in print before the plantation became graced with the many specters that roam its halls today, his description is nevertheless just as relevant. The view from Houmas House looking toward the Mississippi River remains, as Russell noted, "one of the most striking of its kind in the world." The witness of the moss-draped trees extends far into the past, before the arrival of European settlers to Louisiana, long before there were sugar cane plantations lining the Mississippi River and before the land would have recognized anything but the now-foreign language of a native tongue. The structures built by sugar barons only anchor the ground that once belonged to the Houmas Indians, and it is with them that the history of Louisiana's noted "sugar palace" truly begins.

The Houmas tribe first began to settle the area in the late seventeenth century, and French explorer LaSalle mentions them in his 1682 journal log. By 1699, their presence was also noted by Sieur de Bienville. Their settlement was expansive along the river, as ongoing archaeological discoveries attest. Hostilities between the French and the English that rocked the continent of Europe inevitably spilled over into the New World and drove the Houmas farther south into modern-day Louisiana. In 1774, the Houmas chieftain Colabee sold a plot of land near the riverbank to investors Alexandre Latil, originally of Paris, France, and Maurice Conway, who was born in Limerick, Ireland, and was a nephew of Alexandro O'Reilly. The sale deed records that the men received the land from the Houmas in exchange for goods worth $150, including copper pots, weapons, sugar and mirrors. Latil is credited with building the first structure on the property, a simple four-room house that came to be known simply as the "French House," and then sold his interests to Conway the following year. It appears that the Houmas remained in the area for at least another decade, by which time further European expansion was underway.

With the turn of the nineteenth century, the explosion of sugar cane as a viable crop transformed the lands and its culture. From that point forward, the history of Houmas House is steeped in the intrigue and political saga of Louisiana's richest sugar barons. Legal battles and property disputes dominate the narrative of the early owners, a testimony to the high stakes of the industry and the wealth it produced.

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "A Haunted History of Louisiana Plantations"
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Copyright © 2017 Cheryl H. White and W. Ryan Smith.
Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
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Table of Contents

Acknowledgements 5

1 "In Houses Which Are Old": A Primer to the Louisiana Big House 7

2 The Gentlemen by the River: Houmas House 13

3 Of Rebellion and Restitution: Destrehan Plantation 24

4 The Arms of Centuries: Oak Alley Plantation 36

5 White Castles and Black Labor: Nottoway Plantation 46

6 One Duel, Many Deaths: Cherokee Plantation 55

7 Through Sword and Cinder: Magnolia Plantation 65

8 Painted Defiance: San Francisco Plantation 77

9 Iron Lace and Sullen Wraiths: The Myrtles Plantation 89

10 Slave to Master: Melrose Plantation 97

11 Réflexion: Contemporary Interpretations of Beguiling Landscapes 110

Notes 115

Bibliography 123

About the Authors 127