Side of the river. This structure was donated to us about 10 years ago by the descendants of the original founders of that congregation. They bought the land in 1870 two parcels of land with the express purpose of building a house of worship. And in the sale document which we have from the courthouse, they named their structure they named their congregation the antiyokut baptist congregation, and that message of being against the yoke, or against slavery, is something that is important for our story here. And this is a Significant Church for newly freed slaves on the east bank of the river, and so it is really important here in talking about the lives of people who socked freedom after the end of the civil war. We like to start our tour of the whitney plantation here, where we can kind of the what happens to people, some of the things they care about after freedom came. The whitney plantation is the only to show in that is all of these things help us tell we had to build things here and bring in support structures. All of these things help us tell the story of slavery. When John Cummings bought the property, there were no original slave cabins. They had all been torn down. We had to move those in from elsewhere in louisiana. [indiscernible] we had other buildings that were here at one time and were rebuilt. At the whitney plantation, we have a collection of statues created by an ohio artist. Put together these two represent people who were enslaved at the end of slavery, and then later gave the testimony to the administration in the 1930s. We use the narrative of slaves taken in the 1930s throughout our interpretation on this site. These are to kind of give life to who those people were. The 1930s they traveled across the south taking the narratives of formerly enslaved people, they were talking to people who were in their 80s, 90s, or even their 100s, and when they were enslaved, they were just children. At their highest and, 0 end maybe 15. This is to remind us where those people came from. These are the experiences of slavery and things that happened to their parents and grandparents. It was founded by a german immigrant who came in the company of john law with his family. They sailed from a port in france and came here. In 1752, when he founded this plantation it was much smaller. Grew riceract and he and indigo principally as the main cash crops. Was the significant cash crop in the 18th century. He and his children continued planting indigo until the late 18th century, beginning of the 19th century. The first louisiana planters successfully granulated sugar in louisiana. We are in a Green Climate zone, so no one had been able to take it the full way. In 1795, with the help of all of them haiti, planters followed suit after that. Sugar could make a lot more money than indigo could. There were crop failures and competition in the market. Right around these first the same time the first sugar crop was being granulated, indigo was not really a viable crop anymore. So this plantation transitioned at some point after that. It remains planted in sugar today. Its still a gigantic industry. There are historic cane fields that are now sent off to sugar refineries. Hydel, who started this plantation in 1753, three successive generations ran the plantation, always with the labor of enslaved africans and african descended people. Over the course of the 100plus therethey owned the land, were many successive generations of people who were enslaved here. And so, the population would have shifted over time with Market Forces. The highest number we have timerecorded at one single of enslaved people at the stamp is 101, but we believe its a little low. We believe there were perhaps as many as 200 people enslaved at the highest point. Over theound 357 course of that would hundredplus years, but there are a lot missing from that. We are introducing that population is our first memorial, memorials we built two people slaved in the state of louisiana and enslaved on this land. This is the wall of honor. And on this memorial, we have recorded the names and some 354c information about individuals that we have been able to find enslaved on this land. This memorial moves through time roughly chronologically. Earlier on this side we have people who were born in the 18 century, but we are listing the entire generation of enslaved people here. We do not know anyones name who was enslaved here from the very beginning in 1752. All these people were found after the foundation. This information comes mostly from sale documents. Peoples names were not always recorded when they were enslaved. If you look at things like census records, it just includes a tally of how many women of how many men and how money women, but it does not say the names. In the city of new orleans there was a notary involved. So you go to the archives to find sales and purchases of people. And all of the information that we have here, this biographic information, is also related to selling. , so, where someone came from, how old they were, whether they came with children, the jobs they knew how to do. These were all things that would affect their price at sale. Louisiana had different laws than other states and territories in the United States. So, in louisiana, for a very long time, it was illegal to sell children away from parents. Ready before pewter before puberty. Later it was codified before the age of so, you see things like 10. This. She was sold with these children, and these are all people who were in a lot being sold together. So, we have basic information here, and theres really not a lot that this information can tell us, but we are able to tease out a little bit. So one thing that we notice here is that all of these people, we can see that most of them were born in africa, and that is listed here, their places of origin. And yet their names, like michelle, are european names. In this case they are french. We also see in the early years a few spanish names as well. Peoplewe know that these who have these europeanderived names were not born in africa with those names. So that tells you something about that cultural annihilation, the way cultures are taken from them and they were sold into slavery in the new world. Slave traders often renamed people. It is something that continue to happen throughout the course of slavery in the u. S. Throughout the 19th century, when people were sold from one plantation to another, their new owner would choose to rename them. Here in louisiana we use the example of solomon northrup. Soldy famous man who was as a slave for 12 years, the recent movie about it. The reason he was 12 years slave in louisiana and lost for that time was he was never sold under the name of solomon. The first slave trader called him platt. Sophie was living for 12 years as a slave in louisiana under the name of platt, which was not his given name. And that was the experience a lot of people had, and you can see that written in various narratives. Even though there is this problem of peoples names being taken away from them, there are some people here who have african names. Heres a person named ningo, wh ich is an african name. We also have someone named samba. Means someone born on a these are cultural names wednesday. That tell the circumstances of someones birth. Anerestingly enough, this is islamic name. So this person was a muslim. People who were treated into slavery in the americans who came from north africa were likely to have been exposed to them through the trading of arab world. There were longstanding trade networks. So this is something that tells us a little bit about the religion and culture of people who came to the new world as slaves. People came from widely no,parate s no eth religious groups. People who came to the americas cases were in some in some cases they were catholic. The congo is officially catholic. Some people would be bringing their indigenous cosmologies. They are going to the mainland of the United States. Again, there was another chance for that kind of blending with west african and caribbean religions coming into louisiana. It is also important to note these people were selected by slave traders for specific skills and traits that they had. So most of the people enslaved in louisiana, about 60 were int a gambian senagambian origin. People came to different parts of the u. S. Enslaved for different reasons. A lot of it had to do with the crops they were familiar with growing. So the very first two slave ships that came to the louisiana in 1719, the captains of those ships were under orders to go find skilled indigo growers. Because they were trying to establish an indigo economy in louisiana, and the european traders and planters did not have the skills to plant indigo. It was not grown in europe. So they had to find people who already knew to grew it grow it, how do process it, and knew how to build the fields. The same thing with rice. There were skilled rice growers brought into louisiana and also South Carolina. He signed this very directed trading going along the western coast of africa, going into specific markets in the United States to fill the plantations there and create that crop wealth. So, most of the people here in these early years that we can see were coming, as we said, from west and central africa, a few people born in the caribbean who had been coming from trading there. But most people are coming internationally. And so something that is important to note about the Movement Across the atlantic during the time of the atlantic slave trade, is that the vast majority of settlement of the new world was african, compulsory settlement. So of all the people who crossed from the old world to the new world until 1807, four of five came from africa. So the vast majority of movement was enslaved africans being forced on ships across the atlantic. And there are not really good estimates about the actual number. At best historian has come about 12. 5 Million People. And that is not including people who did not make it to the coast. People who had been driven from the interior and died en route, and then were not even able to get on the boat and came across. So about 12. 5 Million People involved in the middle passage. An enormous diaspera. Less than 5 came to the territories that became the unit it states. The vast majority of movement into Slave Society in the new world was into the caribbean. OutlawUnited States, we the International Slave trade in 1807, which did not fully cut it off, but significantly lowered that movement. Because people were still being pirated. They were being struggled smuggled into the United States. The last arrived in the United States in 1859 or 1860. And so that is really right up until the end of the civil war, people were still being snuck in. But it did cut off the majority of the trade. At 1807 at the exact same time, the lines down here in the Mississippi Valley were just beginning to be developed. The Louisiana Purchase happened in 1803. 1807, you cannot get more slaves into the United States. At the same time people are buying up large tracts of land and really increasing their need and reliance upon compulsory labor, slave labor. They did not have a supply of people coming in from africa. So this changes the culture here. And what happens is a very robust domestic slave trade developed in the wake of that. And so we can see this happening on our wall here, where you can already see them trickling in. People born on what is called the east coast instead of in the old world or on thecaribbean, and reverse side of the wall you will see a large collection of them. So, here, all of a sudden, all of these people are listed east coast. East coast is probably virginia. And you can say that they came from an englishowned plantation based on the name. Jack, sam, these are all english names. They no longer have french or spanish names. Not seeing as many african names. You see a lot of people coming from englishowned plantations. So the domestic slave trade was an enormous movement of people. Across this country. So in total from after the conclusion of the International Slave trade, one Million People were from the upper south, and the upper south is virginia, maryland, tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina a little bit but mostly centered in North Carolina. They were moved down the river to louisiana, alabama, mississippi, the large scale plantations. To give you a sense of the difference in the plantations i come from North Carolina a lot of the plantations we had in North Carolina, tobacco plantations, tobacco was really awful for the soil. It takes a long time to recover. They also needed smaller scale labor. A lot of the plantations there, they had 25, 50 slaves. Here in louisiana we had 101 on this plantation. And that is actually on the smaller end. Just very close by there was a slave labor force of 750 enslaved people. You can see there was a greater need here for large scale labor. South, they had a Larger Population of women. They were encouraging family units and family growth. Part of the value of an enslaved woman was her reproductive potential, and enslavers talked about this by using the word increase. So if it wound were to be so if a woman were to be, say, given to another family, it would be sally and all the potential children she could have, and her childrens children, all that reproductive potential belongs to the person who owned that woman. So there is great value in encouraging the growth of families because they could make exponentially more money in selling off those children. So the majority of those people who came down from the upper late teensin their and early 20s. Most of them marched over land. Most of that movement was over land. Some of it was on a riverboat in coming down the mississippi. Some of it was on boats coming down the atlantic seaboard. Into the gulf of mexico. But new orleans was the heart of that trade. And there was this constant flow of people coming down to new orleans. To be spread out from the territories from there. This is where you can see all of that happening. So on this plantation we have an oral history given to us by the descendants of one of the people enslaved here. They describe this process of being taken from the upper south and sold in the lower south. Anna is a girl who was born on the east coast, probably virginia. Shethe story about anna is was purchased for this plantation to be a gift for the lady of the house, who had no children of her own. Anna, as the family has related to us, lived inside of the big house. An so, would have had interesting kind of relationship with the family. People who lived in the big house who were slaves often had a strange kind of relationship that we cannot really understand today. She was a slave and would have been treated as such, but also would have been very close to the family as well. And the reason why that is because of her son, victor hydel. Anna was aborn when young woman. Her mistress had a brother who impregnated anna. We dont know this was so long ago, we dont know if anna if theyd by antoine, or had some kind of relationship. Although for enslaved women, there was no such thing as consent because they did not own their bodies. A hydelr was born family member. Anna was a mixed race woman. Victor would have been called one quarter african descendent, three quarters european descendent. Family. Aved by his own this is one instance that we know of, for certain, of all of the 354 people, over 100 years of ownership for the family, we know there are many, many more people born here of enslaved mothers and white hydel fathers. And this kind of thing was common throughout the south. And those children born of those enslaved children belong to their own family and would not necessarily be treated any better, and in many cases, we read a narrative where the children were treated just a little bit worse because usually there was a white wife somewhere in there who understood where those children were coming from. So the separation between enslaved people and enslavers were not really there. There was a lot of mixing in terms of sexual assault, in terms of actual relationships. Certainly here in louisiana, a lot of people of color existed here because of consensual relationships, where enslaved women would then be freed and given their own property. So in louisiana, its a very class created here. Free people of color and also people enslaved by their own families as well. This is called the Gwendolyn Hall l. A. In this memorial we have transcribed the names of 107,000 people who were enslaved in the state of louisiana through the year 1820. This is based on a database that the historian from new orleans put together, and that database ends in 1820. There is talk of extending it to 1865. But 107,000 people are inscribed here. We have just their first names. Mostly coming from sale documents. What we have also done here is recorded little snippets from the Works Progress administration slave narrative. In this area we allow people to walk through on their own and take a few minutes to reflect and read those names and those testimonials. This is the last memorial we visit the four we moved into the historic grounds of the plantation. This is called the field of angels. And we put this memorial here 2200 children who died in st. John the baptist parish. That is the parish we are in here at the whitney plantation. It is sculptured by rod moorhead and is called coming home. We have along the walls here, the names, date of death, ages, and names of the mother of all the children who died. And these were reported in the church records. So our historian did the research in pulling those records out of the church and recording them here. So here is a large collection of people that are not listed with any name whatsoever. These are people who are listed as little slaves, negro slave girls, negro slave boys. Some of these people who have no names were perhaps too young, they died too young to be named. Sometimes we see when they were two years older three years old, people who definitely had names, but even at death, when they were born they were born into a lowerclass. It was