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| Laura Plantation |
Laura Plantation is a Creole plantation; two families owned it until it became a house museum; both families spoke French until 1916 when the Louisiana legislature outlawed French as an official language. Creole plantations like Laura were working farms, owners had homes in the French Quarter where they traveled for the 'Season' and where they fulfilled their social obligations. Plantation houses like Laura were predominant, built with Sengalese technology, brightly painted and arranged according to French custom--no white, center-hall, pillared mansions so beloved of Hollywood. Those were built by 'les Americains.'
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| TJ and Elizabeth du Parc |
The indigenous Indian culture, that of West Africa and the Caribbean and French and Spanish culture formed the way of life that is unique to this part of the world.
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| Looking towards levee; Laura is on the West Bank of the Mississippi |
A visit to Laura is a corrective where one can learn also about the terrible consequences when the French "Code Noir" was replaced by American law after the Louisiana Purchase.
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| Travis, Charles, Erika, John, Lauren and Bob |
After the tour we drove to another plantation, Oak Alley. Oak Alley looks as if it were waiting for a casting director; a number of movies have been filmed there. We go there, after Laura, for lunch!! These plantations are an hour away, so lunch is a welcome break.
Oak Alley is a gentler look at the antebellum South; they do have a nice restaurant so we head there.
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| 'Sometimes I sits and thinks, sometimes I just sits.' |
After lunch some explore Oak Alley's grounds and some find a comfortable bench.
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