People who lived on the opposite side of the river in louisiana. This is structure was donated to us about ten years ago, by the descendants and the original founders of that congregation. They bought the land in 1870. Two parcels of land, for the express purpose of building a house of worship. In the seal document, which we have in the courthouse, they named their structure, their congregation the anti yoke baptist congregation. That message of being against the yoke or against slavery was something that is important to our story here. And this is a Significant Church for newly freed slaves on the east bank of the river and so its really important here in talking about the lives of people who saw freedom after the end of the civil war. We like to start our tour of the whitney plantation here in this building so that we can kind of see what happens to people, some of the things that they cared about after freedom came. The whitney plantation is the only Plantation Museum in the state of louisiana that is exclusively dedicated to telling the stories of enslaved peoples this land that were on right now is historically known as habitation hideout, and our own are. Jon cummings purchased the property about 15 years ago. And stored the restore the regional structures here and also moving in buildings like this one. Like this church and so we had to kind of build in some things here. Restore existing buildings and bring in Historic Structures they all help us tell the story of slavery. When the jon cummings about the property, in 1989, we did not have an original slain sleeve coddles. They have been torn down for some 20 years. And so we have to move in those from elsewhere and louisiana. This structure, like i said, just kind of helps out round out that story of enslavement after the civil war. And we have some other buildings that were here at one time that were rebuilt. At the wind plantation, we have a collection of statues created by an ohio artist, woodrow nash. He built these statues for us to represent people who were enslaved at the end of slavery and then later gave their testimony to the Work Progress Administration in the 1930s. We use the narratives of slaves taken in the 1930s throughout our interpretation on this site. And so, these are to give life to who those people were. In the 1930s, when the works progressive ministration traveled across the south, taking the narratives of formerly enslaved people, they were talking to people who were in their eighties, nineties or even hundreds, who, when they were slaves, had been just children. At the highest end, maybe 15 when freedom came, but most of them were under the age of ten. And so this is to remind us who those voices are coming from. These people we were talking about their experience of slavery as children, oftentimes recalling the things that it happened to their parents and grandparents. This monte shun was initially founded in 1752 by a german immigrant who came in the company of john law, with his family from, they see it from the port of france and came here. In 1752, when he founded this plantation, it was much smaller. It was an 11 are pent tracked and he grew rice and indigo principally, as the main cash crops. Indigo was really the significant cash crop of this land in the 18th century. He and his children continued planting indigo until the late 18 century, beginning of the 19th century. In 1795, eight louisiana planter successfully granulated a crop of sugar in louisiana. Were in a strange climate zone. It couldnt really, nobody had been able to take it the full way before that. In 70 95, with the help of somebody from haiti, who had come over after the revolution, he granulated a crop. And all of the planters followed suit after that. Sugar could make a whole lot more money than indigo could, indigo had had crop failures and there was competition on the markets. And so right around the same time that that first sugar crop was being granulated, indigo is not really a viable crop anymore. So this plantation transitioned at some point after that by about 1805, it was planted in sugar, and it remains planted in sugar today. Sugar spillage iconic industry in louisiana, and all around us are historic cane fields that are sent to the dixie cain and domino sugar refineries. Three successive generations of hydell family ran the plantation, always with a labor of enslaved africans in african descent people. Over the course of the hundred plus years that the hydell on the slant there were many successful generations of people who are enslaved here. And so the population would have shifted over time but the highest number that we have ever counted of enslaved people in this years 101 but we think thats a little low we think there were perhaps as many as 200 enslaved at the highest point we have record of people that we have found, 357 over the course of that hundred plus years. But there are going to be a lot of people missing from that. Where we will start introducing that population, is on our first memorial where we are going to be seeing the people who were enslaved in the louisiana and slide on this land. This is the wall of honor. And on this memorial, we have recorded the names and some basic information of about 354 individuals that we have been able to find who were enslaved on this land. This memorial is, it moves through time roughly chronologically so in the earlier, on this side, we have people who were born in the 18th century, but we are missing the entire first generation of enslaved people here. We dont know anyone, we dont know anyones name whos a slave here from the very beginning in 1752. All of these people were born after the founding of this plantation. There is an example of some people who are already missing. This information comes mostly from steel documents. Peoples names were not always recorded when they were enslaved. So if you look at things like the census records, it would just include a tally of how many men and how many women, but it wont actually tell you any names. So we have to look for those names instead of documents, and the city of new orleans, there was a notary involved. And so we go to the note aerial archives to find sales and purchases of people. All of the information that we have here, this by graphic information is also related to selling. Where someone came from, oh they were, whether they came with children, the jobs that they knew how to do, these are all things that would affect their price at sale. Louisiana had different laws than other states and territories in the United States. And louisiana, for a very long time, it was illegal to sell children away from parents before puberty. Later it was codified to actually before the age of ten. And so again we see things like agatha, being sold with these children, and these are all people who were in a lot, a lot being sold together. We have basic information here. And is really not a lot that this can tell us but we are able to tease out just a little bit. One thing that we notice here is that all of these people, most of them were born in africa. That is listed here. Their places of origin. And yet their names, like michelle, our european names. In this case, they are french. We also see in the early years a few spanish names as well. And so we know that these people who have these european derived names, were not born in africa with those names. That tells us something about that cultural annihilation, the way peoples cultures were taken from them when they were sold into slavery in the new world. Sleepshirts often renamed people. And its something that continues to happen throughout the course of slavery in the United States, over the course of the 19th century. When people were sold from one plantation to another, there are new orders could choose to rename them. And here in louisiana, we used the example of perez solomon northrup, was famously 12 years a slave they made a movie about it. The reason he was 12 years asleep in louisiana and lost under that time was because he was never sold under the name of solomon. The first person are sold and sold him under the name of plett. He was living as 12 years is a slave under the name of plot, which was not as given name. That is an experience that a lot of people had and you can see that written in various narratives. But even though there is this problem of peoples names mean take an eye from them, there are a few people who remain here who have african names. So here is a person named mingo, which is an african name. We also have someone named samba, and coacou. This is an islamic name, moussa, who was most likely a muslim. People who were traded into slavery in the americas, who came from north africa, were likely to have been exposed to islam through the treating of the arab world. There were longstanding trade networks. This is something that tells us a little bit about the religion and culture of people who came to the new world at slaves. People who came from widely disparate ethnic religious groups, people who came to the americas enslaved were in some cases muslim, in some cases catholic. The kingdom of congo was officially catholic already by the 15 hundreds. Some people wouldve been bringing their indigenous cause mola jeez. Especially in louisiana, there was a connection with the caribbean. A lot of the ships made stops off in the caribbean before coming into the mainland, of the United States, and so they are again, there was another chance for that kind of blending and synchronous im with west african and caribbean religions theyre coming into louisiana. Its also important to note that 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 gambian in origin. And people came to different parts of the u. S. As slaves for different reasons. A lot of that had to do with the crops that they were familiar with growing. The very first two slave ships that came to 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 here in louisiana, and the european traders did not have, the european planters did not have the skills to plant into grow. It wasnt one in europe. They had to go find people who already knew how to grow it, who already knew how to process indigo, which is a very complicated process and who already knew how to build those skills. Same thing with rice. There were skilled rice growers who were brought into louisiana and also into south carolina. So you find these 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 already been coming from long trading their. 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. Of all the people who crossed from the old world to the new world until 1807, four out of five came from africa. The vast majority of movement was enslaved africans being forced on ships and across the atlantic. And they are not really good estimates about the actual number. The best historian who has done that work is david altus, has come to the figure of about 12. 5 Million People, not including people who didnt make it, people who died en route to the boat. About 12. 5 Million People involved in the middle passage. And this is an enormous diaspora. Of that 12. 5 Million People, less than 5 actually came to the territories that became the United States. The vast majority of movement into Slave Society in the new world was into the caribbean and into brazil. In the United States, we outlawed the International Slave trade in 1807, which did not fully cut it off, but it significantly lowered that movement. Because people were still being pirated and being smuggled into the United States. The last slave ship is estimated arrived in the United States around 1859 to 1860, that is really just right up to the end of the civil war, people were still being sneak in. But it did cut off the majority of that trade, and this is an interesting time around 18 with seven, that at the exact same time, the lands down here in the Mississippi River valley, and we are just beginning to be developed. So the louis at Louisiana Purchase happens, 1803, 1807. You cant get any more slaves into the United States. And so, at the same time the people are buying up large tracts of land and really increasing their needs and reliance upon compulsively laborer slave labor, they didnt have a supply of enslaved people coming from africa. And so we can see that this changes the culture here, and what happened is that a very robust and domestic slave trade developed in the wake of that. And so we can see this happening on our well here, where you can already see them trickling in, there are a few people born on what is called the east coast instead of in the old world or in the caribbean, and on the 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 see that they came from an english owned plantation by their names. Ed when, perry, clean, jack, tom, sam, they no longer have french or spanish names. Youre not seeing as many african names. You see a lot of people coming from english owned plantations. The domestic slave trade was an enormous movement of people across this country. In total, from after the conclusion of the International Slave trade in 1807, 1 Million People were moved from the upper south, and the upper south is virginia, maryland, tennessee, north carolina, south carolina, a little bit but mostly centered in virginia and north carolina, and 1 Million People were moved down the river to louisiana, alabama, mississippi, where there was large scale plantations. So to give you an idea of the difference in labor, i can from north carolina, a lot of our plantations that we had in north carolina, tobacco plantations, tobacco is really awful for the soil. Fields have to lay fallow for a very long time to recover after growing tobacco. And so it really cuts down on the amount of land that they can work and also, they needed smaller scale labor. A lot of the plantations there, they had 25, 50 slaves. Here in louisiana, we had 101 of this plantation and thats actually on the smaller. And just very close by, there was a slave labor force of 750 enslaved people. You can see that there was a greater need here for large scale labor. And in the upper south, they had a Larger Population of women, they were it will to encourage family units and family growth, part of the value of an enslaved woman was her reproductive potential. And flavors talked about this by using the word increase. If a woman were to be let say, given to another Family Member, in the will, they would give sally and her increase. Sally and all of the potential children that she could have forever. And her childrens children. All of that reproductive potential belonged to the person who owns that woman. So there was great value in encouraging the growth of families because they can make exponentially more money on selling off those children. So the majority of people who came down from the upper south were in their late teens to early twenties, and the prime of their working life, they were born and raised on plantations in the upper south. And then most of them marched over lent. Most of that movement was overland. Some of it was on a river boat coming down the mississippi. Some of it was on boats coming down the atlantic seaboard and into the gulf of mexico from there. New orleans was the heart of that great. New orleans was tied to virginia, to alexandria, virginia. And there was a constant flow of people coming down to new orleans to be spread out to the territories from there. This is where you can see all of that happening. On this plantation, we have an oral history given to us by the descendants of one of the people enslaved here. The describes this process of being taken from the upper south and sold to the lower south. Anna is a girl who was born on the east, probably virginia. And the story about anna is that she 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 the big house and would have had an interesting relationship with the family. People who lived in the big house who were slaves often had a strange kind of relationship that we cant really understand today. She was a slave and wouldve been treated as such, but also would have been very close to the family as well. And the reason why that is significant is because of her son Victor Haydel he was born about in the year 1835 when and it was a young woman. And his mistress, miss seidel had a brother and twang, who impregnated anna. We dont know, this was so long ago, we dont know if and it was raped, by antjuan, or if they had some kind of relationship, although for enslaved women, there was no such thing as consent, because they did not own their bodies. And so, victor was born of a final Family Member and an enslaved woman, as listed on her document was a mixed race woman. And so viktor would have been considered here in louisiana what they call a quad ruin one quarter african descendant and one quarter european descendant and enslaved by his own family this is one instance that we know of of that we know of an all of these 54 people over 100 years of ownership of the haydel family, we know there were many people more born here of enslaved mothers and White Fathers and this kind of thing was common throughout the south and those children born of those enslaved women belonged to their own family and would not necessarily be treated any bett