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Louisiana Plantations Guide: 12 River Road Plantations

Last updated: December 18, 2023 - Written by Jessica Norah 69 Comments

We recently visited 12 Louisiana plantations along Louisiana’s River Road between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Louisiana’s River Road parallels the east and west banks of the Mississippi River for about 70 miles (about 100 miles of actual road) through the Louisiana parishes of St. Charles, St. John, and St. James. Prior to the American Civil War, this river road was lined with approximately 350 antebellum plantation homes, from relatively simple farm houses to grand Versailles-like mansions.

Many early Louisiana plantations grew rice, indigo, or tobacco, but by the mid-nineteenth century the majority were growing sugar cane, which became the most profitable cash crop in the state. Louisiana would become the most wealthy state in the country by the onset of the Civil War, made possible only by the forced hard labor of thousands of slaves who worked at these plantations.

Not surprisingly, the Civil War and the end of slavery left most of the large plantations unprofitable, and many Louisiana plantations slowly declined into states of ruin or were converted into industrial estates. Today, the River Road reflects both the past and present, winding past bayous, levees, strip malls, oil refineries, sugar cane fields, historic communities, majestic live oaks, and a handful of remaining plantation mansions.

Over a dozen of the plantation homes are open to the public for tours, and all are different so it can be difficult to decide which to visit. Some tours focus on the lives of the owners, some focus on historical furnishings, and one is dedicated to slavery. One is a family owned working sugar cane plantation, one includes 37 buildings listed on the National Register, one allows you to tour with your dog, and one is framed by a famous oak alley. Several have restaurants on the premises and a few offer on-site accommodations.

Here is our comprehensive guide to the Louisiana plantations along the River Road, complete with a FAQ section, a short guide to each of the 12 visited plantations, and our own personal impressions of each!

Table of Contents:

Visiting the River Road Louisiana Plantations

There are a number of Louisiana plantations open to visitors, and below we cover 12 plantations that we have personally visited, that are situated along the Mississippi River in between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, and are regularly open for public tours. We did not include plantations that are only open infrequently to the public or plantations located north of Baton Rouge (there are several) or ones more further afield in the state.

While it may seem that all plantation tours would be the same, the houses, tours, exhibits, and atmosphere of each plantation is different. Most travelers have limited time and budgets, and it can be difficult for visitors to narrow down which might be the best fit.

We have created the following FAQ to help readers decide when to visit the Louisiana plantations, how to visit the plantations, and which plantation(s) to visit.  

Best time of year to visit Louisiana plantations? 

It really depends on what you mean by “best”, but we’ll break it down by best weather, best prices, and least crowds. In terms of weather, you’ll find relatively warm and mild weather most of the year in Louisiana. You’ll get the best weather between the months of November and May, expect it to be warm but not too humid. June to the end of November is hurricane season, so expect rain and possible storms and rain is also common in the spring.

Mosquitoes can exist in Louisiana all year, but are worse during the summer months and are generally fairly active from about March to October.

The most crowded times are around the New Orleans festivals and events, so avoid them if you are looking for smaller crowds and better hotel prices. The biggest events are the Sugar Bowl (early January), Mardi Gras (February/early March), French Quarter Fest (April), Jazz Fest (April/May), and Halloween.

The months of July, August, and December tend to be the least crowded but July and August are the most humid and hot. July and August also tend to be when hotels offer their cheapest rates.

Those looking for a good balance might consider December, May, or June. During the month of December, many plantations are decorated for the Christmas holiday season.

Cost of Louisiana plantation tours? 

Plantations tours vary in price but are not cheap. They generally range from about $15 to $25 per person and all include a guided tour. Tipping of plantation tour guides is appreciated and often expected if you enjoyed the tour, but is not obligatory.

Louisiana River Road plantation discounts?

Discounts are available at many plantations for AAA members, seniors, children, active military, and local residents. There are also some local discount cards, such as the New Orleans Pass, that may include free entry into some of the plantations.

The Go City New Orleans Pass currently (as of February 2020) includes free entry to both the San Francisco Plantation and the Oak Alley Plantation, as well as a number of other attractions and tours in and around New Orleans.

How to get to the River Road plantations? 

The best way to get to most of the Louisiana plantations is to drive there as public transit options are very limited in the area. If you don’t have your own car, you can join a group bus tour, a private tour, or hire a private car service to take you to the plantations of your choice.

There are a lot of options from New Orleans for tours (group and private) but almost no tour options from Baton Rouge (consider a car rental or private transfer option).

Here are several day tours we’d recommend checking out:

• This day tour from New Orleans give you the option to visit 2 plantations of your choice from the following: Oak Alley, Laura Plantation and Whitney Plantation.
• This tour from New Orleans includes St. Joseph and Laura Plantations
• This half day tour gives you a choice of visiting 1 of either Laura Plantation, Oak Alley or the Whitney Museum plantation.
• This small group tour from New Orleans visits Houmas House and Madewood Plantation and includes lunch.
• This small group tour from New Orleans visits Whitney Plantation and St. Joseph Plantation.
• This half day tour takes visitors along the River Road and then allows them to choose to visit one of the following plantations: Oak Alley, Laura Plantation or Whitney Plantation.
• This full day tour includes visits to Houmas House and Laura Plantation, lunch, and a Cajun swamp tour.
• If you want a private and customized tour (so you can visit whichever plantations you wish) you might consider this 6 hour  private tour .

To find more tour options, we’d recommend checking out  Viator’s tours as they offer lots of different day tours, both group tours and private tours from New Orleans. 

Private transportation services in the area include  Flagship Limousine LTD.   and  Five Star Transportation .

Note that there are taxis and Ubers; however, many people who have used Uber have found themselves stranded at plantations for long periods of time  because there are few drivers who will do pick-ups from this area. So you are better off arranging a day tour, private transfer, or scheduled taxi (with pick-up and drop-off arranged in advance).

How do I book a plantation tour?

Tour reservations are generally unnecessary (however, be sure to call ahead for tours at Poché Plantation or Ormond Plantation) unless you are traveling in a large group. However, a few of the plantations offer the ability to book tour times in advance online or by phone, such as Whitney Plantation, San Francisco Plantation, and Destrehan Plantation, and this is wise to do if you know when you want to visit and are limited on time.

If you do not have a reservation, I would advise showing up 30 minutes or so before the tour time you want to better ensure you get your desired time as tour times do sometimes sell out.

How many plantations can I visit on a day trip?

First I would recommend looking up tour times in advance, and you should allot at least 2 hours to visit each plantation plus travel time. Some plantations you may want to eat at or enjoy the grounds so you’ll want to allot more time.

Best to plan ahead about lunch, some plantations serve food, some allow picnics on property, and there are also a few other food options along the River Road.

In terms of how many plantations, most people are happy with visiting 2 plantations, but 3 plantations is definitely doable in a day if you plan ahead.

Note that many plantations are not open 7 days a week and all close for certain holidays. If you are really interested in exploring the plantation area between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, I’d consider spending the night to have more time to explore. You can sleep overnight at one of the plantations or sleep at one of the area’s hotels, motels, or B&B’s. 

Being respectful and aware during plantation visits?

For most visitors, a plantation visit is about seeing a historical home, an entertaining tour, and learning a bit about plantation life. However, for many visitors, the tours can be more emotional and powerful and hearing about plantation life, especially information about slavery, can really have an impact (whether positive or negative).

Some visitors are going to be descended from plantation owners and some are going to be descended from former slaves; some may even be directly connected to the visited plantation. We met people who were both during our tours, some as visitors, some as owners, and some as staff. Some people are trying to learn or understand their heritage so it is good to be aware of this and try to be respectful with your questions, comments, and behavior. In no way should you feel guilty or afraid to ask genuine questions, but sensitivity would be appreciated by your fellow tour participants.

Sometimes the insensitive comments may come from the staff themselves who may promote a romanticized view of plantation life. Some plantation tours do gloss over the horrors of slavery, and while this may appeal to some visitors, it can feel very insensitive to some visitors. So be mindful and hopefully this guide will help you determine which plantation tours may be a good fit for you, whatever your interests or background.

Best plantations for wheelchair users and those with reduced mobility?

Few of the Louisiana plantations along the River Road are fully wheelchair accessible. As historical homes, many do not have step-free access to their second floors. But several do have ramps and some even have elevators. Many offer wheelchair accessible toilets on site.

Houmas House Plantation is probably the most wheelchair accessible plantation as it offers step-free access to both floors of the main house, restaurant, gift shop, and most of the buildings on the plantation property. There are even often golf carts with drivers who can help take those with limited mobility around the property!

Another notable property is Destrehan Plantation which can offer step-free access for visitors to its main house, gift shop, and almost all the buildings on its property.

Other plantations that those traveling with a wheelchair or reduced mobility may consider checking out are Nottoway Plantation, Oak Alley Plantation, Whitney Plantation, Ormond Plantation, and San Francisco Plantation as each offers partial wheelchair accessibility.

Many of the plantations that offer overnight accommodation, can accommodate wheelchair users in certain rooms or cottages.

For those with special needs or requirements in terms of mobility or accessibility, I’d call ahead to ask to see if needs can be safely accommodated. Tour guides in most cases can not provide assistance to guests (in terms of carrying wheelchairs, assisting people up stairs) during tours, and it is strongly recommended that guests who need assistance visit with a companion.

After getting several questions related to accessibility, steps, and wheelchair access from readers, we have tried our best to offer information related to accessibility for each Louisiana plantation. We now have a section on Accessibility under each plantation section listed later in the article. This information was provided to us by staff at these plantations and we do our best to keep it updated.

If you have visited any of these plantations as someone with reduced mobility, we’d love to heard about your experiences in the Comments section at the end of this article. Your info can help future travelers!

How to Decide Which Louisiana Plantations to Visit?

It can be difficult to choose which Louisiana River Road plantations you want to visit. Most people choose to visit two or three plantations. All are worth considering but all are different and will appeal to different people.

We go over the best plantations for those looking for grand homes, historical information, slavery information, antiques, fewer crowds, photography locations, gardens, filming locations, and dozens of other factors to help you decide which are the best plantation homes for you to visit!

Most grand and opulent Louisiana plantations?

Houmas House Plantation and Nottoway Plantation were probably the most grand with the most opulent furnishings. A third choice would be Oak Alley but it does not quite have the size or grandeur of the other two. These are the three plantations I would highly recommend checking out for those looking for grand plantations and those in search of something that will remind them of Tara or Twelve Oaks from Gone with the Wind . These are also three of the most popular and busy plantations.

Which plantations have tour guides in costumes?

For those who like costumed guides (all in antebellum period dress), I’d recommend considering Oak Alley, Nottoway Plantation, Houmas House Plantation, San Francisco Plantation, and Destrehan Plantation. For those who are not fans of costumed guides, I’d suggest avoiding the above. 

Which plantations offer in-depth information on slavery?

In recent years, plantation tours have begun to include more information about slavery into their tours and exhibits so the topic was at least mentioned in all of the house tours we took. For those looking to learn about slavery and its role in Louisiana plantation life, Whitney Plantation is the only plantation tour dedicated to the topic and there are some wonderful slavery memorials on the property. 

Other plantations tours that seemed to have more of a focus on slavery were Laura Plantation and Evergreen Plantation. Magnolia Mound Plantation also offers a  self-guided “Back of the Big House” tour focused on slavery and the role of African-Americans who lived at the plantation. Notable exhibits on slavery were also at Destrehan Plantation and Oak Alley Plantation.

Which plantations are still working plantations?

St. Joseph Plantation is a family-run working sugar cane plantation and has been run by the same family since 1877. The guided house tours and gift shop are primarily run by family members so you’ll like get the chance to speak to people who have a true connection to the house and property. Evergreen Plantation is also a working plantation with the land leased out for sugar cane production.

Which plantations have the best furnishings and antiques?

All the plantations houses are at least partially furnished and all contain at least some antique pieces, but few have many original furnishings. Magnolia Mound Plantation stood out for its authentic colonial, Louisiana, and French antiques (most not original to the house) and the great depth of knowledge the guide seemed to have on the collection.

Houmas House also had a lot of antique pieces on a much more opulent and elegant scale and several were pointed out during the tour, although few were original to the house. St. Joseph stands out as having probably the most original family pieces, many from the Reconstruction era. 

Which plantations are most intact with original dependencies? 

In addition to the main house, plantations would have historically had dozens of other buildings such as barns, slave cabins, overseer’s cottages, mills, etc. The most intact plantation on the River Road is Evergreen Plantation with numerous surviving dependencies (although some have been highly renovated), including 22 slave cabins. Laura Plantation and St. Joseph Plantation also have a number of original dependencies on the property that you can see.

Many of the other plantations have antebellum buildings on the property for viewing that have been moved from nearby plantations or reconstructed buildings using period-consistent techniques, including Magnolia Mound, Oak Alley, Destrehan Plantation, and San Francisco Plantation.

Which River Road plantations have the best gardens? 

Houmas House Plantation had by far the best gardens during our visit, featuring both native flowers and plants as well as exotic ones. Laura Plantation also had smaller but notable gardens and Evergreen has a formal hedge garden behind the house. Most of the rest of the plantations have only small gardens or no gardens at all, but most have landscaped grounds and majestic oak trees.

Which Louisiana plantations have the best oak alleys?

Both Evergreen Plantation and Oak Alley Plantation have gorgeous oak alleys. Oak Alley has two actually, with one being the famous one framing what would have originally been the front entrance to the main house. Evergreen Plantation has a much longer oak alley that is draped with the characteristic Spanish moss (missing at Oak Alley).

I think that all the plantations we visited have grand oak trees on the property, many of the trees being over 200 years old with the trees at Houmas House, Whitney Plantation, and St. Joseph’s standing out in my mind.

Best craft demonstrations?

Destrehan Plantation offers the most variety and most frequent period craft demonstrations, with demonstrations and lectures on about a dozen different topics including blacksmithing, cooking, bousillage, and carpentry. Oak Alley also regularly offers blacksmithing demonstrations using its original 1890’s forge. 

Which plantations have the best gift shops? 

Most of the plantations have gift shops. Those with the largest gift shops include Oak Alley, Nottoway, Houmas House, and Destrehan Plantation. St. Joseph was notable for its unique handmade items (I bought a pair of locally made earrings), Whitney Plantation for its selection of books, particularly on the subject of slavery, Oak Alley for its food items, and Destrehan for its on-site handmade blacksmith items. 

Best plantations for history buffs? 

All of the plantations have wonderful historical homes and information so I think all have some appeal to history lovers. The history of the plantations here spans the time when Louisiana was held by the French, Spanish, American, and Confederate governments, making for some interesting history. Destrehan Plantation stood out in terms of history as it is very well documented and visitors have access to hundreds of historical documents and artifacts, even a document signed by Thomas Jefferson.

Others that stood out a bit more were Magnolia Mound Plantation, Evergreen Plantation, San Francisco Plantation, Laura Plantation, Whitney Plantation, and St. Joseph Plantation. The majority of house tours focus on the antebellum period, with Magnolia Mound being the most focused on colonial history, Whitney Plantation on history from a slavery standpoint, St. Joseph on the Reconstruction era to present, and Laura Plantation on the history as experienced by one family over the generations. 

Best plantations for photographers? 

All of the plantations offer something for a photographer. Oak Alley is the most photographed of the plantations and the shot of the oak alley framing the house is stunning; however, just about everyone takes this photo. If you really want to photograph it, we’d highly recommend staying overnight so you have legal access to the property at sunrise and sunset as we did.

The Evergreen oak alley is also stunning and it shades 22 original slave cabins in their original positions. The statues of the slave children and angel memorial at Whitney Plantation are quite emotionally powerful. San Francisco Plantation is the most colorful and probably unusual in terms of architectural features, and you’ll also find some color at both Laura and Poché Plantation. Laura has a couple interesting looking derelict dependency buildings (especially the old mother-in-law).

The restored interiors of Nottoway, Oak Alley, and Houmas House are quite impressive, especially the White Ballroom at Nottoway. Houmas House has the most impressive gardens. Neither Magnolia Mound nor San Francisco allowed interior photos during the times of our visits. For those wanting to do professional or commercial photography or filming, most plantations can arrange for shoots outside visitor hours for a fee.

Best plantations for architecture lovers? 

This is a hard question and we are not experts in architecture, but the 12 plantations we visited represented a range of architectural styles and I would recommend choosing plantations with differing styles. Originally the most common style of the plantation houses in the late eighteenth to mid-nineteenth century was the raised French Creole style (or Spanish Creole or West Indies style). For examples of this style consider Magnolia Mound, Laura Plantation, St. Joseph Plantation, Ormond Plantation, and Whitney Plantation.

Then in the mid-nineteenth century many houses were built in the Greek Revival style and many of the Creole style houses were converted to Greek Revival. For Greek Revival houses (or those restyled in this manner) consider Houmas House, Nottoway Plantation, Oak Alley Plantation, Destrehan Plantation and Evergreen Plantation.

You also get a few unique houses built later in the nineteenth century that took on different styles such as Victorian Renaissance (Poché Plantation) and Steamboat Gothic (San Francisco Plantation). Other unique features include the painted ceilings in San Francisco Plantation and the original painted murals (interior and exterior) at Whitney Plantation.

Some of the plantation’s main houses have been heavily restored and renovated (e.g., Evergreen, Oak Alley, Houmas House), some have focused more on conservation and preservation (Magnolia Mound, St. Joseph, Whitney), and Laura was almost entirely rebuilt following a 2004 electrical fire. 

Best plantations for movie lovers? 

Almost all of the plantation houses or properties have been used for filming, whether it be commercials, TV series, films, or music videos. Oak Alley, Houmas House, Destrehan, Whitney, St. Joseph (and sister property Felicity Plantation), and Evergreen Plantation have all been used for major American movie or TV productions. Filming was happening or had recently happened at several of the plantations we visited during our trip.

Some popular films and series shot at River Road plantations were  Interview with the Vampire , 12 Years a Slave , Primary Colors , The S keleton Key ,  Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte , Django Unchained , and the 2016 Roots mini-series. See specific plantation guides below for which movies were shot where.

Most haunted River Road plantations?

Plantations are often considered to be haunted places, generally related to suicides or mysterious deaths of the plantation owners or wrongful deaths of slaves. Laurence and I are not very into haunted places or the paranormal, but since something related to hauntings or ghosts was mentioned enough in the tours I thought I’d mention it.

Oak Alley, San Francisco, and Houmas House all had mentions of the paranormal on the tours we did. However, the most interesting real-life mystery stories had to be at Ormond Plantation with the mysterious disappearance of one owner and the hanging of another!

If you want to learn more about the haunted histories and ghostly tales related to Louisiana Plantations, consider getting a copy of this book .

Least crowded Louisiana River Road plantations? 

The crowds at some plantations can make a visit much less enjoyable for some people. Some plantations we’d suggest considering for a less crowded experience would be Magnolia Mound Plantation, St. Joseph Plantation, Evergreen Plantation, and San Francisco Plantation. Whitney Plantation tends to attract a more serious traveler but is now a part of many bus tour stops so now has more visitors.

Ormond Plantation as a bed-and-breakfast and Poché Plantation as a bed-and-breakfast/RV park are also great bets for a crowd-free experience; free tours are included with a stay at either of these plantations.

Several of the plantations are very popular group bus tour stops, including Oak Alley, Laura Plantation, Whitney Plantation, and Destrehan Plantation. These can get very crowded at times.  If you are interested in visiting the busier plantations, best tip for avoiding huge crowds would be to get on the first or last tour of the day. You can also call ahead and ask the best times for a given day as big groups have to schedule in advance at most of the plantations.

Food, Drink, and Lodging in Louisiana’s Plantation Country

We’ll share where to eat, drink, and stay in Louisiana’s Plantation Country along the River Road. We share lots of options between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Many plantations offer on-site restaurants, cafes, and even accommodation options.

Where to eat between Baton Rouge and New Orleans?

The predominant type of cuisine served in the area is Cajun (or Creole). You’ll also find general American and Southeastern favorites. We recommend trying local Cajun favorites like jambalaya, gumbo, rice and gravy, etouffee, Andouille sausage, crawfish, and boudin. Po’ boys, fried catfish, fried chicken, fried green tomatoes, cornbread, pecan pie, and other Southern and New Orleans dishes are also very typical here.

Here is a partial list of some local cafes and restaurants (ordered by location from Baton Rouge to New Orleans):

• Grapevine Cafe in Donaldsonville – Quirky and colorful restaurant featuring local art, live music, and Cajun foods. Serves Cajun classics as well as steak and seafood. Full bar. Lunch, dinner, and Sunday brunch.
• Spuddy’s Cajun Foodsd  in Vacherie – This well-loved simple place serves homestyle Cajun favorites like po-boys, gumbo, and fresh handmade sausages. Serves lunch, coffee, and snacks.
• Nobile’s Restaurant and Bar in Lutcher – A restaurant in a historical building serving a mix fo Cajun and American dishes. Baba is their signature dessert. Serves lunch and dinner.
• Fatty’s Restaurant in Garyville – Casual spot serving Cajun dishes such as gumbo, jambalaya, etouffee, and stews along with the typical American food. Serves lunch and dinner.
• Buddy B’s  in Garyville – This long-time local family restaurant serves up casual Cajun and American dishes. Serves breakfast and lunch.
• Wayne Jacob’s Smokehouse & Restaurant in LaPlace – Best known for their smokehouse Andouille sausage, brisket, and other meats. Also serve a number of other Cajun and American classic dishes, including burgers, po’boys, salads, and fried catfish. Serves lunch and Sunday brunch.
• Truck Farm Tavern in St. Rose – Family-friendly restaurant serves homestyle and comfort American food as well as seafood and BBQ. Serves lunch and dinner.
• Many of the plantations also have on-site restaurants and dining options (see next section)

Although there are several of dining options in the area, many are not open daily so check current hours before deciding where to go! Note that many of these are not open for dinner and most close fairly early. Many are also not open on weekends. So it is always a good idea to figure out what you plan to do for dinner before evening comes around if staying in the area. Sometimes the nearest option may be a 30 minute drive away.

For those visiting this area on a day trip, I’d try to do lunch at one of the plantations to save time as several have dining options for lunch.

There are also grocery stores in the area where you can pick up food for picnics and meals if you have a self-catering accommodation.

Which plantations offer places to eat?

Currently, the following plantations have at least one on-site eatery or restaurant: Nottoway Plantation (all 3 meals and snacks), Oak Alley Plantation (breakfast, lunch, drinks), Houmas House Plantation (all meals, drinks, dinner reservations needed), and Ormond Plantation (lunch and dinner, dinner reservations needed, not daily).

Reservations are not usually necessary for lunch, but they are typically needed for dinner. Plantation restaurants are not typically open 7 days a week so do check ahead.

Both Oak Alley Plantation and St. Joseph have picnic tables that you can use if you bring your own food and Laura Plantation offers some vending machine food and refreshments in its gift shop. If you are staying overnight at a plantation, breakfast is normally included in the room rate.

Which plantations offer overnight accommodation? 

The following plantations currently offer some form of overnight accommodation on the property, either in a cottage, an inn, or in the main house from north to south: Nottoway Plantation, Houmas House Plantation, Poché Plantation, Oak Alley Plantation, and Ormond Plantation. See next section for links to each.

There is also a 13th plantation, Palo Alto Plantation which is not open to public tours (although they do weddings and special events) but they do rent out the Kitchen Cottage on the plantation. See Where to Stay section below for a description and links for each.

If you want to stay overnight in an actual main plantation house, Ormond Plantation, Poché Plantation, and Nottoway Plantation offers rooms and suites in the main house. Poché Plantation is also a RV resort and offers spots and facilities for those traveling by RV or campervan. You can also read about when we stayed overnight at Oak Alley Plantation .

There is also Madewood Plantation near Napoleonville – this plantation is not along the River Road but it is not too far away (about 40 to 45 minutes). It doesn’t offer public tours but does offer accommodation in a 1846 plantation home plus another house on the property. A good option if you can’t find availability in any of those along the River Road.

Where to stay along the River Road between Baton Route and New Orleans?

If you are planning to stay a night (or two) along the River Road, there are a number of accommodation options. In addition to the plantations that offer on-site lodging mentioned above, there are also several traditional hotels, motels, bed-and-breakfasts, and  vacation rental spots along the route. The towns along the route are fairly small in size so most have limited accommodation options, so it is good to book in advance if you can.

Vrbo can be a good option for those wanting to stay in a house, cabin or apartment, although options are more limited than in a city. You can check out Vrbo options in this area here .

In terms of where to stay along the road, I’d decide on based on what plantations you want to visit, your route, and your destination. Here are some places to consider, north to south along the route. 

One place to consider is the Donaldsonville, LA area lodging, which is within about a 15 minute drive of both Nottoway Plantation and Houmas House Plantation. The Baton Rouge airport, Oak Alley Plantation, and St. Joseph Plantation is about 30 miles away. Some recommended options:

• The Inn on the River  in Donaldsonville – Hotel located in the historic downtown area that includes continental breakfast and has a pub. The hotel is in a converted 1911 brick building that originally housed a local department store. The single and double rooms have a modern feel while the suites have a historic feel.
• Holiday Inn Express  in Donaldsonville – A well-rated chain hotel with an outdoor seasonal swimming pool.
• 170 year Old Plantation Kitchen Cottage  in Donaldsonville – A renovated self-catering cottage that was once used as the kitchen dependency for the main house on Palo Alto Plantation. The main house and kitchen cottage are believed to date to circa 1847.
• Nottoway Plantation  in White Castle – A plantation offering both rooms within the main house as well as within cottages on the property. Offers an on-site restaurant and resort style facilities. 
• Houmas House Plantation  in Darrow – This plantation offers rooms and suites in cottages on the property and has an on-site cafe and restaurant.

Another place to consider is lodging around Vacherie, LA, which is close to Laura, St. Joseph, Oak Alley, Poche, Evergreen & Whitney Plantations. This area may also fit well for an overnight stop people driving between New Orleans and Baton Rouge as it is around the midpoint. A few options:

• Auberge Du Chene Vert  in Vacherie – A family-run bed-and-breakfast with a large front porch and hot cooked breakfast.
• Cottage on the Farm   in Vacherie – A 2 bedroom private cottage with continental breakfast. Currently only takes reservations by phone.
• Poché Plantation  – This plantation offers B&B rooms in the main house and cottages, and is also a RV, campervan, and camping park.
• Oak Alley Plantation – Oak Alley offers accommodation in both historical and modern self-catering cottages on the same property as the plantation house. Breakfast included in restaurant and dinner can be arranged.

Finally, you might consider the Luling, LA area which is close to Destrehan and Ormond Plantations and is not far from the New Orleans airport. A good location for those arrive or leaving the next day from the airport in New Orleans. A few options:

• Motel 6  in Luling – A budget motel with a seasonal outdoor pool. Diner located next door.
• La Quinta Inn & Suites in Boutte – A well-reviewed hotel with free breakfast and a seasonal outdoor swimming pool. 
• Holiday Inn Express & Suites  near Saint Rose – A 3-star hotel located 2 miles from the airport. Hotel provides free airport transfers and has a sun deck, outdoor swimming pool, and on-site restaurant.
• Ormond Plantation – This plantation offers rooms in the main house and includes breakfast. Dinner is sometimes available, depending on the day of the week.
• Destrehan Plantation – This plantation offers 2 guest cottages on site.

Further resources about the River Road Plantations? 

Each plantation has its own website that will offer all you need to know about admission prices, tour times, whether tickets can be booked in advance, closure dates, restaurant openings, lodging booking, contact information, etc. and these links are all included below in this post.

If you are looking for more information on planning your trip consider the Baton Rouge tourism website , New Orleans tourism website , Louisiana River Parishes website (includes 8 of the 12 plantations included in this post), and Louisiana State Tourism website for those traveling further afield in the state.

For plantations to visit beyond the River Road, check out this list of plantations located throughout the state. For books about plantations in Louisiana, you can check out Vestiges of Grandeur (beautifully photographed book of the past and current River Road plantations) and this Pelican Guide guidebook  (plantations and grand homes throughout Louisiana).

Laurence has also written a great posts about top things to see in Baton Rouge and our experience visiting New Orleans during Mardi Gras . 

Guide to 12 Louisiana Plantations along the River Road

We have created a short guide to each of the 12 River Road Louisiana plantations that lists the same criteria for each plantation for easier comparison. We also share our own personal impressions about our own visit to each of these 12 Louisiana River Road plantations.

The plantations line the Mississippi River from Baton Rouge to New Orleans, and plantations are listed from north to south, starting with plantations closest to Baton Rouge and ending with those closest to New Orleans. Note that when driving, plantations are on both sides of the river so it is not a linear route. If driving, have a GPS or good map with the plantations marked as some are not well signed from the road.

Below is a map of the River Road plantations. You can double click on the map photo or click here to see or interact with the detailed map.

Magnolia Mound Plantation

Magnolia Mound Plantation was originally built as a fairly humble settler’s home in the late eighteenth century, but was soon expanded to be the main home of a wealthy landowner. The plantation is an easy visit from downtown Baton Rouge and is known for its collection of Federalist, Louisiana-made, and French furniture and decorative art objects.

Magnolia Mound may not be the grandest plantation home, but it is a great attraction for those who love historical homes and antiques. The focus here has been on the preservation and conservation of the property.

Address:  2161 Nicoholson Drive, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70802 Magnolia Mound Plantation Website: www.brec.org/magnoliamound Original Date of Main Plantation House: circa  1791 (exact date unknown) Architectural Style: French creole Main Cash Crop: sugar cane Working plantation today?: No Owners:  The house was built in the 1790s by John Joyce, an Irish immigrant who had purchased the property from James Hillin . This house was originally built as a small 4-room settler’s house and later expanded to suit the needs of a plantation owner and his large family. It is currently run by The Recreation and Park Commission for the Parish of East Baton Rouge ( BREC ) which operates a number of parks and recreational sites in the area. Tours/Tour Guides: Main house can only be visited with a guided tour, but the gardens and other buildings are self-guided. For those interested in slavery, a special tour focused on slavery and plantation life is available but must be booked in advance. Tour guides are  not costumed.  Main House Furnishings: Few are original, but items are period consistent and many are notable antiques. Magnolia Mound is considered to have one of the best collections of Louisiana-made objects from the colonial period. It also includes French pieces from the same era.  Other buildings to visit on property:  T he property also contains a reconstructed kitchen, a slave quarter house (antebellum, but moved from another former plantation River Lake Plantation), an original overseer’s house (c. 1870), an old well, and a pigeonnier (c.1820, but from another plantation).   Slavery Information:  There is a small amount of information on slavery on the main tour, but there is a self-guided “Back of the Big House” tour focused on slavery and the role of African-Americans who lived at the plantation. There is also an antebellum slave quarters building on the property for viewing. Gardens: There is a small kitchen garden, a small crop garden (sugar cane), and some grand 200+ year old live oak tress on the property. Photography Allowed:  Photography was not allowed inside the main house, but was allowed outside and inside the kitchen and minor buildings. Food: No Gift Shop: Yes Accessibility: The main historical home at Magnolia Mound Plantation requires 10 steps to enter and exit; however all other main buildings on property have step-free access and are wheelchair accessible. These include the kitchen and gift shop. There are wheelchair accessibility toilets on site. Day Tours Available from New Orleans: We were not able to find any regularly operated day tours from New Orleans or Baton Rouge. Lodging: No Crowds: Small – this is not typically a busy property and is not very well-known in comparison to many of the other plantations. However, can get busy when school or bus groups arrive. Most Unique: The age of the property, state of preservation, antiques, and impressive knowledge of the guides of the house and antique furnishings.

Our Impressions of Magnolia Mound Plantation

This is a great historical gem of a property located on the outskirts of Baton Rouge. On the day we visited, we were the only visitors for the next tour but we were joined as we started by another couple. The guide was very knowledgeable about the house and the furnishings. My favorite quote from the tour was “This floor [the original cypress floor] was laid while George Washington was president”.

The period furnishings in this house and the attention to them made this tour stand out to all the others; we would highly recommend this tour to those interested in historical properties and antiques. We recommend leaving time to do the self-guided “Back of the Big House” tour focused on slavery.

This is not a flashy Greek Revival mansion so it would likely not be a great fit for those looking for the most photogenic grand plantation homes. It is perfect for those looking for a more rustic plantation house where you can get a sense of the late 18th/early 19th lifestyle. Magnolia Mound Plantation is a great plantation to visit if you want to avoid the crowds you’ll find at many of the other plantation homes.

Nottoway Plantation

Nottoway Plantation, known as the White Castle, is believed to be the largest surviving antebellum plantation in the American South. Built just 6 years before the Civil War, it is also one of the youngest and grandest of the Louisiana River Road plantations. Nottoway Plantation is perfect for those day tripping from Baton Rouge and looking for a grand plantation house.

Addr ess: 31025 Highway 1, White Castle, LA 70788 Nottoway Plantation Website: www.nottowayplantation.com Original Date of Main Plantation House: 1 859   Architectural Style: Greek Revival and Italianate styles Main Cash Crop: sugar cane Working plantation today?: No Owners: The house was built by sugar cane magnate John Hampden Randolph and he lived here with his wife and 11 children. The Randolph sold the plantation in 1889 and it was then in the possession of a series of owners. It is currently run and maintained as part of the larger resort and conference center that are also on the property. Tours/Tour Guides: Main house can only be visited with a guided tour, but the gardens and museum are self-guided. Tour guides are  costumed in antebellum period clothing.  Main House Furnishings: Some house furnishings are original, but most are period consistent pieces.    Other buildings to visit on property: There is a 2-room museum that provides more information on the house, family, and slavery at the plantation as well as a short film. There are no other historical places to visit on the property except a family cemetery.  Slavery Information:  There is a small amount of information on slavery on the main tour, and some additional information can be found in the small museum. Gardens: There are small flower gardens and some large 200+-year-old live oak trees on the property near the mansion. A path to a Mississippi River viewpoint is located near the front entrance to mansion, and is worth walking as you don’t see the river from most of the plantations as the levee blocks the views that these plantations once had. Photography Allowed:  Photography is allowed throughout.  Food: Yes, a cafe and a restaurant. Gift Shop: Yes Accessibility: The  Nottoway Plantation tour has 4 steps to reach the 3rd floor of the main house. However, the house has an elevator and the other floors are wheelchair accessible. A visitor who cannot climb the steps can still hear the guide from outside on the 3rd floor. The gift shop, cafe, museum, and most of the garden paths are accessible. The cemetery is not wheelchair accessible. Wheelchair accessible toilets are available. Some of the overnight accommodations are wheelchair accessible and have roll-in showers. Day Tours Available from New Orleans: We were not able to find any regularly operated guided day tours to Nottoway, but should be able to arrange a private tour from New Orleans or Baton Rouge. Lodging: Yes, guests can stay in cottages on the property near the house or even in a few of the bedrooms in the main house. Resort facilities are also on the property. Check prices here . Crowds: Medium to Large  – Many visitors come here to tour the opulent mansion (close to Baton Rouge) but the property also hosts a number of conferences and events.  Most Unique: Opulent large furnished mansion, beautiful white ballroom, and guests have ability to stay in main house (or cottages). Nottoway Plantation is the largest antebellum mansion in the American South.

Our Impressions of Nottoway Plantation

Nottoway Plantation is large, opulent, and beautiful–the 53,000 square foot mansion boasts massive exterior columns, hand-carved Italian marble fireplaces, detailed plaster frieze moldings, and modern conveniences. The main house tour contains a number of beautiful rooms, perhaps the most memorable being the White Ballroom.

The tour guides are costumed but the atmosphere was fairly relaxed as we were even allowed to sit on some of the furniture. During the tour, there were interesting stories about how the green velvet curtains may have inspired Selznick for Gone with the Wind , how the youngest Randolph son ran off to New Orleans with the enslaved cook’s daughter and was all but written out of the family history, and how the plantation house managed to survive the Civil War with only a grapeshot hitting one of its columns.

We definitely recommend visiting the small museum and watching the video before or after your tour. We had gumbo and jambalaya at the small cafe and found the food to be both tasty and a very good value.

We’d recommend Nottoway Plantation for those looking for a grand and beautiful plantation house, some interesting stories of the Randolphs lives before and during the Civil War, and opulent furnishings. However, it is not going to be the best fit for those seeking information on slavery or plantation life; it also does not have any additional historical buildings to visit other than the main house.

It is very convenient for those basing in Baton Rouge as it is the closest of the more grand plantation houses. Nottoway Plantation may also be a good choice for those wanting to spend the night in a plantation house as only a few plantations houses allow guests in their main house.

Houmas House Plantation & Gardens

Houmas House Plantation is one of the beautiful restored Greek Revival plantation homes, nicknamed the Sugar Palace. However, the house is actually two houses connected by a carriageway and the dates of the original older house are still a mystery. Many believe, and we were told on the tour, that it is the original Latil house that was originally French colonial (circa 1775) but it was expanded and updated into a more Federal style over the years. It is known that the larger newer main house built in the Greek Revival style was built around 1840.

The house is sumptuously furnished and the costumed guides tell the story of what it was like to live in the house during the time of the wealthy sugar barons. The plantation also has beautiful gardens, three restaurants, and overnight accommodations.

In 2015, Houmas House was voted #2 of top historic homes to tour in America by USA Today. The plantation is also a private residence and is known for being the setting for many scenes from  Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte  starring Bette Davis.

Address:  40136 Highway 942, Darrow, LA 70725 Houmas House Plantation Website: www.houmashouse.com Original Date of Main Plantation House: c.  1775? (older French colonial house with Federal additions?) & c. 1840 (Greek Revival main house) Architectural Style: Greek Revival (also Federal) Main Cash Crop: sugar cane Working plantation today?: No Owners: The plantation was originally bought by two New Orleans businessmen, Maurice Conway and Alexandre Latil, from the Houmas Indians. Latil built a modest house here which may be the existing smaller house. General Wade Hamilton from South Carolina was the next owner and his son-in-law, John Smith Preston, built the present Greek Revival mansion. It then went through a succession of owners, being purchased by Dr. George Croza in 1940 who restored the house. In 2003, it was purchased by current owner, dog-loving businessman Kevin Kelly, who actually still lives in the house. Tours/Tour Guides: The main house and kitchen can only be viewed on a guided tour, but the grounds and gardens are self-guided. Tour guides are  costumed in antebellum clothing. Main House Furnishings: The house is furnished, some pieces are original but most are period pieces. House is sumptuously furnished and has a lot of antiques. Other buildings to visit on property:  T he property also has the kitchen (visited on the tour) and two matching brick octagonal two-story garconnières (c. 1840s), although these were not open for viewing during our visit.  Slavery Information:  There was a small amount of information about slavery during the mansion tour. Gardens: Yes, almost 38 acres of gardens that include both indigenous Louisiana plants and exotic plants and flowers. There is the Hampton Garden, Upper Garden and Neptune Pavillion Fountain which surround the Fountain Courtyard. There are also eight 200-year-old grand live oak trees on the property, these were once part of a 24 oak tree oak alley leading all the way to the Mississippi river until most were cut down by the Works Progress Administration levee crew during the Great Depression. Photography Allowed:  Photography is allowed outside and inside. Food: Yes, there is a cafe (Cafe Burnside) offering lunch, The Turtle Bar (located inside one of the garconnières) serving drinks, a restaurant (Carriage House Restaurant) serving breakfast, cocktails, and dinner, and a more formal restaurant serving dinner (Latil’s Landing Restaurant). Reservations are required for dinner.  Gift Shop: Yes Accessibility: Houmas House is probably the most accessible of the River Road plantations. Although there are a number of stairs within the main house, the house has a ramp and elevator offering step-free access. The elevator can hold wheelchairs and most mobility scooters. The gift shop, cafe, and restaurant are wheelchair accessible and there are wheelchair accessible toilets available. Much of the grounds has sidewalks and drivers with golf carts are regularly available to take guests around the grounds. Houmas House also offers two ADA overnight rooms, one of which has a roll-in shower. Day Tours Available from New Orleans: Yes, a few options are this tour  (Houmas House only),  this tour  (Houmas House plus lunch and Madewood Plantation), and this private tour (also includes Destrehan Plantation). Lodging: Yes, there are 21 rooms and suites in modern cottages on the property. Breakfast and a tour of the Houmas House mansion are included with an overnight stay.   Check prices here . Crowds: Medium to Large  – This plantation was not that busy the day we visited, but it can get large crowds. It is well-known and popular. Most Unique: The flair and knowledge of the costumed guides (they really are good at acting like they are Southern antebellum ladies/gents), the sumptuous furnishings and antiques, tour is pet-friendly, and the extensive gardens. Houmas House is also well-known in the area for its food, especially the fine dining experience at Latil’s Landing Restaurant.

Our Impressions of Houmas House Plantation

Houmas House Plantation is one of the most opulent of the Louisiana River Road plantation homes, beautifully restored and filled with elegant furnishings and antiques. The costumed guides aim to take you back to the height of the antebellum period and show you what it would have been like to be part of a sugar baron’s family and live a lavish lifestyle. Our guide was not only entertaining, but also very knowledgeable about the house, history, and furnishings.

The tour included visits to the main Greek Revival mansion and the smaller older house that contains the kitchen and restaurant. Some of the antiques are quite remarkable and you even get to see the owner’s bedroom (if he’s not in it) and you’re likely to see his dogs. This is a private residence as well as a house museum and you are allowed to touch many of the objects and even sit on the furniture, and since the owner loves dogs, well-behaved pets are allowed on the tour.

Be sure to check out the short video in the gift shop before or after your tour and leave time to walk around the gardens and grounds. We were sad to not have time to dine here as dinner at Latil’s Landing Restaurant was highly recommended to us, even by staff at other plantations.

Houmas House is a great plantation for those looking to hear about what it was like to live as an owner of a wealthy sugar plantation, see elegant furnishings and antiques, and stroll through beautiful gardens. However, this is not going to be a good fit for those looking for slavery information or those looking for a more intact plantation complex with lots of historical buildings to visit. However, it was one of the most entertaining house tours we took and the best plantation to visit if you are looking for gardens or a pet-friendly house tour! 

Poché Plantation

Poché Plantation is the youngest of the Louisiana River Road plantations we visited, and the existing main house was actually built after the Civil War in 1867. The house is unique for its architectural style, Victorian Renaissance, and is also significant for its association with its original owner, Judge Felix Pierre Poché. In addition to being a founding member of the American Bar Association, Poché is also known for keeping a diary in French detailing the Civil War in Louisiana. It is one of only a handful of existing printed accounts of the Civil War as a Confederate in Louisiana.

However, perhaps the most unique thing about Poché Plantation is that it is also a motor coach RV park (as well as a B&B). This is an ideal spot for those exploring the Louisiana River Road in a campervan or RV!

Address:  6554 State Highway 44, Convent , LA 70802 Poché Plantation Website: www.pocheplantation.com Original Date of Main Plantation House: circa 1867  (some time between 1867 and 1870) Architectural Style: Victorian Renaissance Revival Main Cash Crop: Originally a sugar cane plantation, later Perique tobacco (rare and unique tobacco grown in St. James parish) Working plantation today?: No Owners: J udge Felix Pierre Poché built the house after the Civil War on what was a sugar cane plantation, but he primarily used it as a summer home for him and his family until selling it in 1892. It is currently owned and run by Mark and Yvette Anderson Tours/Tour Guides: Main house can be visited with a guided tour, please call ahead for tour times. There is also a small museum focused on post-Civil War local history. Tours are typically given by the owner.     Main House Furnishings:  The house includes some original furnishings and some period specific pieces. Other buildings to visit on property:  T he other historical building on the property is the  Judge’s Office which is a 4-room building built in 1830 which may or may not be open during your visit. St. Michael the Archangel Catholic Church is just a short 5-minute walk from the plantation. Slavery Information:  You won’t likely find a great deal of information about slavery here. The current plantation home was built after the end of slavery. Judge Felix Pierre Poché came from a planter family, but spent his life working as a lawyer, judge, and politician. Gardens: Extensive grounds but no formal garden.  Photography Allowed:  Photography is allowed inside and outside. Food: No, but picnic area and group kitchen facility available on site for campers. Gift Shop: No Accessibility: The main house at Poché Plantation is not wheelchair accessible. Some of the RV park amenities are wheelchair accessible including the shower rooms, and at least one of the overnight cottages is wheelchair accessible. Day Tours Available from New Orleans: No Lodging: Yes, Poché Plantation is a RV park and also rents bed-and-breakfast rooms and cottages. The RV park is a full-service site designed to accommodate about any type of modern RV, campervan, or fifth wheel home with large concrete spaces, tower hook ups, WIFI, showers, coin laundry, hot tub, and a swimming pool.   Crowds: Low. The RV park is popular , but typically visitor numbers for house tours are low compared to nearby plantations.  Most Unique: The architecture style and being the only plantation that allows RV overnight stays (state’s only destination RV resort) . The youngest property open for tours in the area.

Our Impressions of  Poché Plantation

Poché Plantation is a bit of a surprise for most visitors as a RV park and a plantation house are not normally located side by side. We did not actually tour Poché Plantation as we arrived just after the daily tour times, but we did walk around the property a bit in our search to see if tours were still available. We recommend calling or emailing ahead for those wanting to tour the plantation house.

This house is probably not likely going to wow those looking for a grand plantation house or those searching for historical information about plantation life, slavery, and/or life in antebellum Louisiana. However, the architecture is unique and the story of Judge Felix Pierre Poché and his family is quite interesting.

A couple of rooms in the main house (as well as guest cottages) can also be rented out for those looking for a plantation house stay. RVers wanting to explore the Louisiana plantation homes should definitely check this place out.

Oak Alley Plantation

Oak Alley Plantation is often referred to as the Grand Dame of the Great River Road with its lovely Greek Revival style mansion and famous 300-year-old alley of oaks. It is certainly one of the most photogenic and has been featured in several films, including Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte , Primary Colors , and Interview with the Vampire . Guests also have the option to eat, shop, and/or stay overnight at this plantation.

However, the beauty and amenities here come at the price of being one of the most visited plantations in Louisiana and it can get quite crowded. Despite potential crowds, it can be a hard plantation to resist, and you can read our full Oak Alley review .

Address:  3645 Highway 18, Vacherie, Louisiana 70090 Oak Alley Plantation Website: www.oakalleyplantation.com Original Date of Main Plantation House: 1839  (built between 1837-1839) Architectural Style: Greek Revival Main Cash Crop: sugar cane Working plantation today?: No Owners: J acques Télesphore Roman built the Oak Alley mansion as a gift for his wife Celina. The Roman family would run the sugar cane plantation until 1866 when it was sold to a long succession of owners, slowly falling into disrepair. The house would be restored in the 1920’s by Texan cattle ranchers Andrew and Josephine Stewart.  Today, the Oak Alley Foundation, set up by Josephine Stewart, runs the plantation. Tours/Tour Guides: The m ain house can only be visited with a guided tour, but the outdoor exhibits, gardens, and other buildings are self-guided. Tour guides are costumed in antebellum dress. Main House Furnishings: The house is sumptuously furnished. Only a few pieces are original, but most are period consistent items from the mid-1800’s.  Other buildings to visit on property:  T he property also contains 6 reconstructed slave cabins which contain a slavery exhibit, an Overseer’s Property (original building, private), sugar kettles, old plantation bell, Roman family tombstone, and a blacksmith shop that includes a 1890’s forge (demonstrations are sometimes done here). There is also a Sugar Cane exhibit and an interactive Civil War exhibit.  Slavery Information:  There is a small amount of information on slavery on the main tour. There is quite a bit of additional information available about slavery at Oak Alley in the self-guided slavery exhibit housed in the 6 slave cabins that were built using period consistent techniques and materials.  Gardens: There is an English garden and small flower gardens. There are two oak alleys, one in the front of the house and one in the back. The famous Alley of Oaks is a 800-feet-long alley of 300-year-old mature Virginia Live Oaks located on what would have been the front of the house. An alley of younger oaks in the back alley were planted in the 1830’s and 1930’s. Photography Allowed:  Photography is allowed inside and outside. Food: Yes,  there is both a sit-down restaurant and a cafe at Oak Alley. There is also a Spirits Bar located across from the restaurant. There are also some picnic tables located near the parking lot. Gift Shop: Yes Accessibility: The Oak Alley Plantation main house has step-free access (with a movable ramp that can be placed over the 1 step) into the ground floor but the second floor is not wheelchair accessible. There are 22 steps to reach the second floor of the house. Guests who cannot climb the steps will be led by the guide to the media room to watch the tour on an individual iPad after seeing the ground floor. There are 3 steps up to access slave cabins. There are wheelchair accessible toilets in the Oak Alley restaurant. There are disable parking spaces near the restaurant which visitors should ask about at the booth upon arrival. The gift shop, restaurant, and outside paths are accessible (made of concrete or brick). One of the overnight cottages is wheelchair accessible. Day Tours Available from New Orleans: Yes, there are several options including this tour (Oak Alley only), this tour (also includes Laura Plantation),  this tour  (choice of 2 plantations), this well-rated full day tour (also includes Laura Plantation, lunch, and swamp tour), and this private tour (Oak Alley only). Lodging: Yes, there are currently 8 guest cottages on the property; some are historical plantation cottages, some are newly constructed modern deluxe cottages. Read about our Oak Alley Plantation visit and overnight stay. Crowds: Large – this is one of the most visited plantations in the area and crowds can be very large at times.  Most Unique: The oak alley and the grandeur of the house and its furnishings. It is also known for its restaurant’s Creole and Cajun dishes and its mint juleps.

Our Impressions of Oak Alley Plantation

Oak Alley is a crowd pleaser with its beautiful Greek Revival mansion, dreamy alley of stately live oaks, and sumptuous furnishings. The plantation is lively, busy, and has dining and lodging opportunities. It is popular and crowds can be large here, so try to visit in the early morning or late afternoon if you can.

Oak Alley can be visited for free with a New Orleans Pass , so we strongly recommend visiting here for pass holders.

The house tour focuses on the lives of the first owners (Romans) and last owners (Stewarts), antebellum life in the house, and the decline and restoration of the house. The house seems smaller inside than it does from the outside. Towards the end of the house tour, you get a nice view of the oak alley from the verandah.

Interesting tidbits from the tour that stuck with me was the mystery of why there is no Spanish moss on the live oak trees, the use of the courting candle, and that the plantations enslaved gardener Antoine was the first person to successfully graft pecan trees and his work resulted in the first named variety. Be sure to spend time at the Slavery Exhibit; we do wish a guide-led tour focused on slavery was also offered here at Oak Alley for those wishing to know more on the topic.

Our overnight stay at Oak Alley was a wonderful experience with a nicely furnished modern cottage and the privilege to stroll the grounds peacefully after all the visitors were gone. We ate three meals at Oak Alley, including dinner in our room, and we really enjoyed all the dishes we tried and we also enjoyed sipping on mint juleps (three types to choose from!) while walking around the grounds.

Oak Alley Plantation is a great fit for those travelers seeking a grand richly furnished plantation house and photogenic views. The view of Oak Alley Plantation house from the oak alley may be the best view on the entire River Road.

St. Joseph Plantation

St. Joseph Plantation is a working 1,000 acre sugar cane farm that has been owned by the same family since 1877. Family members still manage the property and even lead many of the house tours. St. Joseph is described as “authentic”, and plantation house tours focus on the lives of those who lived at the plantation with a special focus on Creole culture and the Reconstruction period.

St. Joseph Plantation (when a part of it was known as Priestley Plantation) is also the birthplace of Henry Hobson Richardson, a prominent 19th American architect, probably best known for designing Trinity Church in Boston.

The family also owns the adjacent Felicity Plantation, which is not open to the public but is regularly used for filming, including 12 Years a Slave , The Skeleton Key , Oprah’s Queen Suga r, Underground series, and the 2016 remake of Roots mini-series . 

Address: 3535 Highway 18, Vacherie, LA 70090 St. Joseph Plantation Website: www.stjosephplantation.com Original Date of Main Plantation House: c. 1830   Architectural Style: Raised  French creole Main Cash Crop: sugar cane Working plantation today?: Yes, still a working sugar cane plantation  Owners: St. Joseph Plantation was built by the Louis Scioneaux family, then sold to a  French doctor Dr. Cazamine Mericq and then to Alexis Ferry and his wife Josephine (daughter of the immensely wealthy sugar planter François-Gabriel “Valcour” Aimé). In 1877, the house was purchased in a sheriff’s sale by Joseph Waguespack who named it St. Joseph Plantation and it is still owned by descendants of the Waguespack family today. About 200 Waguespack and Simon family members currently own stock in the family-run sugar cane plantation. Tours/Tour Guides: Main house can only be visited with a guided tour, but the other buildings are self-guided. Special themed tours, such as a Creole Mourning tour, are sometimes offered. Tour guides are  not costumed.  Main House Furnishings: Rooms are furnished and m any of the objects are original to the house and/or family. Many of the pieces are Reconstruction era (post-Civil War period). Other buildings to visit on property:  T he property also contains original slave cabins (c. 1830-1840), detached kitchen (c. 1880’s), blacksmith’s  shop, carpenter’s shed, and a small schoolhouse. Some buildings have been moved closer to the house but most remain where they were built. There is also a short video on sugar cane production that you can watch. There is also a former plantation store on the property (currently a flower store), that was the longest opened store on the River Road, only closing in the 1990’s! The family also owns the next door Felicity Plantation house, built in 1850, which is currently not open to visitors but is often used for filming.  Slavery Information:  There is a small amount of information about slavery on the main tour. There are original slave quarters buildings on the property for viewing. Gardens: No gardens, but t here are small pretty flower beds and a number of trees on the property, including some grand 300 -year-old live oak trees on the property. Photography Allowed:  Photography is allowed outside and inside. Food: No, but picnic tables under the oak trees are available for use by visitors who bring a picnic lunch. Gift Shop: Yes Accessibility:  Only the first floor of St. Joseph Plantation has step-free access and is accessible for wheelchairs. There is no step-free access to the second floor which includes a large portion of the tour rooms. The film room, farm tools, and gift shop are on the first floor and are wheelchair accessible. Day Tour Available from New Orleans: Yes, this tour includes a visit to St. Joseph Plantation and Whitney Plantation. You could also arrange a private tour. Lodging: No Crowds: Small – this is not typically a busy property and is not very well-known in comparison to many of the other plantations.  Most Unique:  Working family-owned sugar cane plantation, focus on Creole customs, owned and run by family (most guides are family), and authentic furnishings.

Our Impressions of St. Joseph Plantation

St. Joseph is a family-run working sugar cane plantation that feels more authentic than most of the other properties. The house is not nearly as grand as its finely furnished restored next door neighbors Oak Alley or Houmas House, but the lack of heavy restoration helps add to the experience here. We also enjoyed that we were able to touch many of the pieces of furniture/artifacts in the house; Laurence even had a go at the pump organ. It was one of my favorite visits as it felt less commercialized than some of the others and it does not get the crowds of some of its better-known neighbors.

The main house was lived in until 1997 and the guides are able to give you plenty of interesting details about family life here following the Civil War. There is of course also information about the antebellum period and Civil War history of the house and inhabitants, but what is more interesting here is hearing from the family of life following the Civil War. Many of the former slaves stayed on as tenant farmers and some of their descendants continued to live on the plantation for generations. Tenant farming, especially in the 19th and early 20th century, was still a tough life and tenants lives were heavily dependent on the weather, crop conditions, and the goodwill of plantation owners.

The descendants of Joseph Waguespack have continued to run the farm through good and bad times. The tour guides and gift shop staff are normally family members. It is interesting to hear stories of those who remember growing up or visiting the plantation and to see items such as the christening gowns worn by generations of family members (including some of the guides).

Don’t forget to leave some time to explore the outside buildings (e.g., slave cabins, kitchen) on your own (pick up a leaflet for some information on the buildings). If it is a nice day, consider picking up some food from a local grocery store or deli and eating under one of the oak trees here.

This is a great bet for those looking to visit a family-owned working plantation and those wanting to hear a bit more about what happened on plantations after the Civil War!

Laura Plantation

Laura Plantation is a French creole plantation that is known for being run by four generations of the Duparc-Locoul family, with the women of the family being primarily responsible for running the plantation. The last owner from the family, Laura Locoul, would sell the plantation and later in her life write a memoir, Memories of the Old Plantation Home: A Creole Family Album , focused on her time growing up and running the plantation. It is now this memoir that provides the main material for the guided house tours at Laura Plantation.

Laura Plantation is also known for being one of the locations where folklorist Alcée Fortier  (born at Petit Versailles Plantation) recorded the African stories of the trickster Br’er Rabbit from the slaves (known as Compair Lapin in French Creole).

In 2004, the plantation house suffered extensive damage due to a fire (now restored), but numerous original outbuildings from the antebellum period survive on the property. 

Address: 2247 Highway 18, Vacherie, LA 70090 Laura Plantation Website:  http://www.lauraplantation.com Original Date of Main Plantation House: 1805 (80% of house was destroyed by a fire in 2004 so rebuilt and heavily restored) Architectural Style: French creole Main Cash Crop: sugar cane Working plantation today?: No Owners: This house was built by Frenchman Guillaume Duparc and was then passed onto 4 generations of his family who worked and live on the plantation, ending with Laura Locoul who sold the plantation in 1891. The plantation was then sold to the Waguespack family (owners of St. Joseph Plantation) who farmed the sugarcane and lived at the plantation until 1984. It is currently owned and run by the Laura Plantation Company as a Creole cultural attraction.  Tours/Tour Guides: Main house and grounds can only be visited with a guided tour; guided tour includes main house, slave cabins (c. 1840), gardens, and a view of some of the other buildings (barns, overseer’s cottage). Tours are available daily in both English and French. Tour guides are  not costumed. You can book your tour in advance here . Main House Furnishings: The house is furnished but the furnishings are not original, but are era specific.  Other buildings to visit on property:  T he property also contains a number of other buildings, including slave cabins, barns, overseers’ cottages, and the Maison de Reprise (1829; mother-in-law house). You can’t visit these buildings on your own but on the guided tour you get to go inside a couple of the slave cabins and get exterior views of some of the other buildings. Slavery Information:  Moderate. There is a substantive amount of information provided about slavery, life of slaves on the plantation, and part of the tour takes place in the slave cabins.  Gardens: Yes, there is a small formal French garden, a kitchen garden, and a banana tree grove.  Photography Allowed:  Photography was allowed outside and inside. Food: No restaurant, but snack food and drinks were available in the gift store. Gift Shop: Yes Accessibility: The basement of the main house of Laura Plantation is at ground level and is step-free; however, t here are 15 steps up/down into the main floor of the house. There are 3 steps up/down into the slave cabin. The house can accommodate a wheelchair or walker (although not a scooter) if visitor has a companion who can assist them up the stairs and carry the wheelchair. The gift shop and museum are wheelchair accessible but the 1840’s slave cabin is not. There is a wheelchair accessible toilet on site. Paths through the grounds are graveled or bricked. Day Tours Available from New Orleans: Yes, there are several tours options, including  this tour (also includes Oak Alley Plantation),  this tour (also includes either Whitney Plantation or Oak Alley), this full day tour (also includes Houmas House, brunch, and swamp tour), and this private tour (also includes Houmas House, lunch and an airboat ride). Lodging: No Crowds: Moderate to Large  – This is a popular plantation and can get quite busy.  Most Unique: The focus on the lives of Laura and her family, emphasis on Creole culture, connection to the Br’er Rabbit tales, tours provided daily in French, and a moderate amount of information on slavery.

Our Impressions of Laura Plantation

Laura Plantation is a popular plantation and the tour focus on the story of Laura Locoul and her ancestors make it unique from the other plantations. In the past, plantation tours focused on the house and the Br’er Rabbit connection, but today the focus here is very much on the four generations of the Duparc family, particularly the women who all heavily contributed to the running of this plantation. I would recommend reading the actual book the tour is based on either before or after your tour.

Laura grew up in a strict French-speaking Creole family and did not want to run the family plantation but did her duty running it for a while before deciding to marry a non-Catholic man, sell the plantation, and move to St. Louis. Late in her life she would write her memoir after a return visit to the plantation and questions from her children about her life on the plantation.

The tour also focused on Creole culture and the lives of the slaves at the plantations, and we liked that part of the tour took part in the slave cabins with a focus on the lives of some of the known slaves. These cabins were actually lived in until 1977, first by former slaves and their descendants and then by lumber company workers. We also appreciated the colorful facade of the Creole main house; however, the majority of the house is not original and so there is not very much focus on either the house or the interior furnishings on the tour. So this would not be a great fit for those looking to learn a lot about the house, the furnishings, or general plantation life.

This tour is a great fit for those wanting to learn about a Creole family and its story of running a plantation across multiple generations. It also has quite a bit of information on both Creole culture and the lives of slaves at Laura. Also, this a great place for anyone wanting a tour in French as it is the only plantation that we know of that regularly gives daily tours in French.

Whitney Plantation

Whitney Plantation is the only plantation in Louisiana to focus on the story of slavery. In fact, it is credited as the first (and currently only) museum dedicated to slavery in the United States.

Tours here focus on slavery and try to communicate the harsh realities of slave life on a Louisiana plantation. It was the practice of slavery that made the great wealth of the plantation owners possible, and it was forced slave labor that harvested the fields and built the majority of these beautiful homes. The plantation includes artwork dedicated to slavery as well as three memorials: one dedicated to the slaves at Whitney, one dedicated to the slaves of Louisiana, and another to slave children.

Much of the information used in the tour, including many of the quotes, come from the  Slave Narratives Collection  that was part of the Federal Writers Project where former slaves (mostly children and young adults at the time of slavery) were interviewed between 1936-1938 across 17 states and most of these interviews are available online and in print in the Whitney Plantation gift shop. 

Significant historical buildings on the property including the Spanish Creole main house with original painted murals, the only French Creole barn in the United States, and the oldest detached kitchen in Louisiana. The plantation is also known for being the setting of some scenes from Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained .

Address: 5099 Highway 18, Wallace, LA 70049 Whitney Plantation Website: www.whitneyplantation.com Original Date of Main Plantation House: c.  1790 (expanded in early 1800’s) Architectural Style: Spanish  creole Main Cash Crop: indigo, then sugar cane Working plantation today?: No Owners: The plantation, originally known as Habitation Haydel, was first owned by Ambroise Heidel, an immigrant from Germany who purchased it in 1752. The main house is believed to have been built by his son Jean Jacques Haydel. It was sold to a succession of owners over the years. The plantation gets its current name from owner Bradish Johnson (who purchased it in 1867) who named it after his grandson Harry Whitney. Today, it belongs to John Cummings, an attorney from New Orleans, who was the person who decided to open it for the first time to the public and to dedicate it to understanding the facts of slavery.  Tours/Tour Guides: Whitney Plantation can only be visited on a guided tour.  Tour guides are  not costumed.  Main House Furnishings: The house is furnished but the pieces are not original, but they are period furnishings from the early 19th century. Other buildings to visit on property:  T he property also contains a number of other historical buildings on the plantation, many of them original, including a pigeonnier (c. 1820, the other one is a reconstruction), mule barn, overseer’s house, detached kitchen (c. 1790), French Creole barn, blacksmith shop (rebuilt in 2005 to original design), and slave quarters cabins (original cabins brought from other nearby plantations), and a baptist church (moved here from Paulina, LA). Other buildings and memorials are relatively new and have been constructed to house the slavery museum and exhibits. The memorials include the Wall of Honor (Whitney slave memorial), Allées Gwendolyn Midlo Hall (memorial to slaves in Louisiana) and The Field of Angels (slave memorial to Louisiana slave children).     Slavery Information:  Large. This is the only plantation, and only museum in the country, currently solely dedicated to sharing information about slavery and stories of former slaves. There are several memorials, artwork, and original slave quarters on the property to view. There is also a large number of books in the gift shop on the subject of slavery.  Gardens: No, but there are some great old live oaks in front of the main house.  Photography Allowed:  Photography was allowed outside and inside. Food: No, but there is a vending machine with snack food and drinks at the visitor center. Gift Shop: Yes Accessibility: The majority of the guided tour at Whitney Plantation is accessible for mobility scooters and wheelchairs, as most takes place outside. The visitor center, gift shop, church with introduction video, memorial area, and bottom floor of the Big House have step-free access and are wheelchair accessible. The second floor of Big House has 10 steps and is not wheelchair accessible. There are 2 steps each to get in and out of slave cabins and kitchen. Outside paths are mostly made of tight gravel. Tour is 1.5 hours long so may not be a good fit for those who have difficulty standing for longer periods of time although you can bring a walker, cane, or collapsible chair with you. The visitor and information center has a wheelchair accessible toilet, and there are 4 disabled parking spaces. Day Tours Available from New Orleans: Yes, there are several tours options, including this tour (Whitney only),  this tour  (also includes choice of Laura Plantation or Oak Alley), and  this tour (also includes St. Joseph Plantation). Lodging: No Crowds: M oderate – opened in 2014 this is becoming a more popular plantation as it becomes more well-known to the public.  Most Unique: The focus on slavery, slavery memorials, Spanish Creole architecture of main house and its decorative wall paintings, oldest detached kitchen in Louisiana, and last known surviving French Creole barn in the United States.

Our Impressions of Whitney Plantation

Whitney Plantation is the only plantation museum in Louisiana dedicated to slavery, and the tour is strongly focused on providing factual information about slavery as well as stories from former slaves. First, we checked out the small museum at the Visitor Center where there is some good information on slavery around the world–I was quite surprised about the Catholic church’s role in both encouraging and later ending slavery, Portugal’s large role in the slave trade, and the large number of slaves brought to Brazil.

Our tour started with a visit to the church where we watched a good introduction film and the we were each given a card with information about a former slave. There are 40 excellent slave children statues made by artist Woodrow Nash and you can locate the one made to represent the slave you are given; these really help to made a more personal connection.

After this, we were taken outside and given some more information and taken through 3 slavery memorials (the bronze sculpture depicting a crying angel carrying a slave baby to Heaven is quite evocative) which was about 2/3 of the tour. There was some great information here, including some truly heart wrenching stories, but we would have liked to have just been introduced to the memorials and left to explore the memorials on our own rather than exploring them on a time limit as a group.

The final part of the tour was exploring the buildings, which included slave cabins, an iron jail, the kitchen, blacksmith’s shop, and the master’s main house. There was some great information on the jobs and work of some of the slaves. The main house tour is quite quick as it is not the focus of the tour but the house is significant for its age, architecture, and the painted murals on the interior and exterior of the house which are original and quite rare. Be sure to leave a bit of time to browse the gift shop, which has a particularly large collection of books related to slavery.

Whitney Plantation is obviously not a place for those wanting to focus on the tales of the wealthy owners, sumptuous house furnishings, or a detailed information about the plantation buildings themselves, as the focus here is primarily on slavery and the memorials. It should also be noted that the majority of the 1.5 hour tour takes place outdoors and involves quite a bit of walking so plan accordingly. However, for anyone wanting to truly learn the harsh facts about slavery, especially slavery in Louisiana and the American South, they should definitely pay a visit to Whitney Plantation. The story of plantation life is not complete without the history of slavery.

Evergreen Plantation

Evergreen Plantation is one of the largest and most intact plantation complexes in the South with 37 buildings on the National Register of Historic Places. The majority of the buildings are antebellum, including the 22 slave cabins in their original sites; however, some of the buildings have been rebuilt or heavily restored. Evergreen Plantation and Whitney Plantation were both originally owned by German farmer immigrant Ambroise Heidel, and his sons would build the currently standing main houses at both plantations.

Evergreen also possesses a beautiful alley of live oak tress, estimated to be about 200 years old. Evergreen Plantation is also known for being the setting of some scenes from Django Unchained   and the 2016 remake of the Roots mini-series.

Address:  4677 Highway 18, Edgard, LA 70049 Evergreen Plantation Website: evergreenplantation.org Original Date of Main Plantation House: c. 1790 (expanded 1803, drastically remodeled & expanded in 1832) Architectural Style: Greek Revival (originally  French creole) Main Cash Crop: sugar cane Working plantation today?: Yes, land is currently leased by the owner for sugar cane production Owners: This house was built by planter Christophe Heidel (son of Ambroise Heidel, his brother built Whitney Plantation) and his wife Charlotte Oubre as a 2-story raised French Creole villa and it was later covered to a Greek Revival house and expanded in 1832 by later owner Pierre Clidamant Becnel. The Becnels would sell it to the Creole Songy family in 1894, the Songys would lose the plantation to the bank during the Great Depression, and then in 1946 it was purchased from the bank by Louisiana oil heiress Matilda Gray who used it as a second home. She restored, updated, and furnished the house, and at her death it was inherited by her niece Matilda Gray Stream who still owns it today.  Tours/Tour Guides: Main house and grounds can only be visited on a guided tour . Tour guides are  not costumed.  Main House Furnishings: The house is furnished with period pieces from the 19th century, but also contains some modern pieces and elements as it was used as a residence until the end of the 20th century and is still sometimes used for entertaining.  Other buildings to visit on property:  T he property contains 37 buildings on the National Register of Historical Places and is one of the largest and most intact plantation buildings in the American South. The buildings include 22 original antebellum slave quarter cabins, a domestic slave quarter, a detached kitchen (c. 1790, heavily restored), 2 garçonnières, 2 pigeonniers, a barn, and a Greek Revival privy (a.k.a. outhouse, 1832). Some buildings you can tour inside, and some you can view only from the outside. There is also a museum/interpretive center at the visitor center. Slavery Information:  Moderate. A portion of tours at Evergreen Plantation are dedicated to the lives and work of the slaves on the plantation. There is also the 22 slave quarters buildings on the property for viewing and you get to go inside a couple of them. Gardens: Yes, t here is a formal hedge garden behind the house.  Photography Allowed:  Photography is allowed outside and inside. Food: No Gift Shop: Yes Accessibility:  The main house of Evergreen is two story accessible by stairs only, and has approximately 15 steps total. The first floor does have 1 step up to enter. There are no ramps to this one step although a wheelchair can, with assistance, may be pulled up this step but would have access to the ground floor only. Most paths and roadways are gravel, grass, or brick. The kitchen has 2 steps and the slave quarter house has 4 steps, neither have ramps. The welcome and information center has a ramp providing step-free access, a wheelchair accessible toilet, and a disabled parking space. Day Tours Available from New Orleans: Yes, there are few tours options, including this tour (also includes Oak Alley, lunch, and swamp tour), this tour  (also includes Oak Alley), and this private tour (private drive along River Road and visit to plantation of choice). Lodging: No Crowds: Small to moderate – this is not typically a busy property and is not as well-known in comparison to many of the other plantations.  Most Unique: The number of historical buildings on the property including the 22 slave cabins in their original configuration, being one of the most intact plantation complexes in the South, and the photogenic alley of live oaks. It is also a working sugar cane plantation; however, the owner is not involved in the sugar cane plantation but leases the land out to others.

Our Impressions of Evergreen Plantation

Evergreen Plantation is the most intact of the Louisiana River Road plantations so there are a lot of buildings to view, although many have been heavily restored on the inside. The most significant is the 22 antebellum slave cabins still in their original position (at least one has been rebuilt, many restored) that sit underneath a portion of the picturesque alley of live oaks. The oak alley here is interesting in that it along the side of the house rather than in front of it. This oak alley has Spanish moss draping the trees (missing at Oak Alley) which helps give it a mysterious and eerie feel.

Laurence and I did not actually have a chance to do the full tour here but we did visit the interpretive center/visitor center and spent 45-minutes with one of the tour guides at the center. The interpretive center is great to see before you start the tour so you can get an idea of the history of the plantation. After you buy your tickets at the museum center and get an introduction here, you’ll follow the guide by car to park nearer to the actual plantation house to start the walking tour. The plantation complex is amazingly symmetrical and the tour includes visits to some of the outbuildings (slave cabins, kitchen) as well as the main house.

We can’t comment on the actual tour since we didn’t take it or visit any of the interiors. We were also told by both visitors and guides that there is an emphasis on slavery on the tours, although obviously not nearly as much as next door at Whitney. This tour is great for those wanting to see a largely intact plantation property (although furnishings are not original)  with multiple outbuildings, a beautiful oak alley, and hear the history of the past owners, slaves, and current owners. 

San Francisco Plantation

San Francisco Plantation is the most colorful of the Louisiana River Road plantations and although built during the antebellum period, it was built in the Gothic Steamboat style. Viewed from some angles, the house resembles the ornate and yet graceful structure of a Mississippi riverboat. The house was so architecturally distinctive that it inspired novelist Frances Parkinson Keyes to write Steamboat Gothic , a novel about a steamboat gambler who moves his family to Louisiana.

The plantation also has an interesting history of ownership, it first become a sugar plantation when owned by Elisée Rillieux, a free man of color and businessman. He quickly sold it to Edmond Bozonier Marmillion and his partner Eugène Lartigue for a large profit, and it would be Edmond who would build up the plantation and construct the current main house. Sadly, Edmond would die soon after the house’s completion and only one day before the arrival of Valsin and his new German wife Louise on a visit from Europe. Instead of returning to Germany, they were forced to take over the sugar plantation and were stopped from selling it by the onset of the Civil War and Reconstruction.

The name of the plantation is believed to derive from Valsin’s comment on the debt and cost of the estate, the French slang phrase “sans fruscins” which means “without a penny in my pocket”, becoming St. Frusquin. The name would be Americanized to San Francisco Plantation by future owner Achille D. Bougère. The house interior is distinctive for its painted ceilings and Southern German accents and motifs. 

Address: 2646 Highway 44, Garyville, LA 70051 San Francisco Plantation Website: www.sanfranciscoplantation.org Original Date of Main Plantation House: 1856 (built from 1853-1856) Architectural Style: Steamboat Gothic Main Cash Crop: sugar cane Working plantation today?: No Owners: This house was originally built by Edmond Bozonier Marmillion and then the plantation was run by his son Valsin Bozonier Marmillion and daughter-in-law Louise. The house then had a succession of owners. In the early 20th century, the house was purchased by the Ory family who lived here for about 50 years. In 1954, the Ory family leased the house to Clark Thompson and his wife who maintained the premises and opened the mansion to the public, living here until 1974. It was then purchased by the ECOL Company and later by Marathon Oil. The San Francisco Plantation Foundation was created and the home underwent a massive restoration, and is still funded and maintained by Marathon Oil and the trust today.  Tours/Tour Guides: Main house can only be visited with a guided tour, but the grounds and other buildings are self-guided. Tour guides are  costumed in antebellum period dress. Main House Furnishings: The house is furnished but none are original (except the wine racks), but the furnishings are period pieces.  Other buildings to visit on property:  T he property also contains a slave cabin (c. 1840, moved here from another plantation) and a one-room school house (c. 1830’s) that can be visited. Slavery Information:  There is a small amount of information on slavery on the main tour. There is also a slave quarters building on the property for viewing with more information. Gardens:  No. Property does have flower beds and some majestic oak trees. You can see the oil refinery buildings in the distance which can detract from the beauty for some. Photography Allowed:  Photography was allowed outside but not inside the main house.  Food: No Gift Shop: Yes Accessibility:  There is step-free access to the main floor of the San Francisco Plantation house but only the first floor of the house is wheelchair accessible. It is about 15 steps to reach the second floor of the house. Those who cannot do the second floor portion of the tour will receive a book about the history of the plantation that includes photos of all the rooms. The gift shop is wheelchair accessible. Paths on the property are concrete and there is a toilet on site that is wheelchair accessible. Day Tours Available from New Orleans: There used to several day tours available that included San Francisco Plantation, but they seem to no longer be taking part in any of the regular scheduled tours. You can arrange a private tour such as this one . Lodging: No Crowds: Small to m edium – this is a popular plantation but not as well known as some of the other area’s plantations.   Most Unique: Steamboat Gothic architecture,  colorfulness of the house, and painted ceilings.

NOTE: As noted by one of our readers, San Francisco Plantation discontinued its tours in 2022 and has sadly closed to visitors. The owner (Marathon Petroleum Corporation) has at least temporarily closed it and it is unclear when and if it may open in the future. Both the house and grounds are closed to the public. For more information, see the news story by WDSU about the plantation’s uncertain future here .

Our Impressions of San Francisco Plantation

San Francisco Plantation is a sort of microcosm of this area, a beautiful historical home surrounded by an industrial complex. The San Francisco Plantation Trust, funded by Marathon Oil, has spent millions of dollars researching, restoring, and maintaining this house. We think it is a great example of a modern industry helping to preserve a piece of history although some visitors may not enjoy glimpses of the oil refinery in the distance. The house itself has been restored to its antebellum look and it is quite unusual in its architecture and color; it really stands out among all the other River Road plantations.

San Francisco Plantation can be visited for free with a New Orleans Pass , so we strongly recommend visiting here for pass holders.

The guide was quite knowledgeable and some of the furnishings were unusual (copper freestanding shower), but one of the highlights of the house’s interior is the four painted ceilings which are in various states of restoration.

The most fascinating aspects of the tour to us was the history of the family and imagining how difficult it must have been for Valsin Bozonier Marmillion to come for a visit to find his father had just died and that he was heir to a sugar plantation he never wanted. It was particularly difficult for his German wife Louise who wanted to return to her home in Germany. Louise would only do this many years later after losing both her husband and brother-in-law. It is also interesting that Louise’s German descendants only reconnected to the house in the 1980’s, not being able to locate it with its new Americanized name, and they provided Louise’s letters, photos, and documents that help provide richness to the current tour.

Definitely make a little time for walking around the exterior to take photos of this architecturally unusual house with its two flanking water towers and to visit the slave cabin and school house. This is a great plantation for those looking to visit a more nontypical plantation that has an unusual architecture and an interesting family story.

Ormond Plantation

Ormond Plantation is currently a fully operating bed-and-breakfast and one of the few plantation houses on the River Road that allows you to spend the night in the main house. The house also has a bit of a spooky past. The first owner, Pierre D’Trepagnier, was called away one evening from his family dinner by men who allegedly worked for the Spanish government (reminder that Louisiana was once held by Spain) and disappeared that evening to never return.

In 1898, State Senator Basile LaPlace, Jr. bought the plantation and legend has it that in 1899 he was shot and hung in one of the large oak trees at Ormond Plantation by members of the Ku Klux Klan. Today’s owners however are a friendly hard-working family running the house as a bed-and-breakfast, restaurant, and also offering historical house tours by appointment. 

Address: 13786 River Road, Destrehan, LA 70047 Ormond Plantation Website:  http://www.plantation.com/ Original Date of Main Plantation House: 1789  (exact date unknown) Architectural Style: French Creole/ West Indies Style Main Cash Crop: sugar cane Working plantation today?: No Owners: The house was built around 1789 by Pierre D’Trepagnier, who was awarded a tract of land by Spanish Governor Don Bernardo de Gálvez. After D’Terpagnier’s mysterious disappearance in 1805, it was sold to Colonel Richard Butler who would name the plantation Ormond after his ancestral home, the Castle Ormonde in Ireland. In 1898, State Senator Basile LaPlace, Jr. bought the plantation but died in 1899. The house would then be owned by a series of owners and became in quite a state of disrepair until being restored and renovated by Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Brown. Today, Ormond Plantation is owned by the Carmouche family who run it as a bed-and-breakfast.  Tours/Tour Guides: Main house can only be visited with a guided tour unless you are staying at the bed-and-breakfast. Tours for non-guests are given by appointment, just call ahead. Tour guides are  not costumed.  Main House Furnishings: The furnishings are not original, but many are antiques. Other buildings to visit on property:  T he property also contains two garconnières (c. 1830). There is also a collection of dolls on display in the main house. Slavery Information:  There is a small amount of information on slavery on the main tour, but not much is known about any specific slave information at Ormond Plantation.  Gardens: No, but there are a few grand old live oak trees on the property. Photography Allowed:  Photography was allowed outside and inside. Food: Yes, the Ormond Plantation Restaurant serves lunch and dinner. Dinner is served on limited days and by reservation only. Gift Shop: No Accessibility: The main house at Ormond Plantation has step-free access to the ground floor and there is an elevator that can be used to take visitors to the second floor. The garconnieres do have two small steps and are not wheelchair accessible. The paths are wheelchair accessible and there are wheelchair accessible toilets available in the house. Some of the overnight guest rooms are wheelchair accessible. Day Tours Available from New Orleans: No Lodging: Yes, 5 en-suite rooms are rented out in the main house and garconnières. The rooms come with breakfast and access  to most of the house. Crowds: Small – this is not typically a busy property and is not very well-known in comparison to many of the other plantations.  Most Unique: Architectural style and that there is a bed-and-breakfast housed in the main plantation house .

Our Impressions of Ormond Plantation

Ormond Plantation was one of the plantations we were lucky to be able to see during our trip as it was closed that week for renovations, but one of the kind owners invited us to come by to take photos and do a quick tour. It ended up being convenient since there were no guests staying at the time.

We did not stay here, but the rooms looked wonderful and inviting and we would love to return for a stay and a meal. Everyone we encountered was also very friendly and we could imagine ourselves sitting outside on the back patio sipping drinks in the evening. The history of the plantation owners was quite fascinating, almost unbelievable, from the mysterious disappearance of Pierre D’Trepagnier to the alleged hanging of State Senator Basile LaPlace, Jr. by members of the Ku Klux Klan.

This plantation is not a showroom for tour groups like many of the others, but a working, lived in bed-and-breakfast, so while it does not have the “wow” factor of some of the grand mansions and has been modernized, it felt authentic, relaxed, and comfortable. We recommend that those wanting to either have an overnight stay or a meal at a plantation house, check out Ormond Plantation. It is also a perfect place to escape the crowds of the more popular and busy plantations and is one of the closest plantation homes to New Orleans.

Destrehan Plantation

Destrehan Plantation is one of the oldest and best-documented buildings from the state’s colonial period; the house was built while Louisiana was a Spanish colony. The house was completed in 1790 as a French Creole house and was later expanded and renovated into a Greek Revival home in 1840. Its history is fairly well-known and the main house has somewhat miraculously survived even after a multitude of owners and the property being turned into an oil refinery and company town.

The plantation was saved by the River Road Historical Society and American Oil Company (now Amoco) and today the plantation features house tours, numerous educational exhibits, and period craft demonstrations. The plantation’s collection of historical artifacts includes a document signed by both Thomas Jefferson and James Madison assigning four men, including Jean Noel Destrehan, to the Orleans Territorial Council. 

Destrehan Plantation has also been used as a filming location, including for  Interview with the Vampire (main house interiors) and 12 Years a Slave  (1830 mule barn).

Address: 13034 River Road, Destrehan, LA 70047 Destrehan Plantation Website:  www.destrehanplantation.org Original Date of Main Plantation House: 1790 (built from 1787-1790) Architectural Style: Greek Revival   Main Cash Crop: indigo, then sugar cane Working plantation today?: No Owners: The house was built for owner Robin de Logny by an enslaved man of color and master builder named Charles Paquet. After de Logny’s death, his daughter Celeste and her husband Jean Noel Destrehan took over the plantation. It would stay in the Destrehan family and extended Rost family until 1910. Louise Odele and Pierre Rost would renovate and restyle the house in 1840 to the Greek Revival style. It was then sold to the Destrehan Manufacturing Company and then to an oil company, which is now Amoco. They built an oil refinery and company site on the town and it was used as such from 1914 to 1958. In 1971, the house and about four acres of the plantation was deeded from Amoco to the non-profit River Road Historical Society from Amoco, who still manage and run the plantation today.   Tours/Tour Guides: Main house can only be visited with a guided tour, but the gardens and other buildings are self-guided. Demonstrations are also given at various places on the property by staff and volunteers (see schedule in visitor center). Tour guides are costumed in antebellum period clothing. Main House Furnishings: Only a few of the furnishings are original, including a heavy marble bathtub; however, the rest of the furnishings are period consistent.    Other buildings to visit on property:  T he property also contains a number of other buildings, but most are not original to Destrehan, but have been brought in from nearby plantations. The garconnières (part of the house tour), wash room, and water well are original. Other buildings include 2 antebellum slave cabins (original to Helvetica Plantation), a mule barn (c. 1830, original to Glendale), and an overseer’s cabin (original to Caire-Graugnard). Other buildings have also been constructed to hold the educational exhibits and demonstrations.  Slavery Information:   There is some information about slavery on the main tour. There are documents in the education center related to slavery, an exhibit dedicated to the 1811 Slave Revolt in the educational center, and there are two original slave/sharecropper cabins on the property (original to Helvetia Plantation) for viewing. Gardens: There is a rose garden and a heritage garden with sugarcane plants. There are also some grand  live oak tress on the property. Photography Allowed:   Photography is allowed outside and inside. Food: No Gift Shop: Yes Accessibility:  Within the main house at Destrehan Plantation, there is one step down into the plantation and then one step into the foyer, but there is a portable ramp available and an elevator to provide step free access. The inside of the plantation house can accommodate wheelchairs but not scooters. Scooters are limited to the carriageway. The plantation store has a ramp. There is enough space to maneuver and place a wheel chair inside the gift shop, plantation, education center, and outdoor kitchen. The slave cabin has stairs and limited space and are not wheelchair accessible. Wheelchair accessible toilets are available in the gift shop and near the plantation house inside the cistern. Day Tours Available from New Orleans: Yes, there are a few tour options, including this tour , this tour (also includes swamp tour), this small group tour (also includes airboat swamp tour), and this private tour  (also includes Houmas House for East Bank option). Lodging: Yes,  there are two self-catering Creole cottages for rent on site that recently were refurbished as guest lodging. You can see them here . Crowds: Large  – Destrehan Plantation is the closest plantation to New Orleans and because of its proximity, it gets a lot of crowds.  Most Unique:  The period craft demonstrations, focus on history, and historical documents, including one signed by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.

Our Impressions of Destrehan Plantation

This is a great historical plantation property and of all the River Road plantations we visited, this is the closest one to New Orleans. It is less than 10 miles from the New Orleans airport and less than 30 miles drive from New Orleans. This proximity makes it convenient but more crowded as it is popular with day trippers and bus tours from New Orleans.

We were lucky to arrive just after most of the bus tours and school tours had left for the day, so we actually had a tour that was just the two of us. Our guide was very knowledgeable and there are a lot of historical documents that have been recovered about the plantation, which gives a depth to the tour that will appeal to history lovers. Many documents, photos, and artifacts are available for viewing (many electronically) in the artifact room and the document signed by Thomas Jefferson is kept for viewing in a separate climate-controlled room, which we visited at the end of our house tour.

Destrehan Plantation is a great source of information not only on the owners, but also the enslaved. For instance, we learned that the builder of the original French Creole house was an enslaved man of color named Charles Paquet, slaves from the Destrehan Plantation took part in the 1811 Slave Revolt and three were executed (Gros Lindor, Petit Lindor, and  Jasmin), Jean Noel Destrehan was appointed on the tribunals after the revolt, and from 1865 to 1867 the plantation was used to establish a Home Colony for newly free slaves. Hundreds of former slaves were housed and fed on the Destrehan Plantation property following the end of the Civil War.

We also were able to attend two of the period craft demonstrations that were going on during our visit, one on open hearth cooking and one on blacksmithing. We ended up buying one of the demonstrated blacksmith pieces from the gift shop. There are about a dozen different craft demonstrations and lectures that happen each week which also include candle making, indigo dyeing, use of the laundry, weaving, and African American herbal remedies.

We felt that Destrehan Plantation offered a very well-rounded experience complete with a guided house tour, a lot of historical information, antebellum outbuildings (although most not original to Destrehan), educational exhibits, and period craft demonstrations. 

There you have it, probably the most complete online guide to Louisiana plantations along the River Road between Baton Rouge and New Orleans! Feel free to ask us any questions about any of the Louisiana plantations we visited.

Have you been to any of these plantations or have any of these on your bucket list? Feel free to share any advice or tips of your own and please share any information updates. Also, if you found this guide helpful in your trip planning, we’d love to hear from you! 

**Disclosure: We received complimentary entry into the majority of the above plantations in order to review them for this article; however, this article contains only our own honest thoughts and opinions. Some complimentary media entries were covered by press passes provided by the  New Orleans Convention and Visit Baton Rouge. You can read more in our Ethics Code about how we accept work.**

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NADIA Post author

August 30, 2023 at 4:40 pm

Voglio farvi i complimenti per questa esaustiva guida, ne farò buon uso il prossimo marzo. In particolare vi ringrazio per le informazioni riguardo le piantagioni accessibili alle persone con problemi di deambulazione come me. Ho apprezzato tantissimo, grazie

Translated to English: “I want to congratulate you on this comprehensive guide, I will put it to good use next March. In particular, thank you for the information about the plantations accessible to people with walking problems like me. I really enjoyed it, thank you”

Jessica & Laurence Norah Post author

August 31, 2023 at 3:48 pm

So glad that you found our Louisiana planation guide useful in planning your upcoming trip in March.

Yes, we tried to put the latest information about wheelchair accessibility, steps, and mobility concerns but I would try to double check the info if there is anything that you definitely need to be in place. If you have specific concerns, you can always send an email to the specific plantation or feel free to ask us any questions and we are happy to try to help!

Wishing you a wonderful trip to Louisiana!

Best, Jessica

Charlene Post author

May 16, 2023 at 12:46 am

I’m planning a road trip to visit several plantations and this guide is a big help. Such great information in one place! One update: San Francisco permenantly closed in early 2022.

From the news story ( https://www.wdsu.com/article/san-francisco-plantation-faces-uncertain-future/38684922# ) : In a statement to WDSU, Marathon said, “The San Francisco Plantation House was included in Marathon Oil Company’s purchase of the Garyville Refinery in the mid-1970s. Since that time, we (now Marathon Petroleum Corporation) have taken seriously our responsibility to help preserve its historical significance as a museum. However, as a fuels manufacturing company, we also recognize that museum ownership is not part of our core business. Given this, we have decided to discontinue operations of the plantation as of 2022 and continue to evaluate proposals from third-party stakeholders. We will keep our parish and key stakeholders apprised of any developments, if applicable.”

May 18, 2023 at 1:10 am

Hi Charlene,

Glad that our Louisiana plantations guide has been helpful in helping you to plan your visit!

Thanks so much for sending us that update about San Francisco Plantation, we have added this update above. I am sad to hear that the San Francisco Plantation house and grounds have closed to visitors. I hope that it does reopen in the future with new owners/managers as the tours here were good and the architectural style is quite unique.

Just let us know if you have any questions as you plan your trip! Also do send us other updates as a lot has probably changed due to COVID-19 since our last visits to this area.

May 31, 2023 at 3:37 am

Unfortunately, Evergreen Plantation is also closed to tours. It was one of the top three I wanted to visit. However, they do still have an excellent web site for learning more about the enslaved people who lived there.

June 2, 2023 at 4:54 am

That is a shame to hear that Evergreen Plantation is closed, the intact complex and information here is amazing. Do you know why tours have closed and if it expected that they are completely stopping tours indefinitely? I knew they stopped tours for COVID, but it was then expected they would eventually reopen.

Yes, Evergreen has always had a lot of research and a large archive of documents, when we visited it was mostly on paper but I believe they put a large slavery database online a couple of years ago. They also have a really nice photo gallery so you can see most of what you would have seen on the tour at least in photos.

Shiela Post author

January 9, 2023 at 9:31 am

Thank you for your informative blog. My husband and I had one day in New Orleans, and your blog was the inspiration I needed to rent a car and visit three of these sites.

Shiela from Alberta, Canada

January 11, 2023 at 1:05 am

So glad you found our Louisiana Plantations guide helpful for your trip to New Orleans. Hope you had a wonderful time in NOLA and the nearby area!

Gale potter Post author

February 21, 2022 at 3:10 pm

I would like to buy a paper copy of the information u have provided on the plantations . We are traveling to the plantations in April and the information would be so helpful. Thank U Gale Potter

February 22, 2022 at 5:41 am

Hello Gale,

Glad that our Louisiana plantations post has been helpful in planning your April trip so far.

We don’t have any printed guides available for sale, but all our advice and information is free to use on our websites. You can also print them off yourself although many of my posts are very long (hundreds of pages printed) so I’d recommend using them online rather than printing them! But also since there are a lot of links, you won’t be able to see/use these on a paper copy.

If you still want to print the article, you can do so as long as you are a member of our monthly newsletter (which is free). This also allows you to take part in our monthly travel giveaways . To print the article in a printer-friendly format (with all ads and images removed) or save them as a clickable PDF, you just need to subscribe to be subscribed to our monthly travel newsletter (it is free and easy to subscribe).

Once you are subscribed (check your email and click the link to confirm the subscription) then you just need to go to the article you want to print, click on the print icon (at the side or at the end of the article) and put in your name and then the email address you used to subscribe to the newsletter.

Hope this helps and do let us know if you have any questions as you plan your trip!

Kelly Butcher Post author

January 24, 2022 at 8:26 am

I absolutely loved this article! This is the most comprehensive information on the La. plantations that I have ever read. I have been on one visit to the plantations, but I plan on going back to visit those that I missed. I was happy that you didn’t just jump all over the map. I liked that you would list them N to S. I loved that you listed places to stay. Last time, I had to study a map, and try to figure out how long I would stay at each plantation, so that I could plan accommodations. I didn’t get it quite right. Now, I can plan and book ahead to places I did not know existed. Thanks for this article. It was awesome!

January 25, 2022 at 3:20 am

I am so glad you really enjoyed our guide to the Louisiana plantations along the River Road and found it helpful for planning your future return trip. If you have 2-3 days it definitely allows you time to visit more places. I would recommend 2-3 plantations per day max. There is definitely more to do at some plantations than others so some you may only spend 1 or 2 hours whereas others you can spend 3-4 hours if you stay for a meal. Nice to stay locally along the way, and you even have the option to stay at a couple of the plantations overnight.

If you have any questions, just let me know! Wishing you a great trip.

Sandy Post author

December 22, 2021 at 1:04 am

This guide is wonderful. My family (parents) and I took the River Road tour in the early 198o’s as we were looking for Emilie Plantation, an original part of San Francisco Plantation. The reason being, my Grandmother and her family had lived there for many years prior to WW1. Her Uncle Doctor Chauff was the owner and had his medical practice below the house (raised Creole Cottage) . The relatives in New Orleans gave us vague but findable directions, and we were able to contact the owners (small towns are/were quite agreeable to helping you find people), who turned out to be cousins of ours, and of each other!! They bought the house in dilapidated condition from the oil company who owned it at the time. The cousins basically restored the house, raised their family there, and lived there for many years. At Emilie’s 100th Birthday (1986or7 I think), they held a party and sent hand drawn pictures of the house on the announcement. The Lavets eventually sold the plantation back to the oil company, who then not too long ago sold it to one of the descendants of one of the enslaved people who worked there prior to the house being built. I read that gentleman’s story online in an historical writing from a New Orleans paper. The cousins are long since gone I’m afraid, but the wife did extensive genealogical research on the house and Chauff families connected to all. I have been priviliged to have copies of her research. Interestingly, we visited Oak Alley at that time , along with a couple other of the Plantations along River Raod, none of which had been restored to better than new condition as they sit today.

The owner of Oak Alley was still living in the main house, an elderly woman then. Her Housekeeper, who had been there her whole life, gave us the tour. No one else was there. It was wonderful. Destrehan, as I recall, was almost unlivable then…paint gone, roads overgrown, and certainly not open for viewing! And I very much remember the artistically muralled walls in San Francisco, which are never mentioned any more, and seem to have been done away with. They were more like greeneries or wallpaper, but handpainted when the house was built.

The saving and restoration of these old homes is invaluable, but I think they make people think the homeowners actually lived like that…clean, spotless rooms, beautiful furnishing and not as life truly was in the mid nineteenth century. Think – no electricity, running water, indoor toilets, electic stoves and gas ranges. No fast foods for dinner!. It was not an easy life no matter how much money you had or how many attendants.

But again, thank you for this article. It was evocative, and fascinating to see what might have been, even if it wasn’t. and I signed up for your Blog.

December 22, 2021 at 7:39 am

Thanks for sharing your story and your family connections to one of the plantations along the River Road. It is great that you were able to visit Emilie Plantation in the 1980s given its connection to your family. Do you know if the Baloney family (the family who were descendants of enslaved people who worked at San Francisco plantation) still own the plantation as it looks like it may have been sold after his death?

If you haven’t seen it, there is a National Register for Historic Places document for Emilie Plantation (the house was was registered in 1988) you can download and it has a lot of information about the plantation, its construction (built in 1882 according to the document), and its history.

So glad you enjoyed our blog post on the Louisiana plantations along the River Road. I hope you get a chance to visit the River Road again. I am sure so much has changed, but you can still see the murals at San Francisco (most are on the ceiling if I remember correctly)! There are also some nice murals at Whitney Plantation and it is also the first plantation to focus on slavery. Destrehan and Oak Alley are definitely going to be much changed.

Thanks again for sharing your story!

Robyn Post author

December 4, 2021 at 11:31 am

This is such a fabulous account of the plantations! I was there in 2015 and saw several of the more well-known ones, in addition to others in different parts of Louisiana, and one in Mississippi as my route took me through it for one day. I’ve probably seen 25 or 30 plantations altogether in several states. As you mention, they’re not redundant as each one has a different feeling. Of course, THE most different is Whitney, which I was privileged to learn about from a brochure picked up on the road, elsewhere in Louisiana. Whitney wasn’t in any of the guidebooks that I had checked out of libraries, because it was brand new at the time, only open a couple of months. I’ll mention, that I discussed it with the costumed guide at one of the other plantations I later went to. She hadn’t visited it herself, but knew persons who had, and who were appalled by it. I suspect there are still some such persons around within what you might call the “plantation community” who live in denial of the truths presented at Whitney. Thankfully, they’re a minority.

The last plantation I saw (anywhere in the South) was Rippavilla in Tennessee in 2018. Due to a personal reason, I traveled for a total of 4 days in 2019, then, due to the pandemic, not at all in 2020 or 2021. I’m itching to get back on the road. Your website has got me fired up.

By the way, one thing lacking on it. You mentioned that Houmas House is dog-friendly. I didn’t notice any dogs when I was there (and the owner wasn’t home). You omitted that a lot of plantations have one or more cats on the grounds, not strays but ones cared for by staff. As a cat person (I like dogs, but I LOVE cats), I am always enchanted by any cats seen on the grounds of a plantation, and think such a life must be about as close to heaven as a cat can get.

December 5, 2021 at 8:38 am

I am so glad that you enjoyed our article about the Louisiana plantations along the River Road and that it has got your excited to explore more!

When we were at Houmas House we met the owners’ dogs and it accepted visitors with dogs as well as of course any type of service animals. I just checked and according to their website, it still says it is dog-friendly so it seems visitors travel with dogs can still bring well-behaved dogs (most do not allow dogs with the exception of service dogs of course). I don’t remember seeing cats at the plantations (as a cat lover I generally notice them!) but I am sure some of them do have indeed have cats living on the grounds. Most of the plantation houses are not lived in, which is what makes Houmas House unique as it is still, as far as I am aware, still being used as a private residence.

I hope you get a chance to return to LA and visit Whitney Plantation and any others that you missed on your visit. Whitney was definitely novel when it opened (the first museum dedicated to slavery in the USA) and is still very unique in the area. Another one you may want to check out if you are in South Carolina is McLeod Plantation Historic Site in Charleston, SC which we discuss in our Charleston plantations article. In the last 10 years, there has been a big increase in discussions about slavery and African American experiences at plantations as well as other sites and museums. The changes have been quite notable and most plantations now include information on slavery and many now include special tours, exhibits, or presentations. Hopefully, this will continue to evolve.

I hope you get a chance to travel again soon. We know that the pandemic as well as the recent hurricanes (particularly Ida) have been really hard on many of the plantations. Most have reopened, but many do require pre-booking and reservations and have implemented COVID measures (limited numbers, face mask policies, etc.) so do check before visiting.

Wishing you safe and fun future travels, Jessica

Meagan Kiel Post author

January 11, 2021 at 3:15 pm

This is such an amazing article! Thank you for the thorough break down of each of the plantations. We are traveling with our four kids- age 4-11 and hoping to visit a couple plantations while staying in the area. Were there any particular plantations or tours that you feel would be better suited to kids? Even ones that had plenty of info without having to have a guided tour.

January 12, 2021 at 8:14 am

Glad you are finding our Louisiana plantations guide helpful in planning your visit to this area!

I would say most of the guided plantation tours won’t likely be that interesting for children, especially the younger ones. Almost all the plantations only offer guided tours of the interior parts of the homes.

I would say that Oak Alley’s tour is pretty short and the guides here (and at many of the plantations) like to add talking points to try to keep kids entertained, and then there are areas on the grounds for them to run around, as well as a gift shop, unguided slavery exhibits to visit, and a restaurant. Laura Plantation also had a more kid-friendly tour I would say, although not too much else to do on the property. Destrehan caters to a lot of school groups and may be another one to consider.

Houmas House has some lovely gardens, so one idea would be that if you’re traveling with a partner, you could take turns doing the house tours, perhaps with the interested older kids. Then the other could be exploring the gardens and doing other things on the estate (getting food, gift shop, outdoor buildings that don’t require tour). I think Houmas House also has a video you can watch. Destrehan House also normally has a lot of other things going on like craft demonstrations and such which would be of interest to kids. So it could be a good place to split up as well.

Some of the plantations can arrange pre-booked private tours. I would suggest perhaps seeing if you can book a private family tour of one of most interest. Letting them know that you are looking for a tour for X number of people that is more kid-friendly. So that could be another option.

If you are traveling soon, I’d check the plantations’ COVID-19 policies on their website (or give them a call) as some plantations may be closed or have restricted openings. Some may require pre-booked reservations and many have changed the nature of the visits during the pandemic.

Hope that helps, and would love to hear where you decide to go and about your experience.

January 22, 2021 at 7:48 am

Thank you so much!! I really appreciate your helpful response!

Sue Post author

October 4, 2020 at 5:03 pm

I am planning to visit plantation country next month. I see that Evergreen is closed due to Covid. Is it possible to photograph that oak alley from the road without going on to their property?

October 5, 2020 at 5:27 am

That is a shame that Evergreen Plantation will be closed during your visit, but I know some of the plantations are still closed or have added restrictions or shorter hours due to the pandemic. No, the oak alley at Evergreen Plantation is not visible from the main road and you would only be able to photography it during a tour of the property. People still work and live on the plantation, including some older folks, so that may be why it is closed for their health and safety.

However, if you are interested in an oak alley, I’d recommend visiting Oak Alley Plantation instead as it has a beautiful oak alley. The plantation is currently open to visitors but with reduced capacity and added safety procedures. I think most of the exhibitions and attractions are open there. Just be sure to bring along your face mask. There is an oak alley on both sides of the house with the front one being the more photogenic. Given the reduced numbers allowed on the tours, you should be able to get some good photos.

Patricia Ladner Post author

May 21, 2020 at 9:15 am

Do you have a louisiana guide i can get that helps to see the plantations

May 21, 2020 at 9:20 am

Hi Patricia,

What do you mean by a Louisiana guide? If you are looking for printed materials about Louisiana, I’d contact the state tourism board, Louisiana Travel, as they offer a free Louisiana travel guide to people who request it.

But this post should provide all the information you need to know to help you visit the plantations in Louisiana that are located along the River Road. It can be printed, if necessary, by clicking the print icon on the sidebar or at the bottom of the article.

If you are planning a trip and have any questions, please feel free to ask and we’ll be happy to help!

Leslie Robinson Post author

September 19, 2019 at 3:18 pm

Thank you Jessica for this wonderful blog about the River Plantations in Louisiana. We have seen several of these plantations before, but we are planning a “first trip” to NOLA and the plantations for some friends. Your writing is clear and concise and the information is exactly what I needed. I rarely leave comments, but just wanted to be sure to say “Thank you” for your efforts!

September 20, 2019 at 6:04 am

Hi Leslie, So happy you found our River Road plantation helpful in assisting your friends in planning their visit to New Orleans – we appreciate you taking the time to leave us a comment! We are excited that we will be back in the area in Spring ourselves 😉 Best, Jessica

J Lawson Post author

July 11, 2018 at 5:18 am

I really enjoyed this article. I did this river road drive in 1987 so reading this brought back some great memories. We did only tour 2 plantations, Oak Alley & Nottaway, but we stopped & took photos outside all the others. I also took pics of each historical sign. I did notice you did not mention Indian Camp. I had never heard of it till the day we drove that road. Though a tour would not be on the agenda, it is def. worth stopping for a photo & pic of the historic sign. Thanks for the memory refresh with this read.

July 11, 2018 at 5:30 am

Hi there, Yes, so happy you enjoyed our River Road Planatations post and that it brought back some good memories. Many of these plantations have been restored and opened to the public since 1987, and the tours have definitely changed a bit over the years.

I think for Indian Camp, you are referring to the old Woodlawn Plantation (often called Indian Camp). The sugar plantation would later become part of the leprosy hospital in Carville which is definitely an interesting place to visit! It was open until 2015 but since then part of it has been opened to the public as the National Hansen’s Disease Museum . We actually saw a play about the hospital museum performed a couple of years ago at Edinburgh Fringe. So if you ever go back, it would definitely be worth a stop!

Patty Soriano Post author

August 1, 2017 at 1:33 pm

Hi! I’m glad I found a link to your information on Pinterest. When I have a little more time I will go back and read everything more carefully. When we first decided to take a trip to louisiana, one thing on our list was visiting a plantation. I started reading on TripAdvisor about those we might choose. Although there were a lot of good reviews, there were also enough terrible reviews for each place that couldn’t be ignored. There were many issues, which disturb me, but one consistent was that people felt like they were being herded through the house quickly. Sometimes the tour groups were so large that the last people to reach a room did not get to hear what the guide was saying because they wouldn’t wait for the people to get there. I’d like to know if you ran into any issues where you would warn us against that particular place. I apologize if I am asking something that someone else has already asked, or if you have addressed it elsewhere. You have given us so much to digest and I hope to get through it as soon as I can. I appreciate your information.

August 1, 2017 at 2:00 pm

Hi Patty, Glad you found our Louisiana Plantation guide from Pinterest! Yes, there is a pretty comprehensive guide to the 12 plantations we visited along the River Road, and can take a while to read and digest, but it should give you a good idea of the plantation(s) that you might want to visit on your trip. Now we never experienced not being able to hear or have time to see rooms during any of our tours, but I could imagine that happening in a couple of plantations during their busiest times. In terms of crowds, some of the plantations get a lot more visitors than others. For instance, Nottoway, Oak Alley, Laura, Houmas House, & Destrehan Plantation are probably the most popular and draw the biggest crowds and run back-to-back tours throughout the day. In the article, we’ve tried to indicate the crowd sizes under each plantation but of course this is going to vary a bit by day and time of the year. I will say that Oak Alley has one of the shortest and busiest house tours so that may be one you want to avoid and Laura was also busy although the tour lasted longer. We were alone or only joined by a couple of other people at some of the plantations: Magnolia Mound, St. Joseph, Evergreen, San Francisco, and Destrehan but all these can also be very busy at times, especially if a bus of people arrive for a tour. If you stay at Ormond Plantation, you can ask to arrange a personal tour for free – lovely walk around the house and property. Our advice would be to choose the plantation(s) you really want to go to and try to make their first tour of the day (or alternatively their last tour of the day) as these tend to be less crowded and the bus tours are not normally there yet. If you find that you are joining a very crowded tour, ask to wait and go on the next one. Being flexible with your time can be key as when we were at Destrehan, a giant group of schoolchildren had just arrived and were put on the tour in front of us, but we were given a tour just to ourselves as we were the only ones left for the last tour of the day. Hope this helps! Best, Jessica

August 5, 2017 at 12:44 pm

Thank you, Jessica. I’ll be taking everything you say into consideration. Chances are we won’t ever have another trip to NOLA, so we want everything to be as good as we can plan it for this time. Living in Texas, we have the same nasty hot, humid weather that Louisiana has, so we know not to go during the worst months. We’re hoping to find some cooler weather in the fall, and maybe the crowds and tour groups won’t be as large then either. Thanks so much for all the information. Wish we could see all of them as you did, but maybe we’ll do two since we’ll be out there!

August 5, 2017 at 6:58 pm

Wishing you a wonderful trip to Louisiana and NOLA! ~ Jessica

Joanie Long Post author

July 11, 2017 at 1:47 pm

Traveling through this area on my way to Fort Walton Beach, Florida for a beach vacation. Wanted to tour one or two plantation homes, but had no idea which. Other articles I read didn’t help me much at all, but this one was perfect! I read every word of it, and I have now narrowed down my choices somewhat. Thanks so much for such a fun and informing article. Wish I was a travel writer!!!

July 12, 2017 at 5:58 pm

Hi Joanie, Glad you found our guide to Louisiana plantations along the River Road helpful – we put a lot of research & time into the article. Hope you have a wonderful trip through Louisiana on your way to Florida – and thanks for taking the time to comment. We always love to hear that our information or photos helped someone! Best, Jessica

Nicole Post author

April 30, 2017 at 1:11 pm

I’ll be in New Orleans for a couple of days next month and a trip to a plantation house is definitely on the list and this makes it so much easier to choose. So, thank you so much for writing it all down so nicely — the excitement is growing even more.

Greetings from Germany!

April 30, 2017 at 1:25 pm

Hi Nicole, Glad that this article helped boost your excited for your upcoming trip to New Orleans! It is easy to plan a trip to a plantation house if you will be in New Orleans for 2-3 days – you can either rent a car, join a bus tour, or hire a driver. Coming from Germany, you might want to visit one of the homes with a Germany connection like San Francisco Plantation (many of the families had German or French ancestry). Within New Orleans itself (can be reached via public transit or car), you might also want to visit Longue Vue House and Gardens which is not a plantation house but a nice historical home with pretty gardens. Thanks so much for taking the time to comment! Happy travels, Jessica

Candice Post author

April 14, 2017 at 7:52 am

Thank you so much for your wonderful post! I was especially happy to see a photo of Susan, a guide at Houmas House!! She was our guide several years ago, and she was a blessing to spend time with. SO happy to see she is still a guide at Houmas House and doing well!

April 14, 2017 at 7:55 am

Hi Candice, Glad you enjoyed our post on the Louisiana plantations! Yes, Susan is still guiding at Houmas House (or at least as of last Feb.) and was a delight. She was recommended to us by others as well and is definitely an entertaining guide! Happy travels, Jessica

Ann Post author

April 4, 2017 at 4:04 pm

Wow! So glad I found this. You have done such a wonderful job and I thoroughly enjoyed reading all the fascinating information.

I would love to see some of the plantation homes with my daughters. Perhaps a future trip.

I have only visited Houmas House. It was many years ago. Of course I was terrified by “Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte” as a child & this was part of the lure. I am sad to say that I don’t think I like the remodel of the house, from what I can see in the photos. When we visited I remember wallpaper? Not sure if it was original, but I believe it was in the foyer or area with the staircase. Some sort of mural type wallpaper. The current owner’s taste looks rather tacky (good southern word). A shame. I would still love to revisit the place.The tour sounds like it has improved.

I picture our trip being on a long weekend. We live outside Houston and I am wondering if we could fly into Baton Rouge and leave via New Orleans.

Also wondering out of all the plantations where you can stay overnight, which two you most recommend?

We may have to narrow it down a bit. Not sure we can cover this many plantations in such a short time. If we had to choose only six, which would those be? I know, very hard decision.

Thank you again for your wonderful article.

April 5, 2017 at 4:30 pm

Hi Ann, Glad you found our article on the River Road plantations in Louisiana helpful in planning your next trip. Yes, I think that the Houmas House has definitely changed with the new owner and he is a dog lover and a collector of lots of things – I think it would be interested for your to revisit the property to see it again.

Let’s see – yes I think flying into one city and out another (Baton Rouge and New Orleans) is a good way to do it or since the two aren’t too far apart you could probably do a round trip if it saves you on rental car return. I would definitely not recommend visiting all of these, especially if you only have a few days to visit. If your trip is only going to concentrate on plantations (not visiting New Orleans or Baton Rouge) you could easily do six plantations in 2-3 days but you’ll need to plan ahead as not all are open daily. But I would choose 2-3 each day you want to visit and then really spend time visiting them with leisurely meals in between. For an overnight stay, I would choose one of the grander and more popular plantations for one night (Oak Alley, Houmas House, or Nottoway Plantation) and a lesser known plantation for the other (Ormond or Poché) – I would base this partially on your route and where you plan to visit each day so you don’t have to backtrack too much. You might also want to do at least one stay where you actually get to stay in the main house (e.g., Nottoway, Ormond, or Poché).

In terms of which six, it really depends a lot on your particular interests. Are you interested in romanticized plantations, costumed guides, slavery, antiques, craft demonstrations? Looking for lesser visited plantations to escape the tour buses? I would recommend trying out ones that are going to be different from one another – so for example Magnolia Mound Plantation for its history and antiques, Destrehan for its history and craft demonstrations, San Francisco for its unique architecture, Laura for its focus on the people that lived in the house, Houmas House for its gardens and restaurant, St. Joseph for being a working plantation, Whitney for its focus on slavery, Nottoway or Oak Alley for its beauty, Evergreen for most intact plantation, etc. Read my descriptions and just choose the ones that sound best to you, no reason to go to a plantation that doesn’t look or sound interesting to you personally! I have good memories from all of them actually as I love learning new thing and visiting new places – they are just different. One place that sticks in my mind is probably St. Joseph Plantation, just because you often get a tour from people whose family lived in the house and still work on the plantation. It felt very authentic.

Happy travels! Jessica

Col. William Thornton Post author

March 29, 2017 at 3:09 pm

I am very intent on acquiring an enlarged c-print of your evening photograph of Oak Alley Plantation’s Great House, as seen through the darkening entrance of its magnificent oak trees. When convenient, please provide a cost for a minimum crop size of approximately 19″w x 17″h mounted to a masonite panel.

Col. Will Thornton, USMCR, Ret.

March 30, 2017 at 3:20 am

Dear Col. Thornton, We are happy to sell you a copy of the Oak Alley photo although it would probably be best if you had it printed locally rather than us printing it here. We have emailed you about buying the Oak Alley print. Please let me know if for any reason, you do not receive that email. Best, Jessica

Olivia Maddox Post author

March 20, 2017 at 5:49 pm

Thank you for such an informative, well-written guide on these homes. You provide much more detailed information than the tourism bureaus. My husband and I–plus our dog–are RVing to Mississippi and Louisiana to visit Vicksburg, Natchez and the River Road plantations in April. Oak Alley was definitely on our list but we were unsure which other homes to visit. Your guide will be so helpful as we make our picks. I appreciate that you took so much time to write and compile this much information, particularly noting special interests such as history, architecture and photography. I look forward to reading more from you in the future–you ‘re now a “go-to” reference!

March 22, 2017 at 1:56 pm

Hi Olivia, Thanks so much for taking the time to comment, we greatly appreciate people taking the time to provide feedback. We are so happy you enjoyed this blog post and found the information so useful! Those are some great places to visit and we hope to get to Vicksburg and Natchez soon but did not have time to include Mississippi on our last road trip. There are a number of River Road plantations in Louisiana and being able to see a few different ones I think gives you a broader perspective than only visiting one of them. Oak Alley is definitely one of the most popular, but we also enjoyed visiting some of the lesser known ones (St. Joseph Plantation was one of our favorites) and ones that focused more on things like history & the lives of the slaves and tenants. Best of luck on your road trip! Happy travels, Jessica

Bohuna Hendrych Post author

February 13, 2017 at 5:40 pm

What a fantastic article. We were planning to see only one plantation. After reading your detailed information we will have to book one more night in New Orleans and see more plantations. Thanks for helping us to make decision.

February 13, 2017 at 7:22 pm

Hi Bohuna, Glad you found our River Road Plantation guide useful! Yes, there are a lot of plantations that you can visit. You can’t see them all in 2 days, but you should be able to visit several of them and get some variety 😉 Enjoy your trip to New Orleans! ~ Jessica

Jo Post author

November 26, 2016 at 6:05 pm

Thank you for a thorough review of our area. I will be sharing on our social media. I have the pleasure of working with the majority of these homes and owners. Thank you for sharing our history and the beautiful pictures! This is wonderful – you really did your homework!

travelcats Post author

November 26, 2016 at 10:27 pm

Thanks Jo, glad you enjoyed this post and thanks for sharing it on social media. We did definitely take our time and visited most of the area’s plantations to make this New Orleans Plantation Guide! Best, Jessica

Debbie Carter Post author

August 14, 2016 at 10:39 pm

When can I find a map to plot our trip.

August 15, 2016 at 11:05 am

Hi Debbie, First I figured out which plantations I wanted to visit and then I used all the addresses (all are included in the blog post) and plotted it out on Google Maps first to get a sense of the order and how long between each plantation. Then we used a combination of GPS and a paper map from the New Orleans Planation Country to get around. You can get a copy of the visitor guide with area map here (they can mail it, you can pick it up, or download a digital copy): http://visitnopc.com/request-a-visitors-guide/ Hope this helps! Best, Jessica

beatravelling Post author

July 17, 2016 at 1:31 pm

Always wanted to visit this part of the US. Looks amazing!

July 17, 2016 at 1:54 pm

Earlier this year, we did a month long road trip through parts of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana and had a great time. Can’t wait to return! ~ Jessica

Clare (Suitcases and Sandcastles) Post author

July 10, 2016 at 4:06 am

Such a useful and fascinating guide to the plantations of Louisiana. Your pictures are as wonderful as ever. I think your tips are particularly helpful especially with regard to the sensitivity needed when visiting these plantations. I’m surprised to read that most don’t focus much on the slavery aspect of plantation life. I would love to visit some of these.

July 10, 2016 at 4:24 am

Hi Clare, Thanks, yes, we found in reading plantation reviews that there were many comments about people (especially African American visitors) feeling uncomfortable during tours or feeling like other guests (or even staff) made ignorant/inappropriate remarks. Until relatively recently, most plantations focused very little on slavery and most of the slavery related exhibits at plantations are fairly recent. The opening of Whitney Plantation has increased focus on the role of slavery at many of the other River Road plantations. But I think many visitors don’t want to focus on the heavy topic of slavery while on holiday and they just want to tour a pretty house which is fine, but I do think a good amount of information about the subject should be available for interested visitors at many of the plantations. I would love to see optional guided tours that focus on the role of slavery and African American life (the history of blacks on plantations after the Civil War is often missing) on plantations at some of the plantations with the largest visitor numbers. This is an area that some of these plantations could definitely improve, but there are a handful that do a good job and Whitney is probably the best in the country. Hope you get a chance to explore this area some day! ~ Jessica

Eileen g Post author

July 9, 2016 at 3:34 pm

12 is a lot of plantations to visit! You do a great job differentiating them so this is a great guide. Those with grounds are sometimes the best ones for younger kids, who don’t do so well on house tours.

July 9, 2016 at 4:26 pm

Hi Eileen, Yes, 12 plantations was so many, but I am glad all the work went into making such a comprehensive guide! Yes, I think younger kids may get bored during a house tour but many older kids seemed to be enjoying them when we visited. I think some of the longer tours may be difficult especially. Houmas House has a lot of area to run around in and some beautiful gardens and you can pay to just visit the gardens. However, most plantations the entry price includes everything so if you don’t do the house tour, it would be paying a lot to gain entry to just the grounds. We don’t have children but a few others that come to mind: Oak Alley has a lot of space to run around and the tour is fairly short, Destrehan has the craft demonstrations and outdoor space, and St. Joseph is quite laid back and has picnic tables and areas to run around outside. Families may also enjoy an overnight stay as the cottages on some of the plantations are very well suited for families. ~ Jessica

Ruth Post author

July 9, 2016 at 10:29 am

I have enjoyed the tour through all these plantations. How long it took you to visit them? I know people will visit the plantations for different reasons but I will be interested in the historical aspects of them. You mentioned there were visitors/owners descending from owners and slaves. It will be interesting to heard their stories about the time when plantation where prospering.

July 9, 2016 at 3:59 pm

Hi Ruth, Glad you enjoyed reading about the palntations. We visited these over the course of 4 days I believe. You can easily visit 2 in a day, 3 if you are only spending about 2 hours per plantation as many of them are very close together. We visited these 12 for the purposes of writing this as travel writers but I think as normal visitors, seeing 2-3 would probably be quite enough for one trip:-) Yes, you’ll find that people who are descendants of former owners, staff, slaves, tenant farmers, etc. will sometimes come back and many of course still live in the area. Some are even employed at the plantations. The point is really that you never know. There are some great books out there on plantation life from all sorts of perspectives (the plantation gift shops are full of them) and you might want to check out the WPA Slave Narratives (these are free to read online, although sadly Louisiana did not take part) and the memoirs of Laura Locoul that I mention in the post, as it talks about her experience growing up and running the Laura Plantation. Today, an example of a still working sugar plantation is St. Joseph and many of the staff members are the family owners and the same family has been running it since 1877! ~ Jessica

Stephen Garone Post author

July 6, 2016 at 10:26 am

That is one thorough post! I’ve been to three of these plantations, but you made me want to see the rest! Thanks for sharing.

July 8, 2016 at 11:26 am

Hi Stephen, Yes, I think most people visit 2-3 of the most famous Louisiana planations and never hear about the others. Hope you get a chance to return to the area! ~ Jessica

Randy Post author

July 5, 2016 at 8:09 pm

Thank You for including the lesser known plantations such as Poche Plantation and it’s RV Resort. Camping on an actual plantation is an experience greatly enjoyed. There is a resturant on Poche grounds as well as an official US Post Office.

July 8, 2016 at 11:24 am

Hi Randy, You’re welcome and sounds like you had have had a good stay at a plantation before! The Convent Post Office is within the fencing of Poche Plantation; however, there is actually not a restaurant at Poche Plantation (at least not when we were there a few months ago). But there are several within a 5-10 minute drive (Hyman’s Seafood Restaurant, Nobile’s Restaurant, B&C Seafood Market & Cajun Restaurant, Subway). Best, Jessica

Anda Post author

July 4, 2016 at 10:02 pm

Thank you for this comprehensive guide of the 12 River Road Plantations. I didn’t get to see but some of them when I was there, but I have to say that reading your post I felt like I visited all of them. This post will definitely be bookmarked for future reference and shared on my FB and Twitter. Lots of valuable information in good photos.

July 5, 2016 at 4:47 am

Hi Anda, You’re very welcome 🙂 I know you have been to New Orleans several times and visited Oak Alley and some other plantations along the River Road. If you return, maybe some of the lesser known plantations may appeal. Thanks so much for sharing, greatly appreciated! ~ Jessica

Seana Turner Post author

July 4, 2016 at 6:42 pm

I’ve not been to the Louisiana plantations… what a thorough review of all there is to see! I have been to a couple in SC, and I have to say that I found the experience remarkable. It touched me in a variety of ways, from learning about the lifestyle, to seeing the truth of what it took to run these operations, and to simply experiencing the way many Americans lived their lives. They are both beautiful and touching at the same time. History never disappoints!

July 5, 2016 at 4:45 am

Hi Seana, Yes, there are some great historical plantations and homes in SC as well! I love historical homes of any kind and learning about the history of each of these places–the good, the bad, and the sad–was very interesting. I would definitely not recommend visiting all 12 of these (we did it for the purposes for writing this guide obviously) but I would definitely recommending visiting more than one as they each have a different feel. People have such varying interests (e.g., architecture, gardening, photography, history of slavery, Creole culture) and hopefully this guide will help visitors choose the places that are best for them rather than just choosing the most popular ones. ~ Jessica

Marcia Post author

July 4, 2016 at 1:45 pm

Wow, this is an amazing post, chock full of valuable information! I read about the Whitney earlier this year and have been thinking of visiting, hopefully before the summer ends. Thanks for such a detailed post, I’m bookmarking it to help me plan my trip. Thanks again!

July 4, 2016 at 4:40 pm

Hi Marcia! Thanks, glad this was helpful and I hope you make a visit to Whitney Plantation. It can be a really powerful experience and a very sad one at the same time, but also quite informative. Whitney has one of the longer tours and the majority of the tour is outdoors, so if you can time it so that it is not unbearably hot and humid, it can make for a much more pleasant experience:) You can carry water bottles during the tour but no other drinks/food. If you do have a date and time in mind, you can book tickets to Whitney in advance on their website as they do sometimes sell out a tour time, especially in high season. Happy travels! ~ Jessica

J R (Bob)Brown Post author

August 2, 2018 at 3:08 pm

Can I get your opinion on the best 3 day tour. Friend and I are very interested in visiting, especially from a historical perspective. Probably in September. What’s a good starting point? Somewhat familiar with the area. Bob Brown

August 2, 2018 at 4:22 pm

It would be easy to see a lot of these Louisiana plantations in 3 days.

-If you are asking about a guided tour, you’d have to arrange a private one as the group ones offered are just day tours from New Orleans.

-If you are asking about a self-guided tour, I’d recommend starting in either Baton Rouge or New Orleans and then just following the River Road, to the other city. The map in the article shows you all the locations so you can plan your route. In terms of time, you can visit 2 to 3 plantations each day without being too rushed, and just choose the ones that sound most appealing. All of the River Road plantations offer some great historical info, but the ones that stood out a bit more from a historical perspective were Destrehan Plantation (probably the one with the most documented history), Magnolia Mound Plantation, Evergreen Plantation, San Francisco Plantation, Laura Plantation, Whitney Plantation, and St. Joseph Plantation.

-I’d also recommend taking in some of the other local history as you go through by stopping in the some of the towns. One great history stop is the National Hansen’s Disease Museum in Carville which is located on a former plantation. The site is across the river from Nottoway Plantation. There is also the River Road African American Museum in Donaldsville. Some great historical sites in both Baton Rouge and New Orleans as well of course!

Hope this helps – let me know if you have further questions!

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14 Historic Plantations Everyone In Louisiana Must Visit

Kezia Kamenetz

Kezia Kamenetz is a native to southern Louisiana and lives in the Marigny neighborhood of New Orleans currently. When not writing about all the amazing things to be found in her state, her central passion is dreams and the wisdom they can offer, which you can learn more about by visiting KeziaVida.com

More by this Author

Are you ready to dive deep into Louisiana history? Think about taking a look at the plantations in Louisiana. There are a huge number of beautiful buildings, luscious gardens, and historic artifacts that also represent some of the darker chapters of Louisiana’s history—such as chattel slavery. Today, these homes are available for tours, exploration and special events This mix of history, remembrance and celebrations make visits to Louisiana’s unique plantation homes a very fascinating way to spend an afternoon.

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Have you ever been to one of these homes? Which one is your favorite? We love to hear your memories of these Only in Louisiana trips!

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Louisiana’s Plantation Country: What to See and Do

• Posted by Sandra Chambers
• | June 29, 2023
• | Cultural , Louisiana
• | No Comments

Discover a different side of Louisiana’s vibrant heritage and culture just outside the bustling city of New Orleans. Within an hour’s drive, soak up the rich history and diverse ecosystems of Louisiana’s Plantation Country. This picturesque 60-mile stretch along the Mississippi River, also known as the River Parishes, offers a captivating blend of captivating history, agricultural traditions, mouthwatering Cajun cuisine, and awe-inspiring swamps and bayous.

Experience a regional culture shaped by the influences of Germans, Acadians (Cajuns), French, Spanish, Native Americans, and enslaved Africans. Explore sugar cane plantations , delve into Louisiana’s mystical swamps, and savor the flavors of local Cajun delicacies.

Uncover the hidden gems that make this area truly distinct even within the enchanting state of Louisiana.

Discover the hidden treasures of the River Parishes in the 1800s, where sugar cane plantations flourished, while the rest of the South focused on cotton. These plantations were the backbone of America’s sugar consumption, producing half of the nation’s sugar.

And they were harvested and tilled by the enslaved, which is commonly, and thankfully mentioned on all plantation tours these days.

Fast forward to today, and you have the opportunity to explore ten extraordinary properties, each offering a unique glimpse into plantation life. But it doesn’t stop there – some of these plantations even offer cozy accommodation. Ranging from B&Bs, RV campgrounds, and charming cabins, you can immerse yourself in history for a truly unforgettable experience.

My visit was Destrehan Plantation , the closest to New Orlean’s Louis Armstrong International Airport. Destrehan is the oldest documented plantation house in the lower Mississippi Valley. Tours by costumed historical interpreters offer guided accounts, artisan demonstrations, and an exhibit on the 1811 slave revolt.

Delicious Cuisine

After an amazing plantation tour, I couldn’t wait to satisfy my hunger at VooDooBBQ & Grill . Their famous barbecue, especially the Slow-Smoked BBQ Platter, is simply mouthwatering. The meat is dry rubbed with a delightful blend of Cajun, Creole, and Caribbean spices, then slow-smoked with oak and pecan for a perfect combination of flavors.

This tasty platter comes with two sides and cornbread. Make sure to try the signature corn pudding, Voodoo chips, or Gris-Gris Greens. Trust me, it’s a meal you won’t want to miss!

Houma’s Bayou Country

Discover the allure of Houma, Louisiana, nestled in the heart of Bayou Country just an hour southwest of New Orleans. Immerse yourself in the charm of this picturesque town, famous as the filming location of the hit TV series “ Swamp People .”

Experience the enchantment of being surrounded by the Gulf of Mexico, tranquil bayous, and breathtaking moss-draped cypress trees. Get ready to fall in love with the authentic and welcoming atmosphere of this incredible destination.

Experience the thrill of Cajun Man’s Swamp Tour with Captain Billy Gaston in Houma, Louisiana. Embark on a rustic pontoon boat and immerse yourself in the vibrant eco-system of the bayous and swamps guided by a true local expert. Learn about the diverse wildlife, from mesmerizing birds to the renowned alligators, as Captain Billy shares fascinating facts and even introduces you to some of the gators he knows by name.

Prepare to be amazed as you witness Captain Billy’s Cajun-accented call summoning a gator to swim towards the boat. And for the adventurous, get ready to feed a gator using a long pole with a chicken treat.

Houma’s Unique Fairly-Tale Castle

Step into a fairytale castle at Ardoyne Plantation! This magnificent Victorian Gothic sugarcane plantation has captured the essence of enchantment since 1888. But, its roots go back even further, as it has been a bustling sugarcane plantation since 1835.

Passed down through six generations, the mansion is currently inhabited by the builder’s family, making for an authentic and immersive experience. The tours are led by a knowledgeable resident, who will share fascinating tidbits about the plantation’s rich history, captivating memorabilia, and former inhabitants. Ardoyne Plantation is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

**This property is temporarily closed

Get ready to be amazed and blown away by the extraordinary Chauvin Sculpture Garden. This unique garden is home to 100 captivating life-size concrete sculptures that will leave you in awe. Crafted by the land owner (who mysteriously vanished afterwards), this garden has sparked countless theories and discussions about the artist’s true purpose and message.

Best of all, you can explore this fascinating oasis absolutely free!

Cajun Cookin’

Taste the flavors of Houma and Cajun Country at Boudreau & Thibodeau’s Cajun Cookin’. From crawfish to catfish, oysters to shrimp, and even gator and frog legs, this local hangout is a seafood lover’s dream. But the real star of the show? Charbroiled Oysters. Trust me, they’re the best I’ve ever had!

Picture plump oysters on the half-shell, smothered in garlic butter and topped with a heavenly blend of Romano and Parmesan cheeses. Cooked to perfection over an open flame, this South Louisiana tradition is simply irresistible. Don’t miss out on these mouthwatering delights!

Another local favorite is Cajun Critters. Their boiled house specialties include Crawfish, Shrimp, Royal Red Shrimp, Blue Crabs, Dungeness Crabs, Snow Crabs and King Crabs. I had one goal before I left Houma—to try Gator Bites, along with some Gumbo, and I can say I wasn’t disappointed.

I left Louisiana a happy camper!

Thanks to New Orleans Plantation Country and Houma for hosting Sandra on this trip. The reviews and opinions are her own.

This article was originally written and published by Sandra Chambers in 2019. It has been partially updated by staff in 2023. 

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Read more from about Louisiana:

Amazing Dishes of Lake Charles

Natchitoches: A Little City with a Lot of History

Louisiana Holiday Trail of Lights

Welcome to Travel the South!

Travel the South is run by Melody Pittman and Taylor Hardy. With the help of some fantastic travel writers, they help you plan your travels to the Southern states.

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The Whitney Plantation is located on the west bank of the Mississippi on Louisiana’s historic River Road.

Plantations are a dark chapter in American history—here’s why to visit

Louisiana's Whitney Plantation pays homage to the experiences of slaves across the South.

The moment I see her name, I feel a lump in my throat.

“Pauline Johnson” is written on the back of the small card hanging from a lanyard around my neck. It tells me she was a 12-year-old child who had watched her father die in Louisiana just before slavery was abolished in the United States.

Everyone who visits the Whitney Plantation , located on the west bank of the Mississippi less than an hour’s drive from New Orleans on Louisiana’s historic River Road , receives a similar card. Each bears the story of a different slave, derived from interviews with more than 2,300 former slaves conducted by the Federal Writers’ Project in the 1930s.

I am standing next to my own 12-year-old the moment I read Pauline’s story and can’t imagine him having to grow up knowing he was someone else’s property.

The inability to imagine is part of the luxury of this tour.

Visitors have the opportunity—the privilege—of learning about the complex and often grueling history of slavery in the United States from a distance of more than 150 years. The 13th Amendment to the nation’s constitution, which outlawed the practice unequivocally, was ratified in December 1865.

Despite the fact that the Whitney Plantation, a sugar-cane plantation formerly home to more than 350 African slaves, is immaculately groomed, the raw emotion of the place is undeniable.

Travel across sections of the American South and you’ll be hard-pressed to avoid running across one of the large antebellum plantations—some as populous as modern-day suburban housing developments—that once dominated the countryside.

Plantation tours are almost equally ubiquitous. At most properties, the visitor experience includes a guided exploration of the plantation home and grounds led by a living historian clad in period garb.

It typically goes a bit like this: Tour the big house with a docent portraying a privileged occupant, then follow one meant to be a black slave or cook through the fields and kitchens.

A retired (white) trial lawyer named John Cummings took it upon himself to tell the plantation story in a different way.

In 2014, at the age of 77, the New Orleans native opened the doors on a project 15 years in the making. The Whitney Plantation Museum is one of the only historic sites in the country focused solely on the slave experience.

From the outset, our guide Courtney makes it clear to the group, which includes a mixed bag of ages and races, that the goal here is to inform and educate, not to shame or romanticize. Notably, she isn’t wearing a costume.

Contrary to precedent, the tour doesn’t commence in the massive plantation home, where the land (and slave-) owners would have lived. This experience is not about them, Courtney tells us.

Instead we start in the tiny freed-slave-built Antioch Baptist Church , a cool spot to escape the searing heat of a Louisiana summer’s day, to be sure, but also the kind of place where slaves would have found sanctuary and a few moments of rest and peace.

The church isn’t original to the property; it was donated to the plantation in 2001 by a congregation in Paulina, a community located just a few miles away on the opposite side of the Mississippi River.

This kind of deliberate borrowing is part and parcel of the Whitney Plantation Museum experiment, which seeks to provide a unique perspective on the working plantation as it evolved over time in Louisiana in addition to paying homage to the experiences of slaves across the American South.

Many of the outbuildings that now sit on the living history museum’s grounds, including most of the slave cabins—small shacks that would have been shared by up to a dozen workers—have been imported from nearby plantations to help tell that story.

Though some acquisitions have been donated, Cummings has personally invested millions here. Art he has commissioned includes 40 life-size casts of slave children that stand and sit in and among the pews of the church, and a massive bronze angel erected in the garden to memorialize the 2,200 children who died on the plantation and across St. John the Baptist Parish before slavery was abolished in the United States.

Related: intimate photos show the power of the African American Museum

As we walk through the fields where slaves once collected sugar cane, we come upon Allées Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, an open-air monument honoring the 107,000 people who were held in bondage in Louisiana.

The group is left to read plaque after plaque in silence before Courtney shares more information.

We learn about Louisiana’s Code Noir , a list of state-proposed recommendations—regarding housing, clothing, food, and more—put forth in order to make the slave trade more “humane.” The terms of the code suggest slaves should be given a day off each week (it rarely happened, we are told), guaranteed food (insufficient weekly rations drove many slaves to hunt squirrel, possum, and alligator), and treated with care (abuse was rampant), exposing the shocking gap between prescribed behavior and reality.

We see the tiny outdoor kitchen (the oldest in Louisiana) where the enslaved cook would have prepared meals for the master’s family and the “hot box”—a rusting metal chamber barely wide enough to stand in with arms outstretched where slaves awaiting sale at auction or those being punished would be left to suffer in the hot sun. On the interior walls, Courtney points out small cutouts meant to hold a slave’s chains. Nearby, a list of slaves and the prices for which their lives were bought and sold is posted.

And on it goes.

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By the time we get to the 14-room plantation house, it seems to have grown in size. Courtney shows us the fine china, elaborate drawing rooms, and frescoed ceiling without emotion. Still, I feel my stomach turn. The view of the cabins in the distance only makes it worse.

In addition to the escorted tour, the plantation offers a small self-guided area where visitors can learn about the history of slavery on an international scale, offering vital perspective on an industry that once fueled much of the world’s economy.

It is there that we learn most slaves came from West Central Africa, that Portugal and Brazil were among the largest slave traders, and that 2,500,000 slaves eventually were brought to North America. We are also introduced to the pope, Nicholas V , who authorized the King of Portugal to “capture and subjugate” people who weren’t Christians for the purpose of forced labor “in perpetuity,” a harsh reminder of how morally upright the practice was felt to be.

Courtney is careful with specifics of brutality owing to the children on the tour. My own two boys remain interested but detached as we make our way around the property. They take in the information presented, sometimes offering their thoughts (“That’s not right.”), and move along. But the tour dominates our conversation as we drive away from the plantation, grateful for the chance to talk about the experience in private.

Much like a trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau , there is no joy in visiting the Whitney Plantation, or in learning about the atrocities that happened there and on similar properties throughout the South. You won’t leave feeling better about humanity, especially in light of recent racial tensions across the United States. But you will leave informed … and affected.

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Best Family Plantations Along Louisiana’s Great River Road

Article By: FTFstaff

The glamorous life of old on display in New Orleans’ Garden District is far surpassed by the many riverfront antebellum mansions and plantations lining the Great River Road. Be sure to allow half a day to tour one, show the family the agricultural heart of the state, and discover how the lives of plantation owners differed from that of their slaves.

Preparing for your Plantation Visit

If you’re visiting New Orleans and haven’t done so, wander into the main museum of the Historic New Orleans Collection in the French Quarter, where you can study wonderful old maps and documents that chronicle the region’s changing fortunes between French, Spanish and American masters up till the Louisiana Purchase. Adults will find it a helpful background on plantation tours.

Drive or hop a streetcar along St. Charles Avenue for self-guided look at the picturesque  Garden District . We loved rumbling past hundreds of stunning homes, alleys of enormous Live Oak trees draped in Spanish moss, and manicured gardens tucked behind walls of pink and white crepe myrtle. The 13-mile-long St. Charles Avenue trolley provides a memorable and bargain tour of the district and its manor houses.

What makes the plantations themselves different is their size. Large parcels along the Mississippi River stretching up to Lake Pontchartrain were planted with cotton, sugar cane and other crops vital to the region’s economy. How the plantation owners lived and how their homes are used today should be the deciding factors when you pick one or two to visit. Get the kids involved in the choice and they’ll be much better companions on the tour. 

Here are some of our favorites, though newly restored plantations may be open at your visit.

Evergreen Sugar Plantation in Vacherie

Eager to see the Mississippi of Huck Finn, we drove about one-and-a-half-hours’ south to River Road in Vacherie to visit the plantations. At Evergreen , we joined a fascinating 90-minute tour of what was originally a sugar plantation’s Great House. This successful immigrant German farm family learned from the local Creoles how to build one story above ground to avoid flooding, create high-ceilinged rooms to vent the heat, and surround their home with deep covered porches for shade.

The Evergeen you see today was rebuilt in the classic Greek Revival style by their heirs during the 1830’s (about the time slaves were brought in to help with the land), so a visit, like at many plantations, was more an insight into the region’s social history than its architecture. It claims to be the most intact plantation complex in the South with 37 buildings on the National Register of Historic Places, including 22 slave cabins and is still being farmed today.

The kids loved the Garconnieres , adjacent cottages that were reserved for the boys once they became teens, and could no longer sleep 10 to a bed with sisters. Evergreen’s slave quarters and other out buildings, intact and restored, are also well worthwhile. If you want to do a two-for-one, you can join their overland Evergreen Swamp Tour , and see the wildlife on their nearly 4,000 acres with a Jeep and small boat tour.

Oak Alley, Hollywood Plantation on the Mississippi

Nearby is Oak Alley , a much haughtier version of plantation life. It was originally scoffed at by locals as belonging to “Americans,” because those who settled after the Louisiana Purchase paid little regard to the native Creole building styles.

Oak Alley, often photographed for the allee of 28 majestic Live Oak trees that prompted the building of a brick mansion at their head, has its own tale of woe and fallen fortunes. Children will appreciate the costumed tour guides and their anecdotes of that era. Teens will like hearing that Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt have both toured and slept at the estate (in Interview With The Vampire .) Parents will enjoy hearing that many other things, from Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte to Primary Colors , were filmed there, too.

In keeping with our quest for Southern culture, we stayed to dine on the plantation’s Oyster Po’Boy sandwiches, thick soft buns filled with fried breaded oysters, sliced tomatoes and heaps of sweet mayonnaise. If you’re really into the days of old, you can rent one of five, century-old cottages on the property. Conversely, if you’re pressed for time, join one of the many escorted tours that depart from New Orleans and will give you an overview of the plantation economy during its heyday.

Laura Plantation, Where Slave Quarters Tell the Story

At the Laura Plantation , where a 2004 fire gutted the main house, tours are now focused on the plantation’s fascinating slave quarters and the history of four generations of women, both free and enslaved, who lived there.

It will interest many Northerners to know that often, after Emancipation, plantation slaves stayed on to farm their ancestral homes as paid laborers. Of course, times were hard for many and the Laura’s sensitive guides give a very moving account of their daily lives.

Destrehan Plantation, Founded by French Nobility

In 1787, the colony’s treasurer to the King of France, Jean Baptiste Destrehan, built the largest sugar plantation in Saint Mary’s Parish, on an eight-mile plot between the Mississippi and the Lake which took his name. Although the original Destrehan has gone through periods of neglect and many changes — including ownership by a freed slave — the fully restored Greek Revival house seen today is made interesting by its wonderful costumed guides. We learned how the owners’ children would eat with the house cook and slaves, and that everyone worked together to make the harvest a success. 

In addition to the “hands-off” one-hour house tour, kids will most appreciate the rambling grounds, enormous Live Oaks draped in Spanish moss, and daily demonstrations, ranging from traditional African-American herbal medicine to woodworking or indigo dyeing. It’s one of the closest properties to New Orleans, so do let your teens know that several scenes from 12 Years A Slave were filmed at Destrehan.

Several Families Worked to Restore St. Joseph Plantation

The Saint Joseph Plantation was built by Louisiana Creoles in 1830, and has been associated with several important local families over the years. Near Oak Alley in Vacherie, St. James Parish, it was a 1,000-acre sugar plantation whose main house was used by the plantation’s French doctor. That house passed through the hands of Josephine Ferry, then after the Civil War, was bought by Joseph Waguespack, whose descendants have restored it very authentically.

More modest than others, St. Joseph’s focuses on the sugar cane industry and the daily lives of slaves, as seen through its slave cabins and remaining out buildings. Look out for the “Mourning Tours” in which they have live characters portraying some of the people that lived at St. Joseph and their mourning customs. 

Trip Planning Details for a Plantation Tour

You can dive into Louisiana’s plantation culture for a few hours or a long weekend, depending on your family’s appetite. When planning your excursion, be sure to double check the websites as most homes are closed at least one day of the week. Some have reduced hours in the summer; many have holiday celebrations with festive decor during winter. 

For more information on the variety of plantations open for tours, and rural accommodations near to them, visit Louisiana Travel Plantations Louisiana Travel’s plantation resource.

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Oak Alley Plantation

Oak Alley is graced with immaculate live oak trees and a gorgeously preserved plantation house which stand alongside dirt-floor shacks that housed generations of enslaved labor. Enormous plantations remain a major tourism draw in the Southern USA, but there has been a reckoning with how these destinations should be managed and marketed. Where previous tours focused on the wealth of the plantation owners, visitors now demand the story of the enslaved be told alongside the mansions they built and the fields they bled in. Oak Alley attempts to tell all of these stories. The effort is sincere, although it’s hard not to feel a little shaken by the sheer dichotomy of the two experiences. 

History of Oak Alley

Oak Alley began as the Bon Séjour (“pleasant stay”) plantation, which was built on land bought by the French Creole Valcour Aime in 1830. Aime’s purchase, made almost three decades after the Louisiana Purchase (1803), was a testament to the continued economic power of the French Creole elite in Louisiana, despite the increasing presence of planters from other American states, who had reshaped much of Louisianan society.

The property was eventually exchanged by Aime to his brother-in-law, Jacques Télesphore Roman, who used enslaved labor to build the present mansion, completed in 1839. Slavery was baked into every element of life on the plantation, from the wealth exhibited in the house to the pecan trees that were first successfully grafted here by an enslaved gardener, Antoine. Oak Alley’s cash crop was sugarcane, whose production required long hours of backbreaking work conducted in sweltering heat and humidity. 

The economic viability of sugarcane was inextricably tied to an unpaid workforce. The emancipation of slaves following the Civil War led to the plantation being sold and resold to a long list of owners. In 1925, it passed into the hands of Andrew and Josephine Stewart. Josephine, the daughter of a Texas cattle rancher, ran Oak Alley as a cattle ranch and had the mansion renovated. When she died in 1972, the grounds and house passed to the Oak Alley Foundation. The property itself was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.

The grounds

The plantation’s namesake is by far its most distinguishing physical characteristic: a double row allée (path) of gnarled Southern live oak trees that leads to the front door of the main house. Oak Alley’s oak alley served both aesthetic and utilitarian purposes; besides being beautiful, the canopied trail diverted wind into the main living space.

Besides the 28 live oaks decorating the front yard, Oak Alley’s grounds speak to the plantation’s changing fortunes and economic lifeblood. Where a pecan grove once stood, you’ll find the remains of pasture land grazed on by cattle transplanted here by the Stewart family.  Formal, manicured gardens speak to extensive landscaping, but also conceal the location of a former kitchen garden. 

Thanks to the climate, the grounds here are peppered with a typical south Louisiana explosion of fecund flora: ancient trees like crepe myrtle, magnolias, and camellias are intertwined with hanging ‘chandeliers’ of Spanish moss.

The enslaved and the main house

On the grounds, visitors will find six reconstructed slave cabins. Within these dwellings are the physical artifacts and implements of slave labor, as well as interpretive text on enslaved culture, as well as the backbreaking physicality of growing, harvesting, and refining sugarcane. Visitors will also find information on individual slaves, an attempt at telling the story of the disenfranchised and giving a human face to the victims of an inhuman practice. To this end, the Oak Alley website maintains an exhaustive database on the slaves who worked here.

After soaking in the sheer Gothic aesthetics of the grounds and the harrowing story of the enslaved, most visitors take a tour of the main plantation house. The mansion is an enormous square structure cut by a giant center hall, built in the Greek Revival style, with high ceilings and large windows that let in plenty of light; these could also be opened to provide ventilation in the days before air-conditioning. Be on the lookout for 28 Doric columns, meant to compliment the 28 live oaks.

The quarters of the enslaved people are visited on self-guided tours, while docents lead guests around the main house. After absorbing content on the brutality of chattel slavery, it feels jarring to hear about the furniture and bedspreads of the masters who enforced that system, but Oak Alley makes a point of relaying all of these details, and letting visitors make their own judgements on history.

Tickets, onsite eating, and getting there 

• An adjoining restaurant is open daily for breakfast (8:30-10:30am) and lunch (11am-3pm). Expect a menu of gumbo, po-boys, salads and similar grub (mains $11-16).
• The Spirits Bar, also adjoining Oak Alley, serves cocktails, and can be found in the West Pavilion building, open daily 11a-5pm.
• Oak Alley is open 9am-5pm daily; tickets for adult/student/child run $25/10/7.
• The plantation is about 50 miles west of New Orleans, in Vacherie. The physical address is 3645 LA-18. LA-18 is colloquially known as ‘River Road,’ and if you drive along its length you’ll be adjacent to the green Mississippi River levee.
• You can book a tour here in New Orleans from almost any hotel concierge or French Quarter tourism kiosk, but you’ll get charged around $40 for transportation to and from Vacherie; if you have your own wheels, it’s a lot more economical to drive.

3645 Hwy 18. Vacherie

Get In Touch

225-265-2151

https://www.oakalleyplantation.com

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Cultural Experience

Explore the heart of plantation country in st. francisville, louisiana.

Content Produced in Partnership with Louisiana Travel

Louisiana’s stunning plantation homes offer a unique insight into daily life during the Antebellum Era. While most of the state’s historic plantations are located along the Great River Road between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, there are a series of plantations located in West Feliciana Parish and St. Francisville. Roughly 35 minutes outside the state capital of Baton Rouge, these plantation homes have managed to stay in near-perfect condition thanks to local community efforts. If you want to avoid the lines, hear some ghost stories and speak directly with family descendants, these are the plantation homes you need to visit in St. Francisville this year.

Rosedown Plantation

While the exterior and alleyway aligned with 200-year-old oak trees closely resemble that of Oak Alley Plantation, Rosedown Plantation’s true beauty lies in its 18-acred pleasure gardens. These intricate gardens were the life’s work of Martha Turnbull, whose husband was one of the richest men in the US back in the 1800s. Inspired by their honeymoon in France and Italy, Martha steadily mapped out the intricate gardens, and many of the plants she originally rooted are still thriving today. Members of the Turnbull family lived in the home well into the 1950s and eventually sold it to Catherine Fondren Underwood. Underwood used Martha’s detailed diaries to restore the gardens and grand home, giving visitors remarkable insight into the daily lives of the family and slaves who once lived there. Rosedown Plantation is a state historic site and is managed by the Louisiana Office of State Parks.

Myrtles Plantation

Perhaps the most famous plantation in all of West Feliciana Parish, Myrtles Plantation, established by renegade “Whiskey Dave” back in 1796, is shrouded in local legend and folklore. The most infamous story is of Chloe, a slave girl who mistakenly poisoned the owner’s children and wife in an act of revenge. Current owners claim the home is one of the most haunted homes in America, citing no less than a dozen ghosts and other bizarre encounters on the property. Now a popular bed-and-breakfast, guests eagerly claim to have seen and spoken to Chloe in addition to seeing objects move on their own. You can decide for yourself if you believe the tales by partaking in one of the daily tours — or staying the night.

Oakley Plantation

Oakley Plantation predates several plantation homes across the state and is the only one that can claim itself as a temporary home to artist and naturalist John James Audubon. Built in 1803 and now part of the Audubon State Historic Site, Audubon lived at the home for four months during the 1830s. An arrangement with the mistress of the plantation allowed him to serve as a part-time tutor to her daughter. In exchange, Audubon used his free time to study and sketch the local wildlife. The deal was well worth it as Audubon created 32 paintings — all of which are featured in his famous Birds of America collection — during his time there.

Plan Your Visit

St. Francisville is located in the very heart of Plantation Country , but this hidden gem can be easy to miss if you’re driving too fast down Highway 61. A long weekend getaway will give you ample time to explore the plantation homes and countless historic sites in the area. Don’t just view history — embrace it with a one-of-a-kind stay at a plantation home. Carriage Plantation, Myrtles Plantation, Butler Green Plantation and Greenwood Plantation each offer overnight accommodations. Carriage Plantation (pictured above) in particular offers guests a free one-hour tour after its breakfast service as well. With one of these stunning historic homes as your base, you’ll be able to easily explore this sleepy town at your leisure. Click here to start planning.

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A Reckoning at the Big House

Regional historians, tour guides, and descendants of the enslaved weigh in on the future of plantation tourism in Louisiana

by Jordan LaHaye Fontenot , Alexandra Kennon Shahin

August 23, 2023

Shadows-on-the-Teche in New Iberia. Photo from Historic American Buildings Survey (Library of Congress)

If you were to visit the Shadows-on-the-Teche when the National Trust for Historic Preservation first opened it as a museum in the 1960s, you likely would never hear the name Louisa Bryant.

You’d learn about Mary Weeks, the circa-1834 estate’s original owner and overseer, the widowed matriarch of the four generations who would come to define the property now frequently deemed the “Jewel of New Iberia.” The presence of the enslaved Black woman standing beside her, assisting in virtually every aspect of the family and sugar plantation’s operations, would have been obscured by stories of the house’s Tuscan columns, the Spanish moss draped above the lush Southern gardens, the experiences of Mary herself, and of all her descendants. The only significant acknowledgement of the twenty-four enslaved individuals who also lived on this property, and over 160 more at the family’s nearby sugar plantation at Grand Cote, would be found in the exterior public restrooms, built as replicas of the former slave quarters that once stood in the same spot. From 1961 until the passing of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, those restrooms were segregated.

In the 1980s and ‘90s, you might have heard Louisa’s name, or even observed her portrait—pulled from the Weeks’ extensive family archive. “Mary’s housekeeper,” the tour guide would explain briefly, before turning to the Sheraton-style cherry bed.

By the time Bethany Jay, a philosophy doctoral candidate at Boston College, visited the site in 2006, the Trust had expressed a commitment to incorporate more nuanced presentations of slavery into the Shadows' tour. But Jay reported in her dissertation that her tour guide seemed obviously uncomfortable with the subject, frequently falling back on terms like “field hands,” “house servants,” or “workers” in the few instances that enslaved labor was mentioned at all. Of the two hundred people enslaved by the Weeks family, Louisa was the only one named, described as the “number one house servant,” who worked alongside Mary as her “peer”.

For over fifty years, Louisa’s place in history was reduced to that of a shadow, a footnote to the bright, grand stories of the Southern elite and all their gentility. But of course Louisa had her own story, too. In addition to having to care for Mary’s six children, she also cared for eight of her own—many of whom were taken away from her to live and work at the Weeks’ sugar plantation at Grand Cote. The strain of this labor brought illness and injury into her family, and she lost her son, Perry, because of it.

In the Shadows canon, much has been made of Mary’s experience at the end of the Civil War—having been left mostly alone on the property and forced to move upstairs as Union Troops occupied her mansion. But Louisa was there too, one of three enslaved women who stayed with the old matriarch. One can only wonder what went through her mind as she cared for her enslaver while the old world fell away just downstairs.

All it took was a closer look at the archives to see Louisa in the history of the Shadows. She’s always been there, waiting in between the lines, along with the stories of her daughter, Ann, who took a job as a sick nurse after the War—eventually earning enough to purchase land of her own on Center Street. And Ann’s son, Emperor, who worked for Mary’s great grandson William Weeks Hall throughout the twentieth century. Two families, generations later, still leaving their marks at the Shadows.

If you take a tour at the Shadows-on-the-Teche today, you’ll hear the stories of Louisa Bryant and her descendants, as well as those of many other enslaved individuals who existed beside them on the Weeks’ estate. The tour—rewritten by the Shadows’ recently-hired Senior Manager of Interpretation and Education Adam Foreman to fully incorporate stories of the enslaved and their descendants into every room of the house—is the culmination of ongoing reinterpretation initiatives facilitated by the National Trust in recent years.

“People are looking at museums, and they’re asking ‘Why are you still telling me the same old moonlight and magnolias story? There’s so much happening that you’re not engaging with.’ So, in order for museums, especially plantation museums like the Shadows, to remain relevant to the community, we have to change. We have to continue to consider our collection and how it is relevant.” —Adam Foreman, Senior Manager of Interpretation and Education at the Shadows-on-the-Teche

This new approach to storytelling at the Shadows (and other National Trust properties) is reflective of a cultural shift at historic sites across the globe, as long-simmering demands for historical honesty—particularly regarding enslavement in America—reach a boiling point, spilling beyond the realm of historians and academics and firmly into the public discourse.

“People have been criticizing plantation tourism as an industry for a very long time,” said John Bardes, a professor of history at Louisiana State University (LSU) specializing in topics of enslavement and emancipation in the Antebellum South. “But now is a real period of reflection. It just seems that 2020 [and the Black Lives Matter protests spurred nationally by the murder of George Floyd were] a pivotal point where it really no longer became tenable.”

Isabelle Cossart , who has been leading personalized van tours to River Road plantations since 1979, has observed this change in real time. People have different expectations of plantation sites than they once did, she said. “It used to be, you know, they were a little offish when we talked about slavery. They were on vacation. It was like, ‘[Slavery’s] not a nice thing to talk about. It’s sad.’ And now, no. We must [talk about slavery]. They want the truth.”

“It all kind of came to a head in recent years,” said Foreman—whose first job, at age sixteen, was as a tour guide at Shadows-on-the-Teche. He went on to pursue a career in public history, working for a time as the Director of Melrose Plantation in Natchitoches. For his Masters at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette (ULL), he conducted research on instances of enslaved resistance—drawing extensively from the Shadows archives. This spring, when he learned of the opportunity to join the staff and “fundamentally change the way that we have these conversations,” he couldn’t pass it up.

“People are looking at museums,” he said, “and they’re asking ‘Why are you still telling me the same old moonlight and magnolias story? There’s so much happening that you’re not engaging with.’ So, in order for museums, especially plantation museums like the Shadows, to remain relevant to the community, we have to change. We have to continue to consider our collection and how it is relevant.”

The “Gone with the Wind” Effect

Over the last two hundred years, the word “plantation” has become imbued with intricate and contradictory sets of meaning. Once a functional, geographical term for large-scale agricultural sites typically fueled by enslaved labor, the word gained its more recent romantic associations as an aesthetic pinnacle of Southern heritage in the wake of the 1939 cultural phenomenon that was Gone with the Wind. The film’s influence on how such properties are presented and perceived as attractions is still readily evident at tourist sites to this day.

Almost a century removed from the context of that release, the nostalgia and romanticism of genteel Southern accents, piles of green curtains, hoop skirts, and mint juleps can appear on the surface as nothing more than innocent escapism. But it is no accident that the garden tours and 200-year-old furniture, Greek Revival architecture and smoking rooms have for so long been divorced from the economic system that made any of it possible.

“When people critique plantation weddings or criticize the way plantation tourism operates today, it’s not just because it is a version of history that omits most of the people who lived and worked there—though it is that, too,” said Bardes. “But it also is the fact that the people who, after the Civil War, thought long and hard about ‘What do we do next, now that the Confederacy has collapsed?’—they looked to novels, and later to film, and they looked to plantation tourism, and they thought very strategically about how these kinds of cultural motifs could be used to legitimize white supremacy.”

“It’s the cruel genius of the Lost Cause. You can celebrate one and ignore the other.” — Aaron Sheehan-Dean, the chair of LSU’s History Department, scholar of the Civil War and Reconstruction 

The release of Gone with the Wind , which remains to this day the highest-grossing film in history (when adjusted for inflation), coincided with the end of the last generation of Confederate soldiers’ lives—fostering a culture shaped by commemoration and a “resurgence of the myth that the agricultural world of the Confederacy was this pure, bygone thing outside of the modern era,” as described by Ian Beamish, a professor of history at ULL specializing in slavery and public history.

The phenomenon of opening Southern plantation sites to the public, and the philanthropic efforts associated with preserving them, emerged most fully-fledged around the 1930s in response to the national captivation inspired by Gone with the Wind , and as a way to fund upkeep of the mansions during the most difficult parts of the Great Depression. “And it all obviously gains popularity during the massive resistance and pushback to the Civil Rights Movement,” added  Beamish.

Presented with a focus on the accoutrements of wealth and beauty, and the history of the white elites who enjoyed them, the fantasy of Southern aristocracy functioned simultaneously as an economic engine for struggling rural towns in the South and as a way to validate Lost Cause sympathies in a manner that was just subtle enough to be regarded as tasteful. None of it would have been so effective if honest representations of the violence and oppression experienced by thousands of individuals enslaved on these sites were included in the storytelling.

“It’s the cruel genius of the Lost Cause,” said Aaron Sheehan-Dean, the chair of LSU’s History Department, who specializes in Southern history, particularly regarding the Civil War and Reconstruction. “You can celebrate one and ignore the other.”

Searching For a Path Forward for Plantation Tourism

When it comes to plantation tourism in the American South today, there is ample evidence to suggest these influences achieved exactly what the Lost Cause architects hoped. The misrepresentation of what the Antebellum South actually looked like and how it functioned at plantation sites has contributed to a cultural amnesia that affects not only our collective understanding of the past, but also of the present.

“These stories aren’t being told, and because these stories aren’t being told, people don’t think they exist,” said Jordan Richardson, who until recently served as the Program Coordinator for Digital Collections for the Iberia African American Historical Society (IAAHS) , which operates its Center for Research and Learning at the Shadows-on-the-Teche Visitor Center through a formal partnership with the National Trust. “People don’t think [the cruelties associated with slavery] happened. It creates dangerous gaps, where I guess people don’t think Black people did anything during this time period. Then, all of a sudden, that is the excuse as to why they’re so economically disadvantaged today. It’s important because a lot of the inequities and inequality that still exist today start there.”

[Read more about how the Iberia African American Historical Society Center for Research & Learning is partnering with the Shadows-on-the-Teche to unveil stories of Iberia Parish's African American community.] 

Sheehan-Dean expands this even beyond plantations, articulating the reality of where our infrastructure comes from.  “We need to understand it. Because so much of the landscape of Louisiana was built by enslaved people, we’re all the beneficiaries of that. The roads, the buildings, the shape of the river, all of that was done with enslaved labor,” he said. “It doesn’t matter when you arrived in Louisiana, you could have showed up yesterday, but you’re still living in a world that slavery created.”

Today, a combination of cultural influences such as Nikole Hannah-Jones’s 1619 Project and the Black Lives Matter movement, politically-charged conversations around affirmative action and critical race theory, and the general ease of access to discourse and information allowed by our digital age, have made the word “plantation” and what it represents a hot button, culturally divisive topic of conversation, with increasingly negative connotations. As the public becomes more educated on patterns of historic erasure at these sites, they are not only demanding more comprehensive and inclusive histories be incorporated, they are also becoming more selective about the sites they patronize. For some, this involves researching which sites are doing the work to present enslaved histories before spending their dollars there. For others, this can equate to an effective cultural “cancellation” of any institution  associated with the word “plantation”. “Post-2020, it’s certainly harder to conceive of people having plantation weddings,” said Bardes. “Seeing that as problematic is much more mainstream than it was fifteen years ago.”

And for Black Americans, what a “plantation” represents—as a place of unacknowledged generational trauma—is even more fraught, and has been for far longer than the contemporary discourse around the subject. “Family members left plantation spaces, and highly discouraged people from going back there,” said Richardson. “’There’s nothing back there for you,’ they’d say.”

“We've done so much damage. And when I say ‘we,’ I mean white Southerners, I mean public historians. There's a necessary corrective that has to happen. At the very least, if plantation museums are going to exist, they should exist to educate people about our nation's history, and not to entertain people and make them feel good about an imagined past.” —Ashley Rogers, Executive Director at Whitney Plantation 

The question of how to ethically make use of these sites going forward is not novel, but in these recent cultural shifts, it arises anew. Is a more honest, inclusive future for plantation tourism attainable?

Local historians seem to hope so, acknowledging that the already-in-place structure of the sites-as-tourist attractions might be put to use towards the presentation of more honest, complete histories, and as educational tools for filling in the gaps left gaping for so long.

“We've done so much damage,” said Ashley Rogers, Executive Director of Whitney Plantation. “And when I say ‘we,’ I mean white Southerners, I mean public historians. There's a necessary corrective that has to happen. At the very least, if plantation museums are going to exist, they should exist to educate people about our nation's history, and not to entertain people and make them feel good about an imagined past.”

Sheehan-Dean expressed that he believes Louisiana is well-positioned to be a leader in this revolution of public history. We’ve got the tourist magnet of New Orleans, he pointed out, and so many of these properties across the landscape. “We’ve got great people at the universities studying Louisiana slavery and Southern history right now,” he said. “And so, the resources are here for the historic sites to really draw on that. Not to mention that we have really good storytellers here. We’ve got the opportunity to turn the narrative around, to show other places how to do this.”

Even so, if you ask members of Louisiana’s African American descendant community—individuals whose ancestors were enslaved here—the prospects tend to be less optimistic. “I don’t think that the tourism industry, local or state level, are even close to getting where we need them to be in order to truly tell our story,” said Jo Banner, whose ancestors were enslaved at both Whitney and Laura Plantations on River Road. Jo and her twin sister Joy co-founded The Descendants Project with a mission to “eliminate the narrative violence of plantation tourism,” and to address the effects of slavery still impacting descendant communities today, like petrochemical plants moving onto former plantation land and disproportionately impacting residents of color with exposure to toxic chemicals. They conceived of the organization after working in local tourism, when they encountered their ancestors’ histories continually being misrepresented.

“The plantations, and the way that you treat them or don’t treat them are examples, or symbols, of how you think about Black people. So when we see these plantations, it is not that we're getting angry at the house, we're getting angry at white supremacy. And we're getting angry that nobody else sees the fact that we were brutalized, how nobody else can see the contributions.” —Joy Banner, Co-Founder of the Descendants Project

“We weren't satisfied with the almost juvenile way that our history is being treated, being simplified, being gimmick-ified, being labeled as one thing, ‘plantation country,’ for example, said Jo. “An understanding of where the holes were inspired us to want to have more input into our own history and the way that it's being told.”

Joy expanded, explaining that what they and other descendants are seeking through these changes is acknowledgment and understanding of their ancestors’ place in history, and their contributions to this country. “The plantations, and the way that you treat them or don’t treat them are examples, or symbols, of how you think about Black people,” she said. “So when we see these plantations, it is not that we're getting angry at the house, we're getting angry at white supremacy. And we're getting angry that nobody else sees the fact that we were brutalized, how nobody else can see the contributions.”

Darryl Hambrick, who co-founded the River Road African American Museum at Tezcuco Plantation with his sister Kathe in 1994 and recently worked as a tour guide on Mississippi River cruises, said that he holds out hope that things will improve. “But when I see river boats loaded with people who don't look like me, traveling across oceans, traveling across skies, traveling from every part of the Earth to come and learn this history, and then the information that they're given [is] somewhat one-sided,” he said. “Then you look around the community and look at what's going on today, and it saddens me to understand that they make all that money again, on these plantation tours, and the people who made it possible are not included.”

Louisiana’s Plantation Sites Today

Changing the South’s, or even just Louisiana’s, perspectives on plantation tourism is no small undertaking. When the dominant narratives presented at plantation sites since Reconstruction have been romanticized biographies of slave owners, experts agree that it is not enough to simply add facts about slavery to preexisting tours. “It's not as simple as just saying, ‘Oh, well, now we’re going to talk about slavery,” said Ashley Rogers. “It's like, okay, you’ve got an entire staff of people who themselves are probably undereducated about it, are not emotionally prepared to do it well, don't know how to engage.”

As the Executive Director at Whitney Plantation —famous for its claim as  “the only former plantation site in Louisiana with an exclusive focus on slavery” since its opening in 2014—Rogers places particular  emphasis on ensuring her tour guides are well-trained and well-suited to the challenging work of interpreting the site’s history, inverting the traditional focus on enslavers and the material beauty of the big house to focus on the enslaved. After two to three days of learning about Whitney and slavery as a whole,  guides are given a few weeks to complete required reading and prepare their script, which must be approved by Rogers and other staff.

By using slavery as a narrative starting point at Whitney Plantation, the River Road site has served as a radical model for what historically honest plantation tourism can look like—especially from the perspective of memorialization and grieving. One of the most famous stops on Whitney’s tour is its “Wall of Honor,” which memorializes those who were enslaved on these grounds and elsewhere by listing their names.

[Read this story, written shortly after Whitney Plantation's 2014 opening, about the museum's "unflinching" presentation of slavery in the American South.] 

Another model for centering Black history at former plantation sites, conceived two decades before Whitney’s opening, is the River Road African American Museum. Though the institution has resided in Donaldsonville since 2003, it was founded at Tezcuco Plantation in 1994, directly challenging the question of who, and what, these sites should be for.

In 1999, co-founder Kathe Hambrick told New York newspaper Newsday that many questioned why an African American history museum would be located at a former plantation—to which she responded: “Well, where else?”

“The conversation hadn’t been had,” said Darryl Hambrick. “Once our museum opened at Tezcuco, I think the conversation began to happen in plantation country here along the River Road.”

“You have to have the research, the historian there to do the work. You’ve got to have community support. But then you also have got to have institutional support. If you don’t have a director, if you don’t have a board, if you don’t have the entire institution ready to make these changes—without all three of these things, your process doesn’t work.” —Adam Foreman, Shadows-on-the-Teche

To that point—the same year, Laura Plantation opened its doors just down the road, offering a  progressive-for-the-time tour that shared individualized stories of its enslaved population, drawn directly from Laura Duparc’s illuminating memoirs and other primary documents. “I had visited many different places along the river and in Mississippi, and [the tours at Laura] were actually telling the story of enslaved people here in a way you were not encountering elsewhere,” said Laura’s staff historian Katy Morlas Shannon. “Twenty years later, we’re seeing how the information we have has grown exponentially and how the story has evolved over time. And when I first came here, it was revolutionary. And now there's an expectation that those stories need to be told.”

Across Louisiana’s landscape of heritage tourism today, such comprehensive approaches to incorporating African American history into the “plantation tour” experience as Whitney’s or the more recent efforts at the Shadows-on-the-Teche stand on one end of a spectrum that still extends to sites holding tightly to their hoop skirts. But there are also the places in between—sites that have, for decades, been making more gradual efforts to incorporate representations of slavery into their programming.

As early as 1999, Magnolia Mound introduced its “Beyond the Big House” tour, focusing on the history of the eighty people enslaved onsite, and continues to offer programming that elevates Black stories, including its annual Black History Month celebration. In Natchitoches, Melrose Plantation’s unconventional history as a site of enslavement built and operated by Louis Metoyer, the son of a freedwoman—and its reputation as the home of Black folk artist Clementine Hunter—have always made it a uniquely resonant site at which to explore Black history. In 2013, Oak Alley opened its Slavery at Oak Alley exhibit—which centers on six re-constructed slave quarters with a corresponding tour. In 2020, historians at Evergreen Plantation —the most intact plantation property in the South, with twenty-two original slave cabins onsite (and which has been closed to tours since Hurricane Ida)—announced a database of primary source documents telling stories of the four hundred enslaved people who lived there. And earlier this year, Oakley House at Audubon Historic Site launched a series of thoughtful tours presented from the perspective of the house’s women, including the enslaved cook Silvia Freeman (read Alexandra Kennon's review of the "Women of Oakley" Tour, here) .

[Read more about the artist Clementine Hunter in this story from 2018: "As Seen by Clementine"]  

While important, and often worthy of public support, these efforts tend to fall short by their piecemeal nature and by relying on spatially segregated models that place stories of the enslaved as functional add-ons to the existing narratives at the heart of these sites’ programs—often presented as entirely optional to the experience of the site as a whole.

The work of dismantling the gilded nostalgia of the last century’s plantation tourism industry requires immense coordination and investment of time and funds—all at a high level of risk to, or total undoing of, the plantation’s existing economic model, which might rely on offering furniture-focused tours, resort-like accommodations, or a wedding venue.

Rogers said that part of the difficulty in standardizing any approach to this work is the great variety of organizational structures behind our region’s historical sites, which also makes collaboration between the various institutions a challenge. “Some are nonprofit, some are for-profit, some are for-profit-nonprofit partnerships, some are owned by cities, some are owned by the [state or federal] government,” she said. “That all impacts what they’re going to do, and how quickly they can change, and how much motivation they have to change. If there is a really strong profit directive to not changing, then a lot of them—they’re not going to.” Laura, Whitney, and the River Road African American Museum—all privately owned entities or 501c3 nonprofits—were founded with these ideals in place from the start. The sites that started out within the Gone with the Wind idyll face something much more challenging, the task of total restructuring.

“You have to have the research, the historian there to do the work,” said Foreman, noting the Shadows’ great benefit of the Trust’s support and experience in this field. “You’ve got to have community support. But then you also have got to have institutional support. If you don’t have a director, if you don’t have a board, if you don’t have the entire institution ready to make these changes—without all three of these things, your process doesn’t work.”

Confronting the Archive

One of the biggest obstacles cited by plantation sites attempting to more thoroughly incorporate the history of their enslaved populations is that of the limited archive. Because most enslaved individuals were unable to read or write, the written history has overwhelmingly been presented from the perspectives of an educated white elite.

However, sites that have invested  time and resources into this particular field of research have proven that the stories are there, for those willing to look for them. “I’ve said it before: whenever people tell you ‘they can’t find information,’ they are lazy, because it is there,” said Sand Marmillion, cultural anthropologist and owner of Laura Plantation. “[The research conducted at Laura] has taken us decades. This is not for instant gratification.”

The lack of reportage cannot be blamed entirely on laziness, according to Dr. Mary Niall Mitchell, director of the Midlo Center for New Orleans Studies and the Gordon Nick Mueller Professor in Public History at the University of New Orleans (UNO). “The notion that there was so little information available about enslaved people in itself was a sort of silencing of those histories. Because that information was there, people just had not looked for it,” she explained, citing the late Gwendolyn Midlo Hall as an example of what happens when researchers just bother to look. Hall’s database of over 100,000 enslaved Africans in Louisiana , published in 2000, was the result of her travels to rural courthouses around New Orleans, where she realized “that there was just this mass of information about people who had been presumed to be sort of lost to history,” said Mitchell.

Historians like Richardson, Bardes, Foreman, Shannon, Mitchell, and Rogers have reached into the thick of this growing field of research, which is becoming progressively more creative in its accumulation of sources and interpretations—piecing together these presumed-lost stories. “There are really sophisticated, rich studies, and super creative ways that scholars have been able to capture the experience of enslaved people—rereading through sources, using archaeology and reading Black folklore, and a whole range of other tools to fill out that world, and help us see, help us understand,” said Sheehan-Dean.

"There are so many stories that we can tell that people understand in a visceral human way, with just a few little documents that are left behind.”  —Ashley Rogers, Whitney Plantation 

“We have to shift the way we think of what is historical, what are historical records,” asserted  Kathryn Dungy, the Chair of the UNO History Department, who specializes in studying people of color in slave societies. “Everything that we do has a history, everything that we see has a history. It’s about asking the right questions of the materials.”

Dungy frequently turns to oral histories in her work, as well as census records, property records, judicial and church records, resources also utilized heavily by historians at Whitney, Laura, and Shadows-on-the-Teche plantations, as well as the River Road African American Museum. “The buildings themselves tell stories, how they’re made, what materials are being put into their construction, what kind of ephemera is found around those structures,” she said

For plantation sites in possession of an extensive onsite archive, like the Shadows-on-the-Teche or Laura, the possibilities for powerful storytelling can be inspiring: “I can tell you conversations that Louisa and Mary had,” said Foreman. “We can get so deep into their personal lives, that it makes our experience relatively unique.” The challenge with these sorts of archives is maintaining a consciousness of who is telling you the story. “We’re reading documents written by white folks from a white perspective, so when we read something about a person running away, that gives you a clue—you’re reading in between the lines, asking ‘why did he say it like that?’ ‘What is the language here that is being used?’” explained Foreman.

Even when the records themselves are limited, a basic understanding of the human experience can help us fill in the blanks about what was experienced at these sites. Rogers pointed out that Whitney Plantation, regarded as the most slavery-focused plantation site in Louisiana (and arguably, the South), works from an archive far more limited than most other plantation sites in the area. “There’s no, like, plantation journal, no diaries,” she said. “And we have managed to string together an entire narrative about the history of that place, using very few actual documents about people who were enslaved there…There are so many stories that we can tell that people understand in a visceral human way, with just a few little documents that are left behind.”  She offered the example of Francoise, an enslaved woman who they learned—via census and succession records—gave birth to her first child when she was just thirteen years old. By the time she was twenty-three, she had five. And by age twenty-four, all five of Francoise's children were dead—three in the same year.

Rogers tells this story while standing in the slave cabins at Whitney. “What does it feel like for a place that small to suddenly be empty? You’re not hearing the sounds of your children . . .  So, you have to not be afraid of those gaps, and willing to use some historical imagination. I have no idea what Francoise felt, but I can imagine what she felt to lose another child right after she had just lost one. I think a lot of people can understand that.”

[Read more about Laura Plantation's work building individual archives for the people enslaved on its grounds.] 

Stories like these are, according to historians, the key to sincerely and impactfully confronting this history—granting students and visitors to historic sites the opportunity to activate their own empathic centers, and to connect history to the people who experienced it, opening them up to a more nuanced understanding of what happened here.

“That's where you get people to really understand,” said Mitchell. “There's a sort of necessity of telling individual stories that serves the larger understanding of the history of slavery.”

Today, more scholars and curators are finding it worthwhile to invest efforts and funding into this research—Mitchell’s Freedom on the Move database , which documents fugitives who escaped slavery, is one example, as is the Iberia African American Historical Society’s Center for Research and Learning, and the River Road African American Museum’s forthcoming genealogy research center, which will be housed at their restored Rosenwald school, and is anticipated to open in October 2023.

Listening to the Voices of Descendants

“Do we tear down these plantations? Destroy them? Do we burn them down? If that would change the history, yes, let's do it,” said Darryl Hambrick. “I think we need to leave them there and learn a lot more about that history.”

As for how to utilize these sites ethically, answers are evolving. Currently, the general consensus among historians working in this space, as well as descendants of formerly-enslaved people, is that a bare minimum of respect, memorialization, and acknowledgment should be built into any experience taking place on these historical sites. And that descendants of the enslaved need to be involved in the decision making.

“I do think it really starts with engaging descendant communities, I think it can't move forward until descendants have a voice in how these sites are presented. That's just critical, that has to be the path forward, is to give descendants a seat at the table for any kind of revision or reimagining of these sights,” said Mitchell. But the situation is “all hands on deck,” and the work cannot be left entirely to Black Americans. “Educators have to be at the table, historians have to be at the table. And all of those groups have to work together to make it successful.”

“I think what we want is to finally be able to jump, to cry, talk about it, scream, without anybody judging us for that. We want that freedom without people calling us angry. And we are angry, we deserve to be angry. So just letting us emote and feel instead of everyone trying to sanitize …When it comes down to this history and these sites, it is about us. It really is about us.” —Jo Banner, Co-Founder of The Descendants Project

This concept of diverse groups coming together to determine best practices and collaborate on solutions is not uncharted territory. In February 2018, the National Trust hosted the inaugural  National Summit on Teaching Slavery at Montpelier, former President James Madison’s plantation in Vermont. Forty-nine descendants of the enslaved, scholars, educators, museum curators, and others attended with the goal “to develop a model for descendant engagement at historic sites that is rooted in best practices for historical research, community dialogue, exhibition design, and historic preservation.”

In attendance from Louisiana were Ashley Rogers and Joy Banner, who were involved in pinpointing problematic aspects of current plantation tours as well as developing a rubric for how to best engage descendant communities about the interpretations of slavery presented at historic sites and museums . The rubric is multifaceted—but based around three pillars: transparent, collaborative, and accessible research; building relationships between communities of descendants and the sites that interpret the history of enslavement; and criteria and tools for historical interpretation. This rubric is currently the guiding principle of the Shadow-on-the-Teche’s reinterpretation initiatives, which include establishing an advisory board made up of twelve members of the community, half of whom are descendants of people enslaved in the region. The Shadows’ partnership with the Iberia African American Historical Society will also be an invaluable resource as they further develop their tour and programming, with stories of Iberia Parish’s enslaved at the center.

“They are our descendant-led partner,” said Shadows-on-the-Teche’s new Executive Director John Warner Smith. “Not many sites have what we have. We’ve got this organization, whose mission is to actually celebrate the achievements of African Americans and to teach the history of African Americans of Iberia Parish. And they’re right upstairs.”   

Jo Banner said, as a descendant, what she really wants is the ability to confront the complexities of trauma and history and inequality conjured by these spaces, and what they’ve stood for, directly. “I think what we want is to finally be able to jump, to cry, talk about it, scream, without anybody judging us for that,” she said. “We want that freedom without people calling us angry. And we are angry, we deserve to be angry. So just letting us emote and feel instead of everyone trying to sanitize …When it comes down to this history and these sites, it is about us. It really is about us.”

Richardson, whose work as a historian has been crucial to the IAAHS, says there is a particular expression of culture waiting for Black people in these spaces, if and when they choose to partake in it. “This is something that I think is a triumph of the character of Black people, that they made a way out of no way, as Black Americans have been doing since they’ve set foot in this country, because they had to,” he said. As a Black man working in this space, he said that the work can be heavy. “There are rough days, days that I see ancestors’ names listed like animals. But if no one does the work, none of these stories get told.”

Warner Smith, who is the first Black person to serve as Executive Director of a National Trust property where enslavement occured, described his new tenure at the Shadows as his “swan song”. Leading the way to a future in which the ancestors of Iberia Parish’s Black community are honored and studied with care and dignity, he thinks he could help change the world.

“I’ve got this somewhat ambitious plan, vision, goal,” he said. “We can literally build a better society by doing what we do.” By telling the stories of Louisa, and Ann, and Emperor, and Francoise, and the millions of others who were enslaved in America—“you build more empathy, bridge those gaps in differences in perception that people have. Ignorance gets torn down. It’s not just about preserving a historic site anymore. It’s about building a more just society.

“There’s a lot of work to be done,” he said. “But I believe we’ll get there.” 

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This Is My South

A travel guide to the Southern USA

Visiting New Orleans Area Plantations

January 17, 2019 By Caroline Eubanks Leave a Comment

The byway known as the River Road follows the Mississippi River from the north to the Gulf of Mexico, winding curves along the way. The river was an important resource for commerce and transportation as steamboats were the main form.

Houses were built on both sides of the water using materials brought back and forth, but these plantations also grew items like cotton, indigo, and sugarcane to be sold elsewhere. The plantations also used slave labor, brought in on the same river. They were built using a number of unique architectural styles.

Over the years, some have been destroyed and others are privately owned. But many are open to tours and events and some tell the full story of the families that lived there and the people forced to work for them.

Many are also a part of the  Louisiana African American Heritage Trail . It’s also important to notice that despite these mansions, it’s still a working-class area. Sugar cane is still a major resource, along with chemical plants.

This post contains affiliate links.

The majority of the River Road plantations are located between New Orleans and Baton Rouge , with a few more to the north that we’ve included. All can be accessed within two or so hours’ drive from the French Quarter. Most can be seen by a tour, which we’ve linked to, as well as independently by renting a car from the airport or the downtown rental car counters.

If you’re arriving in the morning, I recommend going straight there because the airport is close to the plantations. Food options are also limited, so eat in Kenner or bring your own picnic to enjoy on the walking path on the riverside levee.

Some have places to stay the night if you want to see more. Be sure to check the hours before going as well as the price. We’ve listed them from closest to furthest and only included those with regular public tours.

A Note On Plantations:  These homes have a dark history that shouldn’t be ignored. Only you can decide whether this is something you’re interested in doing. Read this post for more perspectives on both sides of the debate.

Destrehan Plantation, Destrehan

Built between 1787 and 1790, Destrehan Plantation is one of the oldest homes in Louisana. It features French Colonial and Greek Revival elements and was inspired by the styles of the West Indies.

A number of people lived here over the years, including slaves that worked on what was at one time the most successful sugarcane plantation in the parish. It was also the site of the 1811 German Coast Uprising, a slave revolt. It was the largest in the country, leading to the deaths of two white men and 95 slaves.

The home passed through a number of owners and uses before being sold to an oil company in 1941. Some buildings were demolished and others were looted, but it was restored and taken over by the River Road Historical Society in 1971. Destrehan was also featured in Interview with a Vampire and 12 Years a Slave .

The 45-minute tour doesn’t focus solely on slavery, but there is an exhibit on the revolt. It’s the closest to the city, at only 15 minutes from the airport and 25 from the French Quarter, so if you’re short on time, it’s possible to take a Lyft here. Just make sure to arrange a pickup time.

Tour the Plantation:  Destrehan Plantation and Swamp Tour Combo from New Orleans  combines a tour of the historic home with a trip on an airboat through the nearby swamps. You might even see an alligator and other animals.

Where to Stay Nearby:  The  Crowne Plaza Kenner  is only ten minutes by car away, near the airport, with amenities like a bar and restaurant, an outdoor pool, and a free airport shuttle. Destrehan also has two Creole cottages for rent. Nearby Ormond Plantation also has a bed and breakfast.

San Francisco Plantation, Garyville

The most opulent and colorful home on River Road is San Francisco Plantation . Built in 1849, the architecture is inspired by the steamboats that run up and down the Mississippi River. Originally purchased by Elisée Rillieux, a free man of color, the land was later sold to Edmond Bozonier Marmillion, who lived there for two decades.

He purchased dozens of slaves to support his sugar production empire, but he lost his wife and six children to tuberculosis. Some of the slaves later built the lavish home, but Marmillion died one year after it was completed.

One of his remaining sons took over the empire and home for another fifteen years. Later the Ory family purchased San Francisco for a cheap price and added to it. The construction of the levee took away some of the land but locals saved the house from demolition.

It opened to tours in the 1950s. Their tours include information about the lives of the enslaved people, thanks in part to records that were preserved. The slave cabin and schoolhouse are just a few of the aspects of the plantation that provide a look into the slaves’ experiences.

Tour the Plantation:  Oak Alley and San Francisco Plantation Tour from New Orleans  brings guests to two of the most scenic plantation homes on the River Road, leaving from New Orleans area hotels and returning in the late afternoon.

Where to Stay Nearby:  Holiday Inn Express LaPlace is 15 minutes drive away, surrounded by other chain hotels, with amenities like a pool, gym, and free hot breakfast daily.

Evergreen Plantation, Edgard

Built in 1790 and later renovated in the Greek Revival style it exhibits today, Evergreen Plantation operated as a sugarcane plantation until the Great Depression when it continued under bank operation. It still functions as such, although privately owned with people still living and working onsite.

Evergreen is considered to be the most intact plantation complex in the South, with 37 buildings, including 22 original slave cabins. It has its own breathtaking avenue of oaks, often overshadowed by the one at Oak Alley. It was even featured in the film Django Unchained .

Today, Evergreen is a part of the African American Heritage Trail . The hour-and-a-half tours visit the main house and slave quarters, incorporating the history discovered through research and archaeology.

These tours focus on family ownership, architectural significance, agriculture, and the dependence on slave labor and later freed African-Americans.

Tour the Plantation:  Oak Alley and Evergreen Plantation Tour from New Orleans  highlights two notable plantations known for their majestic oak trees with an optional lunch purchase at Oak Alley’s onsite restaurant.

Where to Stay Nearby: TownePlace Suites , also in LaPlace, is great for short or long stays with a pool, fitness center, business center, and breakfast buffet.

Whitney Plantation, Wallace

If you only visit one plantation in search of the full history of slavery in Louisiana, make it Whitney Plantation , the sole museum to focus solely on the slave experience.

The home was built in 1803 by Ambroise Haydel, a German immigrant. His family and descendants continued to live on the land for over 100 years. They started by growing indigo but later transitioned to sugarcane. 

Dominici Canova was commissioned to paint murals that still exist in the home. After the Civil War, the home was sold to the Johnson family, who named the plantation Whitney for their grandson. It continued to be passed on to other families and companies before it finally opened to the public as a museum in 2014.

There are over twelve main buildings within Whitney, including the “Big House,” which is one of the finest surviving examples of Spanish Creole architecture. It’s one of the earliest raised Creole cottages in the state.

There are also eleven preserved outbuildings, including a rare true French Creole Barn, an original kitchen, a mule barn, a plantation store, and a pigeon roosting building.

Life-sized sculptures are set up around the property to represent the children of slaves. The Field of Angels and Wall of Honor memorialize the enslaved people that lived at Whitney. Tours last 1.5 hours.

Tour the Plantation:  Whitney Plantation Tour  is an extensive five-hour tour from New Orleans that includes a knowledgeable guide as well as comfortable transportation.

Where to Stay Nearby: Hampton Inn LaPlace  is only 12 miles from most of the plantations, offering an outdoor pool, a hot daily breakfast, and in-room coffee makers.

Laura: A Creole Plantation, Vacherie

Originally the Duparc sugar plantation, at its largest included 12,000 acres. Purchased in 1804 by a veteran of the Revolutionary War, Laura Plantation is built in the raised Creole style with two surviving slave cabins.

The U-shaped house had a detached kitchen, constructed by skilled slaves, and access to the Mississippi River only a few feet away. The Acadians lived in this area in the 1700s for years before the plantation was built.

Laura focuses on the Creole slave experience in their tours, which are offered in both English and French. Much of what is known about what life was like in the home comes from the memoir of Laura Locoul, one of the four owners of the plantation that ran it as a sugar mill. One of the slave cabins describes the West African folktales now known as “Br’er Rabbit,” believed to have originated at Laura.

Tour the Plantation:  Laura Plantation Tour  includes a 70-minute tour of the Creole home, including its four generations of ownership. This tour does not include transfers from New Orleans, so transportation must be arranged separately.

Where to Stay Nearby:  Best Western LaPlace  has free WiFi, toiletries, an outdoor pool, and a fitness center. Choose from double and king rooms as well as suites.

St. Joseph Plantation, Vacherie

St. Joseph Plantation was built in 1830 for the Scioneaux family using slave labor. It’s been family owned since 1877, functioning as a sugar plantation for the majority of that time. Alexis Ferry and his wife Josephine were the next owners. Josephine’s father was one of the wealthiest men in the South at that time and owned a nearby plantation.

After the Civil War, the land around St. Joseph was combined with neighboring Felicity Plantation. Architect Henry Hobson Richardson was born at St. Joseph in 1830. It’s still a part of the family and the grounds are accessible to visitors.

Six tours are run daily, focusing on the lives of the people that owned the plantation and the enslaved people that worked on it. The Creole Mourning Tour, held in the fall, is a unique look into the customs and rituals of 18th and 19th century Creole Louisiana, featuring re-enactments.

The plantation complex has also been featured in film and television, including  12 Years A Slave , Skeleton Key , Underground, All the King’s Men, Mudbound ,  and Queen Sugar.

Tour the Plantation:  The St. Joseph Plantation Admission & Guided Tour is guided by the family that has lived in the home since the 1800s. It includes visits to the original slave cabins and describes the sugar industry.

Where to Stay Nearby:  Cottage on the Farm in Vacherie is made up of wood taken from nearby plantations. Guests have access to the full kitchen for daily breakfast as well as oversized bathtubs.

Oak Alley Plantation, Vacherie

The most iconic home on River Road is Oak Alley Plantation , named for the 300-year-old oak trees that line the original path to the home, planted in the 1800s before the Greek Revival mansion was built. It’s the site of countless photoshoots, the film Interview with a Vampire , and even a Beyonce music video .

Constructed in the 1830s as  Bon Séjour  Plantation, French Creole Valcour Aime exchanged the property to his brother-in-law. The family lived there until after the Civil War when it became too expensive to run without the slave labor they previously relied on.

In the 1920s it fell into disrepair but was purchased by the Stewart family, who restored it and later left the home to the Oak Alley Foundation in 1972. It opened to the public soon after.

Oak Alley offers guided tours of the house and self-guided tours of the grounds, which include exhibits on slavery at the plantation, blacksmithing, sugar cane, and the Civil War. 

If you don’t have time to tour Oak Alley, there’s a small shoulder on the road where you can stop to photograph the house. The home also has accommodations and a full-service restaurant, bar, and casual cafe.

Tour the Plantation:  Tour of Oak Alley Plantation  is 4.5 hours and includes transportation from central New Orleans and a guided tour of the home.

Where to Stay Nearby:  Oak Alley has overnight cottages that come with wireless Internet, cozy robes, and televisions. Full breakfast is included with stays.

Houmas House Plantation, Darrow

A number of historic homes are rumored to be haunted, but Houmas House is frequently mentioned in lists of spookiest places in Louisana. The 1840 Greek Revival mansion, named for the native Houma people, is known as the “crown jewel” of River Road with over 38 acres of gardens.

The sugarcane plantation was owned by a number of people including Revolutionary War General Wade Hampton and his relatives. The 10,000-acre estate was sold to Belfast-born bachelor John Burnside, who increased the landholdings and the number of slaves.

The home was used as a Union headquarters during the Civil War. He left the home to a friend upon his death and it exchanged hands until falling into disrepair in the Great Depression. 

Dr. George B. Crozat purchased and restored Houmas in 1940 and it remained in his family until 2003. It was then bought by Kevin Kelly and opened to tours, despite it remaining his private residence.

Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte and The Green Book were filmed at Houmas House. Guided tours of the home last one hour, in addition to the grounds. There’s also a gift shop, art gallery, bar, restaurants, an inn on the site. If you want to know more about the slave experience, visit the River Road African American Museum in nearby Donaldsonville.

Tour the Plantation:  Houmas House Plantation Tour  includes transportation from New Orleans and guided tours of the home, including seeing where Bette Davis slept while filming a movie.

Where to Stay Nearby:  Houmas House Inn is made up of a collection of cottages with porches, televisions, and WiFi. Guests also get daily breakfast and house entry with their stay. The Cajun Village Cottages in nearby Sorrento are Acadian-style cottages furnished with antiques. Breakfast is included.

Nottoway Plantation, Gabriel

Nottoway Plantation is a Greek Revival and Italianate-style mansion built by John Hampden Randolph in 1859, designed by notable New Orleans architect Henry Howard. It’s the South’s largest existing Antebellum mansion, made up of 53,000 square feet of Italian marble fireplaces, ballrooms, and gas lighting.

Randolph was one of the South’s largest slaveholders at the time. The home was used as headquarters for both Union and Confederate troops during the Civil War and survived with minimal damage. It was sold after Randolph’s death and passed through a number of owners who struggled to keep the agricultural operation going.

Nottoway was sold in 1980 to Arlin K. Dease, who had restored other area plantations. Paul Ramsay bought it in 1985 and turned it into the resort destination it is today.

Nottoway offers self-guided audio tours and guided tours of the home. It is a AAA Four-Diamond property and a member of Historic Hotels of America with 40 rooms and two suites, a pool, tennis court, and spa. They include historic rooms, cottages, and a carriage house. There are also two restaurants onsite and Nottoway hosts many weddings and events.

Where to Stay Nearby: There are multiple types of rooms to stay at Nottoway or guests can stay at the  Best Western Plaquemine , a budget-friendly option with a pool, fitness center, business center, and breakfast.

Magnolia Mound Plantation, Baton Rouge

One of the few state-owned plantations, Magnolia Mound Plantation was built in 1791 in the French Creole style, influenced by the homes of France and the West Indies. It’s one of the oldest buildings in modern-day Baton Rouge , once boasting 900 acres.

It was originally owned by James Hillin, a Scottish immigrant, his family, and six slaves. It passed on through a number of families, expanding and falling into disrepair, but was taken over by the City of Baton Rouge in 1966.

Inside the home is a carefully restored collection of Louisiana-made decor and furnishings as well as cypress beams. Unique features include a restored outdoor kitchen, slave cabins, and a pigeon coop. 

They offer guided tours of the home as well as self-guided access to the grounds. Magnolia Mound hosts a number of educational programs. While you’re in the area, be sure to visit the  LSU Rural Life Museum , a living history center based on an 18th-century plantation.

Where to Stay Nearby: Watermark Hotel  is Baton Rouge’s most stylish boutique hotel in the heart of downtown. It’s set in a 1927 building with stylish rooms and an in-house restaurant.

The Myrtles, St. Francisville

Built in 1796 by General David Bradford, The Myrtles Plantation is considered to be one of America’s most haunted homes. Set on 600 acres, Bradford lived there with his wife and children after being pardoned for the Whiskey Rebellion.

It passed on to his son-in-law after his death and was later sold to Ruffin Gray Stirling, including all the slaves. He renamed the house for the surrounding trees and filled the home with fine furnishings. It was looted during the Civil War and a later owner was killed on the porch, which started the rumors of paranormal activity.

The Myrtles has been a bed and breakfast and tourist attraction since the 1970s. The Baccarat crystal chandelier is one of the stunning features. Tours of the home are offered during the day and night with the option to arrange pickup from Baton Rouge. They also have an onsite restaurant.

Tour the Plantation:  Myrtles Plantation Tour  includes guided tours of the home with the option to add on transportation.

Where to Stay Nearby:  The Myrtles Plantation  is made up of uniquely decorated rooms and independent cottages. Tours and breakfast are included with your stay.

Related Reading

• Louisiana Plantations Guide: 12 River Road Plantations , Independent Travel Cats

About Caroline Eubanks

Caroline Eubanks is the editor of this website, a Lowell Thomas award-winning travel writer, and the author of This Is My South: The Essential Travel Guide to the Southern States. Her stories from the South have appeared in National Geographic Traveler, Afar, Thrillist, Roads and Kingdoms, and BBC Travel.

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15 Top-Rated Tourist Attractions in Louisiana

Written by Lana Law Updated Jan 20, 2023

Author Lana Law has traveled around Louisiana and always enjoys a stop in New Orleans.

Even the name Louisiana evokes a feeling of sultry summer nights with cicadas chirping nearby, and the laughter of friends and family over a table groaning with tasty Southern fare. This a state where time slows down, and life is more about living than doing.

One of the best places to visit Louisiana's tourist attractions and soak up a bit of Creole culture is in New Orleans . The French Quarter celebrates the state's history and is a great place to get lost knowing that no matter where you turn, a great meal and a good time is waiting. World-famous Mardi Gras brings out the fun in people as they dress up and parade through the streets.

Just down the road is the state capital of Baton Rouge . State capitals can sometimes be stuffy places, but not Baton Rouge. This city casts that reputation aside and proudly celebrates all that it has to offer, including a capitol building with a resident ghost named Sarah.

Outdoor-minded travelers will want to stop in at Lake Charles and soak up the natural beauty and perhaps stop at one of the state's best beaches.

After you've given the cities their due, head out of town. Visit the bayous and swamplands with their ghostly silent waters inhabited by things that may like to eat you. Less adventurous visitors may find a tour through a plantation more to their liking.

Plan your visit with our list of the top attractions in Louisiana.

1. New Orleans' French Quarter

2. national wwii museum, 3. mardi gras, 4. melrose plantation, 5. old state capitol, 6. state capitol building, 7. swamp tours, 8. laura plantation, 9. vermilionville, 10. spend a day at the beach in louisiana, 11. sci-port discovery center, 12. uss kidd and veterans memorial, 13. rosedown plantation and gardens, 14. st. martin de tours catholic church, 15. dequincy railroad museum.

The French Quarter is New Orleans' oldest and most famous neighborhood. Its beautiful buildings date back as far as 300 years, many with wrought iron balconies that extend over the tourist-filled sidewalks below. Visitors flock to the French Quarter for sightseeing, shopping, dining, and entertainment, and the area is packed during the annual Mardis Gras celebrations.

The most popular place to visit in the French Quarter is Bourbon Street , which is alive year-round with throngs of tourists and live music. North Rampart Street is less crowded but has many historic buildings and good restaurants, while Decatur Street is a popular hangout for hipsters. Jazz clubs line the pedestrian-friendly Royal Street , which is also known for its antique shops and art galleries.

Louis Armstrong Park is another popular tourist attraction, home to the historic Congo Square , where the city's African-American community once socialized before gaining freedom. The park covers 31 acres and includes trails, fountains, and a huge statue of jazz legend Louis Armstrong.

• Read More: Top-Rated Tourist Attractions in New Orleans, LA

The National WWII Museum in New Orleans offers an in-depth look at every aspect of the conflict, from the ground war in Europe to the challenges of battle at sea and in the air. One of the most impactful exhibits is "Road to Berlin," where visitors have the opportunity to be immersed in the past while seeing fully recreated battle zones complete with the sights and sounds.

Other exhibits include an exploration of the obstacles overcome by the Seabees and Merchant Marines in supporting the troops, a look at how vital support from the home front was to the effort, and details about the D-Day invasion of Normandy.

The museum's displays employ a variety of media and interactive technology that bring history to life. Exhibits are also full of personal stories and photos, as well as a large collection of artifacts, including soldiers' personal items and even a shark-faced P-40 Warhawk.

The museum added a new attraction in November 2022 titled Expressions of America. Taking place most evenings on the Col. Battle Barksdale Parade Ground, this immersive sound and light show is designed to take you back to the war years of the early 1940s.

The show starts in the BB's Stage Door Canteen, where live performances take place. Eventually the show moves outdoors for the main show. Expressions of America is a separate attraction from the regular admission to the museum and an additional fee is charged.

Address: 945 Magazine Street, New Orleans, Louisiana

The biggest event on Louisiana's annual calendar is the Mardi Gras celebration that takes place in New Orleans. This colorful event is a huge undertaking with a parade, balls, and street celebrations like none other. Mardis Gras is the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, but celebrations begin on the weekend leading up to Tuesday.

The event draws huge crowds who come to join in the celebrations and watch more than 1,000 floats go by on dozens of parade routes. To see the floats up close, tourists can visit Mardis Gras World , where you can watch artists and craftsmen build them. Nearly half of the celebration's floats, costumes, and props are created in this workshop.

If you're coming for Mardi Gras, plan ahead. Check the events calendar and be sure to book a hotel well in advance.

The Melrose Plantation in Natchitoches was first known as Yucca Plantation when it belonged to Marie Thérèse and Claude Thomas Pierre Metoyer, freed slaves. Yucca House, found on the grounds, was built in the 1790s. The Big House is a West Indies Creole plantation house with early Greek Revival details.

At the turn of the century, Melrose became the home of John Hampton Henry and his wife Camie, a patron of the arts. Mrs Henry enlarged the garden and preserved the buildings. Many writers and artists were guests at Melrose over the years.

Address: 3533 Hwy 119, Melrose, Louisiana

The Gothic-Revival-style Old State Capitol makes a dramatic impression on visitors passing by and is equally impressive on the inside. Two huge towers flank the main entrance, and the roof is crenellated. The building, which resembles an old castle, is set on a hill overlooking the Mississippi River in downtown Baton Rouge.

This historic landmark building now houses a political history museum , which includes artifacts, documents, and interactive exhibits that explore the state's long history.

Visitors can also learn about the building's history and significance in the "Ghost of the Castle" presentation, a 4 -D experience that is hosted by the apparition of Sarah Morgan.

Keep your wallet in your pocket, admission is free.

Address: 100 North Blvd, Baton Rouge, Louisiana

• Read More: Top-Rated Tourist Attractions in Baton Rouge

If you've toured the Old State Capitol Building, it's definitely worthwhile touring the current State Capitol Building . Located just under a mile north, this incredible example of Art Deco architecture is, at 460 feet tall, the tallest state capitol in the United States .

Take the elevator up 350 feet to the 27th floor, where you'll find the Observation Deck. It's from this elevated perch that you'll be able to appreciate how flat and wet Louisiana truly is. For a more detailed understanding of the building, consider booking a guided tour. Admission is free.

Address: 900 North Third Street Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Louisiana is famous for its bayous and swamps, and fortunately you don't need to venture far from New Orleans to get into the beating heart of bayou country. In this unique environment, you'll see moss-covered trees; extensive swamplands; and an assortment of wildlife, including alligators, wild boar, wading birds, and snakes .

Tours are easily arranged. Some tours also stop at a Cajun Village, accessible only by water, where you can learn about their unique culture.

The Laura Plantation in Vacherie has been open to the public since 1994, allowing visitors to tour the 1805 building and property that was a sugarcane plantation for 180 years. The home contains original period furniture, as well as exhibits highlighting the memoirs of Laura Locoul.

The most remarkable feature of the plantation, however, is its large exhibit dedicated to the lives and personal stories of those who were enslaved on the farm. The exhibit explores the complex relationships between the owners and the slaves, as well as various aspects of daily life, form health to religion.

Collections include rare photos and documents that shed light on all-but-forgotten African-Americans who lived and worked on this Creole farm, as well as other slaves in the state. Tours run every 40 minutes all day long, beginning at 10am.

Address: 2247 Hwy 18, Vacherie, Louisiana

Vermilionville, in Lafayette, exhibits the traditions and heritage of the Acadian settlers of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. At this living history museum, costumed craftspeople and historians demonstrate skills and folk crafts that have been preserved and handed down from previous generations.

Artisans can be found throughout the 23-acre site, which is home to restored original Acadian homes and authentic buildings from the 18th and 19th centuries. The property also includes exhibits that are featured on a rotating basis and explore the lives of Louisiana's indigenous peoples.

The struggle to maintain the Acadian culture and language, and a look at black history from early slavery to the civil rights movement are also topics that are covered. Other exhibits include a fascinating look at the differences in Mardi Gras traditions in cities versus rural areas.

Count on an hour and a half to fully explore this interesting site . Note that the museum is closed on Mondays, and the last admission throughout the week is at 3pm.

Address: 300 Fisher Road, Lafayette, Louisiana

Louisiana has a surprisingly good selection of beaches, and with the state's reputation as a steamy, hot place in the summer, you may be making a beeline for one in short order.

One of the best places to visit the beach in Louisiana is Holly Beach , colloquially referred to as the "Cajun Riviera." Located in the southwest corner of the state, the beach here is long, flat, and wide with golden sands. The Gulf of Mexico waters get delightfully warm in the summer, and the shallow water is ideal for children.

Just a couple of hours south of New Orleans is another popular beach destination, Grand Isle . This barrier island extends into the Gulf of Mexico, and the beach here stretches for almost the entire length. Unfortunately, the Grand Isle State Park received significant damage from Hurricane Ida and has not reopened. However, the damage to the beaches in the town of Grand Isle have been repaired and are fully open.

At the far end of Grand Isle is Port Fourchon. The beach here is a bit different, with larger waves popular with surfers.

Even closer to New Orleans is Lake Ponchartrain and Fontainbleau State Park . This beach has flat, shallow water and a wonderful sandy shoreline. Off the beach is a water playground for the kids, showers, picnic tables, and restrooms. Hurricane Ida caused significant damage to the park, but it has since reopened fully, the only exception being the camping cabins, which remain closed until further notice.

Sci-Port Discovery Center is a science and entertainment center featuring science, math, and space exhibits; an IMAX Dome Theatre; and the Sawyer SPACE DOME Planetarium. Located in Shreveport, the center is targeted mainly towards youth, and is a popular family attraction with a strong educational component, featuring hundreds of interactive exhibits.

The center's newest addition is the Power of Play Children's Museum, which encourages children to learn through hands-on play.

Address: 820 Clyde Fant Parkway, Shreveport, Louisiana

Visitors can climb aboard a decommissioned destroyer at the USS Kidd and Veterans Memorial , located in Baton Rouge. The ship was active during WWII and has since been used in films and TV productions.

Information on the ship, as well as nautical items and memorabilia, are on display in the museum. The USS Kidd is named for Rear Admiral Isaac Campbell Kidd, Sr., who was killed during the attack on Pearl Harbor.

In addition to the ship, the memorial also has an observation tower and a museum . Inside the museum are historical artifacts and a replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall. Children and adults alike will be fascinated by the model ship collection.

For a truly unique experience, gather 20 of your closest friends and camp out overnight on the ship. You'll have the complete run of the place and can set your own schedule.

Address: 305 South River Road, Baton Rouge, Louisiana

The Rosedown Plantation is a State Historic Site known for being one of the most well preserved domestic Southern plantations. It offers a look at the lifestyles, both of plantation owners and slaves, during the mid 19th century in the South.

On the grounds are camellias, azaleas, and rare shrubs and trees. The Rosedown Gardens were created by the owners, Daniel and Martha Turnbull, in 1835. These incredible gardens span 28 acres and are one of the finest in the entire state.

The Turnbull family occupied the mansion for more than 120 years.

Address: 12501 Hwy 10, St. Francisville, Louisiana

St. Martin Catholic Church was established in 1765 in St. Martinville. The present structure was built in 1836 and has an 1883 replica of the Grotto of Lourdes. In the left wing of the church is the grave of Emmeline Labiche, thought to be the heroine of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem Evangeline . A statue of Evangeline stands in the churchyard.

Of note is a beautiful statue of Saint Martin de Tours dating from 1931. The St. Martin Catholic Church is the third oldest church in Louisiana.

Address: 133 South Main Street, St. Martinville, Louisiana

The DeQuincy Railroad is located in the old Kansas City Southern Depot, which was built in 1923. This grand old building, listed on the National Register of Historic Places , now contains a variety of railroad equipment and related memorabilia.

Exhibits also include an impressive collection of museum quality Gauge 1 model steam and diesel engines created by master model craftsmen. Outside, visitors can admire the museum's 1913 steam locomotive and a 1947 Pullman passenger coach, as well as two cabooses.

This is also a great spot for train lovers to simply relax and watch the trains go by from the train-watching platform or any of the several viewing areas.

Address: 400 Lake Charles Avenue, DeQuincy, Louisiana

More on Louisiana

Wealth of Geek$

10 homes-turned-museums in the state of Louisiana

Posted: October 21, 2023 | Last updated: October 21, 2023

When Europeans first established settlements in Louisiana, they recognized the fertile potential of the mighty Mississippi River for agriculture. This recognition led to the development of plantation houses in Louisiana along the river during the 18th and 19th centuries. However, the history of these plantations is a complex mix of positive and negative aspects. Today, these estates stand as remarkable architectural marvels with lush gardens, but they also bear the dark legacy of slavery and the suffering endured by enslaved individuals. These museum houses are an essential learning tool, providing valuable insights into our historic past. 

1. Destrehan Plantation

First built in 1787, Destrehan is the oldest documented plantation in Louisiana. It’s also the closest to New Orleans . By this point in history, Louisiana was governed by the Spanish. Marie Celeste Robin de Logny and Jean Noel Destrehan, a prominent sugar producer, established the plantation. 

It holds an original document signed by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison appointing Jean Noel to the Orleans Territorial Council. The plantation played a role in the aftermath of the 1811 Slave Revolt and served as a Union Army site during the Civil War. Located on the historic River Road, it offers a scenic setting by the Mississippi River, close to New Orleans.

2. Oak Alley Plantation

Originally called Bon Sejour (good stay), Oak Alley Plantation was built for businessman Jacques Telesphore Roman between 1837 and 1839. Its stunning oak-lined entrance has been used in multiple movies, including  Interview with the Vampire . 

The mansion is built in the Greek Revival style and is surrounded by columns. It contains various exhibits, including the history of enslaved people who lived on the property, the ‘Big House,’ blacksmith shop, and information on sugar cane production. The property is located about an hour outside of New Orleans. Several tour operators bring visitors to Oak Alley.

3. Houmas House Plantation

Another 30-minute drive up the Mississippi River from Oak Alley, you’ll find Houmas House, located in Darrow. It’s often called the “Crown Jewel of Louisiana’s River Road.” It features an impressive mansion, beautiful gardens, and several renowned restaurants, cafes, and wine cellars. 

Many movies have used Houmas House, including the 2018 Mahershala Ali movie Green Book . While the plantation was established in the 1700s, the mansion you see today was not completed until 1840.

4. Laura Plantation

In 1804, a French naval veteran of the American Revolution, Guillaume Duparc, acquired a sugar farming complex on the Mississippi River in Vacherie, Louisiana . Originally called l’Habitation Duparc, it was eventually renamed Laura Plantation. The property today serves as a heritage site for Louisiana’s Creole heritage. 

When Laura Plantation opened to the public in 1994, it became the first historical attraction in Louisiana to include stories of enslaved Africans in its tours. Following extensive research in the United States and France, in February 2017, Laura Plantation introduced a permanent exhibit.  “ From the Big House to the Quarters: Slavery on Laura Plantation” is dedicated to portraying the authentic history of the enslaved community on this Créole farm. The property is located about an hour’s drive from New Orleans. 

5. Whitney Plantation

The Whitney Plantation is located in Wallace, Louisiana, about an hour’s drive from New Orleans. It was established as a museum in 2014 and comprises twelve historic buildings. The Big House was reconstructed in its present form sometime before 1815, featuring seven rooms on each level, a full-length gallery at the front, and an open loggia (a type of verandah) at the rear. It stands out as one of the few historic American houses with decorative wall paintings on its exterior and interior.

Today, Whitney Plantation serves as an educational institution, enlightening the public about the history of slavery and its enduring legacies. Visitors can delve into the stories of the enslaved individuals who toiled in the sugar, rice, and indigo fields on the plantation, as well as learn about the plantation owners who amassed wealth through their labor.

6. San Francisco Plantation House

The San Francisco Plantation House, located in Reserve, St. John the Baptist Parish, Louisiana, is historically significant. It was constructed between 1853 and 1856 for Edmond Marmillion. Renowned for its distinctive architecture, it’s one of the most unique plantation houses in Louisiana and the American South.

Marathon Oil Company acquired the San Francisco Plantation House as part of their purchase of the Garyville Refinery in the 1970s, and it was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1974. It operated as a museum and event venue until 2022 when the oil company ceased operation of the house. The destiny of the plantation remains uncertain at this time.

7. Melrose Plantation

Near Natchitoches, Louisiana, Melrose Plantation is a historic gem with an African House, beautiful gardens, and a unique cultural history. The story of this house is complex and stands as a testament to the history of free people of color who lived in Louisiana. In 1742, enslaved woman Marie Thérèse Coincoin was leased to a French merchant named Claude Thomas Pierre Metoyer. They had ten children and were eventually given freedom. One of her children, Louis Metoyer, was deeded land and built Melrose Plantation.

The property contains several historic buildings, including Yucca House and African House, built between 1810 and 1815, and the Big House, built in 1832. Today, the property is owned and operated by The Association of Natchitoches Women for the Preservation of Historic Natchitoches. It deserves to be visited for this fascinating look at the history of people of color in Louisiana.

8. St. Joseph & Felicity Plantations

St. Joseph Plantation is a well-preserved sugar cane plantation in the River Parishes (an hour west of New Orleans), allowing visitors to explore various historic structures alongside the Manor Home. These structures include original enslaved people’s cabins, a detached kitchen, a blacksmith’s shop, a carpenter’s shed, and a schoolhouse. It is one of the most intact sugar cane plantations remaining.

The plantation has an intriguing history, originally given as a wedding gift from Valcour Aimé to his daughter Joséphine Aimé in 1839. Nearby, Felicity Plantation, a sister plantation to St. Joseph, was constructed around 1846 (or 1850) as a wedding gift to Valcour Aimé’s daughter, Felicite Emma, and her husband, Septime Fortier. In 1890, Saturnine Waguespack acquired Felicity Plantation, merging it with St. Joseph Plantation to establish the St. Joseph Plantation and Manufacturing Company. Remarkably, the house on Felicity Plantation remains in the Waguespack family.

9. Rosedown Plantation

Rosedown Plantation, encompassing the main house, historic gardens, 13 historic buildings, and 371 acres, is now a state historic site under the management of the Office of State Parks. State Parks personnel and volunteers are dedicated to preserving and caring for the site, offering tours and programs that provide insights into 19th-century plantation life. Originally, Rosedown Plantation spanned about 3,455 acres, with most of the land devoted to cotton cultivation.

Construction of the main house at Rosedown began in 1834 under the guidance of Daniel and Martha Turnbull, and it was completed by May of the following year. The Turnbulls adorned their home with exquisite furnishings, many of which were imported from the North and Europe. Remarkably, a substantial portion of these original furnishings remained with the house even after the Civil War, and today, many of these pieces are still on display at Rosedown Plantation .

10. Nottoway Plantation

Nottoway Plantation, also known as Nottoway Plantation House, is nestled near White Castle, Louisiana. This remarkable plantation mansion, blending Greek Revival and Italianate architectural styles, was meticulously constructed by enslaved individuals and skilled artisans under the supervision of John Hampden Randolph in 1859. With an impressive 53,000 square feet (4,900 m2) of floor space, it stands as the largest surviving antebellum plantation house in the Southern United States.

Since 1985, Nottoway Plantation has been under the ownership of Australian businessman Paul Ramsay. Over the years, Nottoway has evolved into a sought-after resort destination, offering visitors a unique opportunity to experience its rich history and grandeur. The house earned a place on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. Today, Nottoway Plantation is a popular tourist attraction in southern Louisiana, and guided tours are readily available for the general public to explore its storied past.

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Home Numéros 21 Recherche - Dossier : Imaginaires... Slavery and Plantation Tourism in...

Slavery and Plantation Tourism in Louisiana: Deconstructing the Romanticized Narrative of the Plantation Tours

Former slave plantations that are now converted into tourist attractions constitute places of memory inherently associated with the memorialization of slavery in the United States. These plantation-museums are a central element of tourism in the South, as exemplified by the numerous tour-operators organizing visits of these historical sites. Louisiana offers a prime choice for anyone willing to embark on a plantation tour. “River Road,” the region following the course of the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, is now the hotspot for plantation tourism in Louisiana, attracting busloads of visitors. However, tourism plantations have long constructed their tours around a fantasized vision of the slave South, and many, to this day, still offer an idealized representation of that period. In recent years, others have chosen instead to focus on a more accurate interpretation of slavery that therefore deconstructs the romanticized narrative of plantation tours. In this article, I examine curatorial practices in several plantations to analyze the deconstruction of the main narrative and the more or less defined inclusion of the history of the enslaved.

Les anciennes plantations aujourd’hui reconverties en destinations touristiques apparaissent comme des lieux de mémoire intrinsèquement liés à la représentation de l’esclavage aux États-Unis. Elles font partie intégrante du tourisme dans le Sud, comme en témoignent les nombreuses compagnies touristiques qui en proposent une visite, dans des sites qui ont longtemps élaboré leur muséographie autour d’un imaginaire reposant sur une représentation idéalisée de la société esclavagiste tout en passant sous silence les sombres réalités de l’institution. La Louisiane fait aujourd’hui figure de destination privilégiée pour la visite de ces plantations. La région de River Road, entre La Nouvelle-Orléans et les environs de Bâton-Rouge, y forme aujourd’hui une véritable « route des plantations » touristique qui attire des cars entiers de visiteurs. Cependant, si certaines plantations continuent de proposer aux visiteurs une représentation magnifiée des lieux, d’autres cherchent désormais à déconstruire l’imaginaire mythifié de la plantation du Vieux Sud et ont, depuis quelques années, modifié leurs pratiques muséales pour offrir une mise en mémoire nouvelle de l’esclavage. Par l’examen de pratiques muséales dans diverses plantations, cet article étudie la déconstruction du discours touristique dominant vers une inclusion plus ou moins marquée de l’histoire des esclaves.

Index terms

Mots-clés : , keywords: , introduction.

• 1 Several operators are dedicated only to offering tours of River Road plantations, such as https://w (...)
• 2 Six million visitors have toured the grounds of Oak Alley Plantation since 1974, according to a sel (...)

1 Tourism in the United States, one of the leading tourist destinations in the world with close to 80 million visitors in 2019, represents an economic powerhouse (Statista, 2020). Visitors are often drawn to a form of tourism that revolves around a series of imaginaries — that is to say destinations commonly associated with certain images, such as the mythicized American West and its numerous stories about great outdoors and the wilderness. The South is also a region loaded with preconceived representations of its history, identified with the period of slavery, plantation homes and the Civil War, and embodied by the plantation tourism industry that operates as a driving force for the local economy 1 . In Louisiana, “River Road” represents the hub of plantation tourism, in a region delineated by the course of the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge (“The River Road,” nps.gov), and which used to be the greatest symbol of slave-owning wealth in antebellum Louisiana — it was nicknamed “Millionaires’ Row” because of the abundance of wealthy planters in the area. There, some of the former sugarcane plantations that were not destroyed during the Civil War were turned into historical sites which have become major tourist attractions where tour operators send busloads of visitors mainly from New Orleans 2 . They offer various activities of hospitality and tourism (Bed & Breakfast, wedding venues, restaurants, gift shops) and sometimes operate as outdoor museum sites, designated as “plantation-museums” by Jennifer Eichstedt and Stephen Small in their 2002 groundbreaking study of plantation tourism, Representations of Slavery: Race and Ideology in Southern Plantation Museums .

2 Eichstedt and Small defined ‘plantation-museums’ as “sites based on physical structures that were originally used a part of plantation complexes during the period of slavery and which now are organized to provide exhibits and tours of southern history” (Eichstedt and Small, 2002, p. 9). In such places so closely related to the history of enslavement, one could assume that these plantation sites would focus, at least in part, on the history of both slavery and the enslaved, especially when considering that they used to function thanks to slave labor. Instead, many of these plantations offer visitors a mythical representation of the Old South during the antebellum era, which is a glorified and whitewashed version of the period of slavery–to such an extent that the ‘Gone-with-the-Wind’ representation of a plantation has turned into the basic image coming to mind for visitors (Carter et al. , 2014, p. 549). Such a representational strategy is but another addendum to the racist tradition of the Lost Cause ideology that dates back to the post-Civil-War era. This ideology was born from the ashes of the slave-based Southern society and from the white Southerners’ unbearable psychological trauma of Confederate defeat, which came to define the entire white Southern vision of the past: one through which Southerners worshiped an idyllic Old South where benevolent masters lived in harmony with their happy, loyal slaves on a peaceable plantation. Over the decades following the war, Lost Cause rhetoric would find its way into books, newspapers, political discourses, meetings, ceremonies, artifacts… to the point where its ideology turned into a feature of Southern identity, a sort of civil religion that bound together an entire region (Blight, 2002, p. 258).

• 3 The movement that was initially focused on mass incarceration and police brutality has recently tur (...)
• 4 The origin of the opening of Whitney Plantation as a slavery museum pre-dated the above-mentioned s (...)

3 Traditional representational patterns, such as focusing on the slave-owning family’s life, were used for decades by the plantation tourism industry, but they are now being debunked by new curatorial practices. The reformist trend in the plantation tourism industry these past few years can be inscribed in a larger societal pressure toward a better recognition of African Americans’ past and present experiences in American society. The possible reasons for this “plantation turn” are manifold, including the greater interest of the public in the history of slavery, which has grown in part due to various factors, including the popular success of critically-acclaimed movies dealing with slavery—such as Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln (2012), Tarantino’s Django Unchained (2012) and above all, 12 Years a Slave by Steve McQueen (2013), which won the Academy Award for Best Picture. The growing pressure from social activists, such as the Black Lives Matter movement 3 , from scholars and also parts of the American population calling for a national reckoning on race and slavery in the public space (the debate surrounding the statues of Confederate officials being the most visible example) and in the national narrative may have also contributed to changes in plantation tours. The events and demonstrations that followed George Floyd’s death on May 25, 2020, after a brutal and deadly police arrest, serve as recent instances of those pressing calls to come to terms with the history of slavery and racism in the United States. This long-standing social pressure have thus led some tourist plantations, but not all, to reconsider their business strategies in order to tap into the soaring curiosity of visitors for the institution of slavery—as is the case at Oak Alley Plantation, for example. These reforming tourist plantations may also have had no choice but to adapt to the arrival in the industry of a new actor that revolutionized the sector. Whitney Plantation indeed serves as the trailblazer and the most conspicuous example for a renewed memorialization of slavery in plantation tourism. Opened in 2015 as the very first slavery museum in the United States, Whitney Plantation Museum offers a more realistic presentation of the history of slavery. It has since then opened a new path for the other plantations in the area to include the history of the enslaved in their tours 4 .

• 5 From March to May 2019, I visited sixteen plantation-museums from Louisiana’s River Road, each time (...)

4 The focal point of this article is not to focus on the causes of the “plantation turn” or to analyze the economic implications behind such changes. Instead, it emphasizes some of the slave-centric representational strategies and how they allow for a better understanding of slavery in three selected plantations: Oak Alley Plantation, Evergreen Plantation and Whitney Plantation—as opposed to a more white-centric approach illustrated here by the study of Houmas House and Greenwood Plantation. My aim is to assess whether the new museum strategies at some plantation sites serve as clear-cut counter representations to the sanitized version of history offered by traditional plantation tours, or whether they simply illustrate a trend toward reform within an always adapting plantation tourism industry, in which some sites are more reluctant to changes than others. This article is not an exhaustive analysis of all River Road plantations, and it will not encapsulate the plantations described in the article into closed categories. Drawing on personal visits of several of them 5 , however, I do argue that the various, opposing representational patterns observed during the plantation tours are on both ends of the interpretative spectrum regarding the history of antebellum Louisiana. I will first focus on one of the most recurrent, traditional narrative patterns observed in Houmas House and Greenwood Plantation: the white-centric, and therefore whitewashed, vision of plantation history. Such a narrative tool produces a “Gone-with-the-Wind” interpretation of these historical sites, one that transforms plantation-museums into strongholds for Confederate heritage. I will then show that in a landscape of representations of slavery so much imbued with the tropes of the Lost Cause, some plantation sites have worked toward a more inclusive and more accurate interpretation of the antebellum era, by giving a voice to the enslaved in their respective tours, thus striving to debunk the myths portrayed in traditional plantation tours.

The White-centric/Whitewashed Plantation Tour

• 6 This idea of a “whitewashed” plantation tour was shrewdly introduced in Butler’s pioneering study o (...)

7 Visit of Greenwood Plantation by the author on March 21, 2019.

8 Emphasis added, leaflet collected on a visit of Houmas House in March 2019.

5 The foundational element of a whitewashed plantation tour is its extensive — and sometimes, even exclusive — attention to the experiences of the master’s family, and especially of the slave-owning planter himself 6 . The planter is often presented through the filter of his economic success and/or of his high standing in the southern antebellum society–and later among the Confederate officials. At Greenwood Plantation near St. Francisville, LA, presented as the “best kept secret in the Feliciana Hill Country” and as “a truly magical and majestic place” on its website (greenwoodplantation.com, 2020), the tour guide seems to proudly recall the time when Greenwood Plantation was a massive complex of both sugarcane and cotton production spreading across 12,000 acres 7 . Likewise, at Houmas House in Darrow, LA, advertised as the “Crown Jewel of Louisiana’s River Road” on the plantation’s website and leaflet, the tour highlights the supposedly glorious past of one of the plantation owners, John Burnside, dubbed the ‘Sugar Prince’ by the docent. The process of glorifying the planter’s past extends to the plantation advertisement, in this case a visitor’s leaflet, where one can read sentences such as “the entertaining and educational tour includes stories of the Great Sugar Barons who built Houmas House and the sugar empire.” 8 The message is clear from the onset: the plantation tour will be an entertaining experience for the visitor–never mind that the enslaved who actually built the Big House and made possible the sugar empire disappear from the plantation narrative. The result of such a focus on the wealth and lavish lifestyle of the plantation owners, including beautifully set tables as well as luxurious decorations and clothing, is powerful as it produces an impression of a glorified bygone era. It also diverts the visitors’ attention by lingering on objects and artifacts owned by the master’s family rather than evoking the fact these objects were handled most of the time by the enslaved (when setting the table for the slave-owning family for example). A manipulation of the narrative is at work, as confirmed by scholars Alderman and Campbell who state that “managers and docents frequently use artifacts and objects once owned by plantation owners and other whites to deflect attention away from a discussion of the contribution and struggles of slaves ” (Alderman and Campbell, 2008, p. 340). Such a rhetoric reinforces the idea of a “South that wasn’t there,” to borrow the title of Michael Kreyling’s book, The South That Wasn’t There: Postsouthern Memory and History (2010). A lifestyle in the South which, incidentally, existed only for an elite, as stated by Elizabeth Fox-Genovese in Within the Plantation Household : “only the very wealthiest slave-holding households remotely approximated the physical luxury and ease attributed to them in the romantic legend” (Fox-Genovese, 1988, p. 105).

• 9 According to the tour guide at Greenwood Plantation on March 21, 2019, the expression originated in (...)
• 10 Based on personal observations from two visits of Houmas House, the tour guide must follow a specif (...)
• 11 Pineapple being scarce at the time, it was a sign of exterior wealth to be able to procure the frui (...)

6 To produce that ‘romantic legend,’ plantation tour narratives articulate around a series of anecdotes, with the intent to downplay the true nature of plantation life. Among those anecdotes are explanations of some popular expressions such as ‘sleep tight’ or ‘don’t throw away the baby out with the bathwater,’ an effective, deceiving tool that belittles the harsh realities of life on a plantation since it will most likely make the visitor smile 9 . It is actually only one of several narrative devices used by the guides at Houmas House to trivialize the slave past. Others include lingering on trifling details that receive much attention from the docent, who, for example, is asked 10 to begin the tour by telling the visitors about the symbolical meaning of a pineapple fruit in the antebellum South. 11 The anecdotes of plantation tours are often presented as fond reminiscences of the ‘good ol’ days,’ in an attempt to create what Ewa A. Adamkiewicz calls a “commodification of white nostalgia,” that is to say a presentation of history that purposefully displays the landscape of plantations as fairy-tale like spaces, barren of any kind of racial issue. For the white audience, such presentation represents “an escape into constructed memories of a more glamorous, heroic past where slavery plays only a minor role or no role at all” (Adamkiewicz, 2016, p. 16). In this respect, plantation-museums fall into the ‘edutainment’ category of the tourism industry, which corresponds to places where leisure activities and educational purposes merge into a business model that eventually aims to satisfy the visitor-patron, even though it implies sacrificing one aspect of plantation tourism [education] over the other [leisure] (Bright et al. , 2018, p. 15).

12 Personal discussion with Ibrahima Seck on April 17, 2019.

7 In the ‘edutaining’ plantation tours, perhaps the most influential tool of the narrative guidelines is the resort to “symbolic annihilation” of the enslaved presence, defined by Eichstedt and Small as “a powerful rhetorical and representational strategy for obscuring the institution of slavery” (Eichstedt and Small, 2002, p. 106). This narrative artifice materializes itself by either not mentioning at all the enslaved population or by making vague references such as ‘they,’ ‘servants,’ ‘someone’—misleading expressions employed several times by the tour guide at Houmas House on a visit of the plantation in May 2019. This speaks to the enduring unease to engage the history of slavery in plantation tours (Alderman and Modlin, 2008, p. 267). Such apprehension results in the trivialization of slavery when the tour guide does mention the enslaved, but in a way that ridicules the slaves’ experiences by using ahistorical references–for instance, when referring to the ‘whistle walk.’ The ‘whistle walk’ is one of the most recurring myths heard during plantation tours, similarly to the ‘funny’ anecdotes discussed earlier aiming at lightening the mood of the visitors and that will likely make them laugh, but one that is also ludicrous. According to the myth, the master demanded that his slaves whistle while bringing the food to the Big House from the outdoor kitchen, lest they stole from the plates. In a discussion with Ibrahima Seck, Director of Research at Whitney Plantation, Dr. Seck pointed out the nonsensical character of this alleged practice—“the most ridiculous” of all the myths conveyed during plantation tours as he puts it—wisely calling to mind that the slaves were the ones cooking meals and thus had every opportunity to discreetly sample the food it they wanted to 12 . One also cannot help but wonder how a whistle sound could travel all the way from a remote outdoor kitchen to the Big House and still be heard by the master’s family. Such a fabrication in interpreting the history of plantation life encloses the African American enslaved population in a transparent and meaningless role, one that is not even worth mentioning or at least not seriously. Tiya Miles, in her book Tales from the Haunted South: Dark Tourism and Memories of Slavery from the Civil War Era , sums up shrewdly the impact of such a choice of interpretation:

The people who had mattered in these tours were the slaveholding high-society families, not their chattel slaves. African American bondsmen and bondswomen had been transformed into virtual ghosts, absent and yet eerily present in historical tours as invisible laboring bodies that made their owners’ fortunes shine. (Miles, 2015, p. xxi)

8 One of the consequences is that the visitor learns virtually nothing from the tour regarding the complexity of plantation life during the antebellum era. A series of anecdotes and/or myths does not constitute comprehensive history. Instead, resorting to such practices becomes an explicit effort to preserve a specific representation of slavery, one closely linked to the rhetoric of the Lost Cause and the enduring idea of white supremacy. The Lost Cause was a coherent narrative developed after the Civil War by former Confederate officials and apologists, writers and scholars with the intent to create a “classic image of the antebellum South as a mythical realm of handsome cavaliers, white mansions, benevolent masters, and happy slaves” (Cook, 2017, p. 6). And in many ways, some tourism plantations still constitute contemporary appendages to the Lost Cause tradition.

‘Gone-with-the-Wind Plantations’ as Offspring of the Lost Cause and Strongholds of Confederate Heritage

9 Released in 1939, Victor Fleming’s Gone with the Wind — the screen adaptation of Margaret Mitchell’s 1936 novel — and its romanticized image of the Old South have had such a profound impact on the American psyche that its vision became ingrained in the public imagination, to the extent that many visitors of plantation sites today come to visit these historical places with preconceived representations of antebellum plantation life. Consequently, tourism plantation owners have tended to adapt the tour narrative to fit the ‘Gone-with-the-Wind mythology’ (Carter, Butler and Alderman, 2014, p. 549). The result is a narrative that upholds the tropes of the Lost Cause tradition, symbolized by the representation of the slave-owning Old South in Gone with the Wind . Tara McPherson in Reconstructing Dixie points out that:

Tara [plantation] is more than just the house in which Scarlett was born. Like the southern colonial homes popular during Mitchell’s lifetime, Tara becomes a symbol of the old ways of the antebellum South, and Mitchell’s mythic imaging of those landscapes works to naturalize the relationship of land-owning southerners to their property. Of course, what such a process erases is both the initial seizure of the land from its original inhabitants and the system of slave labor that allowed Tara to ‘miraculously’ produce cotton in the first place. It also justifies the Civil War on the basis of saving the land, dismissing slavery as an issue in the conflict. (McPherson, 2003, p. 51)

10 One corollary of this fantasized vision is to present the Confederate South as a victim of Northern aggression. In this regard, Confederate officials were the defenders of an allegedly virtuous cause. It is therefore not surprising to hear plantation tour guides proudly present masters as actively involved in the Confederacy’s decisions. At Greenwood Plantation, the tour guide highlights the fact that planter William Ruffin Barrow was one of the signatories of the Louisiana ordinance of Secession in 1861, something presented here as a real accomplishment, in a move to aggrandize once again the lives and actions of the planter elite — what tourism scholars Christine Buzinde and Carla Santos call the “prowess of white gentry” (Buzinde and Santos, 2008, p. 480). Such a narrative device goes hand in hand with the rhetorical tool of Southern victimhood, which is a major Lost Cause trope and operates as an additional artifice to shift the blame on someone else, namely the ‘Yankees,’ and to escape from the guilt of slavery. In Possessing the Past , Lisa Hinrinchsen explains that “the language of victimhood itself can paradoxically form a means of managing and disavowing trauma, shifting the focus from the reality of black racial trauma to claims of equivalent white emotional injury” (Hinrinchsen, 2015, p. 25). Hence, perhaps, such an emphasis on the fantasy of the Old South in plantation tours.

• 13 It was said for example that if a gentleman happened to see the ankle of a white lady, he had the m (...)

11 To be able to bring the legend to life, the plantation tour guides, in addition to telling a series of romanticized interpretations of history, are indeed in some cases asked to wear period attire—and particularly hoopskirts for the female docents. The female guides thus become the incarnation of the ‘Southern Belle’ stereotype, another trope of the Lost Cause tradition, in which southern women were portrayed as champions of piety and purity, and as delicate creatures to be safeguarded at all costs. At Houmas House, the practice of fetichizing the female guides as the embodiment of the southern lady is reinforced by the use of additional anecdotes about social mores in the South and the sanctified character of the elite white woman. 13 Such a representational choice also speaks to the gendered vision of plantation life, mostly centered on the master and not the mistress, with the incidental idea that she had somehow nothing to do with the horrors of slavery. Catherine Clinton details the stereotypical conception of the plantation mistress: “In antebellum society, […] a woman remained as securely bound to the land as her husband’s other property. […] Every woman was an island, isolated unto herself and locked into place by the stormy and unsettling seas of plantation slavery” (Clinton, 1982, p. 179). Depicting the antebellum southern women in such a way is but another deceptive device allowing the tour guide not to mention the violent role of the master or the mistress. It goes without saying that there is no reference during the tour at Houmas House to any kind of physical or psychological abuse committed against the enslaved by the master or the mistress.

• 14 After a long ideological battle over the historical significance of former Confederate General Robe (...)

12 For all these reasons, it is not a stretch to state that some plantation sites today serve as strongholds of Confederate heritage—and perhaps even sanctums for Confederate pride. Houmas House is home to several Confederate artifacts, including a small shrine to William Porcher Milles, who designed one of the versions of the Confederate Flag. These artefacts cannot be viewed as simple items to decorate a historical site. Instead, they constitute memorial objects loaded with a specific history and, therefore, serve a specific purpose made clear by Houmas House’s owner, Kevin Kelly. When in April 2018, Kelly offered to bring the statues of Confederate leaders that were taken down in New Orleans 14 to the grounds of Houmas House ( The Advocate , May 26, 201 8), he revealed, behind the representational choices at Houmas House, a political agenda aiming to perpetuate the tropes of the Lost Cause and to celebrate a mythical representation of the South that glorifies the rich white man’s experiences, to “save the splendor of Southern living at its finest,” as one of the plantation’s marketing catchphrases puts it. Incidentally, Kelly’s offer to relocate the Confederate statues was endorsed by Louisiana’s Lieutenant Governor Billy Nungesser, who declared that Houmas House was “an ideal place for the three important monuments to be displayed, and the history and significance of each told” (Nola.com, May 1, 2018). The same Nungesser who was photographed alongside President Donald Trump himself sporting ‘Trump socks’… ( The Hill , May 14, 2019).

13 The mythical representation of the Old South therefore occupies a significant place in the plantation tourism industry. However, in the last few years, some plantation sites have moved towards a path of reforms in their interpretation of slavery and the Old South, with new curatorial trends that try to offer a counter-perspective to the traditional plantation sites.

Debunking the Myth: Giving a Voice to the Enslaved

15 Personal interview with Laura Kilcer on May 23, 2019.

• 17 Beyond the romanticized representation of the house slave as an “elite” among the enslaved, which d (...)

14 Oak Alley Plantation is one of the plantations that has taken a turn to move away from the nostalgic vision of history. The turn, symbolized by the project “ReDiscover Oak Alley,” launched in 2011, has brought several significant changes to the plantation experience. As one of the most visited sites in River Road, with more than 200,000 visitors per year (Alderman, Butler and Hanna, 2015, p. 5), the fact that it has changed its representational strategies in the past few years bears significance considering its impact on the plantation tourism industry. The most conspicuous transformation in the presentation of the plantation tour is perhaps the guides’ appearance. In a previous visit to Oak Alley Plantation in March 2016, it was very clear to me that the tour was still very much about selling the ‘Gone-with-the-Wind fantasy,’ as the staff were wearing costumes, and more noticeably hoopskirts for the female guides, while selling mint juleps to the visitors. A new visit in March 2019 showed a radical evolution: the guides were clothed in simple polo shirts and regular pants. No more period attire, no more fantasy: the staff was no longer another romanticized attraction of the tour. Such a change was pushed forward by Oak Alley’s former curator, Laura Kilcer, who had joined the plantation staff in 2011 15 . According to her, getting rid of the costumes was clearly a way to “move away from that sort of nostalgic, imaginative past.” It would also encourage the visitors to focus on the narrative and not on the tour guide’s physical appearance. Laura Kilcer had particularly her female staff in mind: “it reduced the amount of objectivization and sexualization for my female guides.” 16 These female guides were not fetish anymore, one that could be flirted with or even groped by some lewd male tourists. But changing the physical presentation of docents to focus on the narrative would mean nothing without changing the narrative itself as well. Whereas in 2016 the tour was all about the experiences of the slave-owning family, master Jacques Roman and his wife Celina, the 2019 tour narrative acknowledged the presence of the enslaved, and, more than that, it gave them a voice. Again, under the impulsion of Laura Kilcer and her staff, the interactions between the master, the mistress and their slaves were put at the center of the narrative. These interactions were embodied by Meanna, a house slave whose story contributed to telling the complexities of plantation life. By insisting on how Meanna’s particular position in the Big House was tantamount to being at the core of the master’s family’s experiences, the curatorial changes brought about at Oak Alley Plantation spotlighted the perspective of not only a house slave–an already particular position 17 –but that of an enslaved woman inside the Big House, in other words someone whose experiences were invisible and were in fact meant to be that way. According to Laura Kilcer, there exists a sort of fascination for the plantation mistress that needed to be counterbalanced by telling the story of another woman: her house slave, who literally lived in the mistress’ shadows, and consequently was highly representative of what it was like to live in the Big House.

• 18 Most slave cabins simply did not resist age and decay as they were very often poorly built–and were (...)

19 Personal visit of Evergreen Plantation on April 17, 2019, quote from Robin’s tour narrative.

• 20 Personal interview with Hillary Loeber, Marketing Director at Oak Alley Plantation, on May 13, 2019 (...)

15 Shifting the narrative and the tour’s content towards an emphasis on the enslaved African Americans’ experiences often takes place in the slave cabins, or what is left of them. At Evergreen Plantation, in Edgard, LA, their twenty-two original slave cabins ( cf.  figure 1) have survived, largely unchanged since the period of slavery (evergreenplantation.org, 2020), which is a rarity across the South 18 . For that reason, the slave cabins at Evergreen Plantation are an essential part of the guided tour, the last stop of the visit. And since they are original to the place, so is their location on the plantation grounds, namely at a remote distance from the Big House, where they could actually not be seen by any visitor standing by the river levee: that is to say, at a location from which someone would not be able to see the slave village. The tour at Evergreen Plantation is, therefore, organized in such a way as to bring to the forefront the experiences of the enslaved Africans and African Americans through the visit of the very place where they built a community: the cabins. As a result, before heading to the cabins, Robin, one of the tour guides at Evergreen Plantation, asks the visitors to walk quietly toward the slave village in order to, somehow, contemplate the lives of the enslaved and as a way of “showing homage” to the people who lived there 19 . A similar attitude towards paying tribute to the enslaved population in Louisiana plantations can be found at Whitney Plantation. In a tour largely, if not exclusively, dedicated to the plantation’s slave community, one significant moment is the visit of the outdoor kitchen: a place of crucial importance where the black cooks prepared the meals for the master’s family but also for the entire slave community. At Whitney Plantation, the visit of the kitchen allows the tour guide to insist on the invaluable contribution of the African slaves brought in Louisiana to Southern cuisine. In shaping food culture throughout the slave South and more precisely Louisiana, the enslaved retained their African roots by drawing from the West African foodways to create staple dishes such as gumbo, jambalaya and red beans and rice. These recipes now form the foundations of Louisiana Creole cooking, one of the most respected food scenes in the entire United States (Seck, 2014, p. 120-129). The presence of former slave buildings on plantation-museums’ grounds appears to be an essential feature for any slave-centric plantation tour to be complete. In this regard, part of the “ReDiscover Oak Alley” project was the creation of a massive exhibit on the enslaved community, “Slavery at Oak Alley,” through the construction of replicas of slave quarters. The staff at Oak Alley went to great lengths to build slave cabins that would resemble those in which the enslaved used to live, collaborating with scholars and universities and above all visiting the original slave village at… Evergreen Plantation 20 . However, showcasing slave buildings on plantation grounds does not necessarily mean that the tour experience all of a sudden becomes slave-centric: slave buildings on plantation grounds are merely a front if they are not fully integrated in the tour. One can therefore wonder why the slave exhibit is not part of the guided tour and remains an optional visit at the tourists’ discretion–thus showing how delicate the task can be for any plantation staff willing to include slavery in their experience while having to deal with the great array of visitors’ sensibilities.

Figure 1. Slave cabins at Evergreen Plantation

Photo: Melaine Harnay

• 21 John Cummings stepped down as owner of the Whitney Plantation in late 2019. The plantation-museum i (...)
• 22 “The Afro-Louisiana History and Genealogy, 1719-1820” database is available at https://www.ibiblio. (...)
• 23 German Coast Revolt of January 11, 1811 is the largest slave revolt in U.S. history, involving abou (...)

24 Quote from a personal visit of Whitney Plantation on April 14, 2019, with Dr. Seck as a tour guide.

16 The emphasis on giving back an identity to the enslaved, so as to offer more inclusive counter-narratives to the traditional romanticized plantation tours, is at the core of Whitney Plantation’s interpretative choices. As Director of Research Ibrahima Seck puts it plainly: “the goal is to tell the story of slaves” (Ibrahima Seck, April 16, 2016). Hence the entire focus on the memorialization of slaves’ experiences during the tour, an approach that was decided from the onset ever since the opening of Whitney Plantation Museum in 2014. The former owner, John Cummings 21 , sums up the work that is being done at Whitney Plantation, giving it an almost activist perspective: “we try, somehow, here, to define the ‘it’ [slavery] and unless you know what the ‘it’ is, don’t ask the question ‘why can’t they [African Americans] get over it’” (John Cumming s, August 27, 2015). In other words, contrary to traditional plantation sites, Whitney is decidedly advocating a political statement that aims at placing the issue of slavery at the very core of the national discourse about the past, as exemplified by the fact that it was advertised as the very first museum in the United States dedicated to the history of slavery — and still is today. Whitney Plantation thus offers a unique perspective in comparison to other River Road plantation-museums. It features several memorials dedicated to the enslaved on its grounds, including one that pays a special tribute to the enslaved children of Whitney Plantation. In order to commemorate their existence, each visitor receives a lanyard with a small descriptive card about the life of one of these children. Afterwards, the visitor is encouraged to actually find the enslaved child presented on the card directly on the plantation grounds: small statues of enslaved children were indeed commissioned from African American artist Woodrow Nash to produce a memorial to the enslaved children, called ‘The Children of Whitney’ ( cf.  figure 2). As explained on the plantation website, the statues “represent these former slaves as they were at the time of emancipation: children. Whitney presents the stories of these children as told in their own words. The visitors are introduced to the lives of the enslaved workers based on the recollections of those who endured, and who shared the stories of their lives as children in slavery.” (whitneyplantation.org, 202 0). Likewise, the ‘Allées Gwendolyn Midlo Hall’ — named after the influential Louisiana historian who created a database of more than 100,000 slaves who lived in Louisiana from 1719 to 1820 22 –are composed of commemorative plaques on walls with the names of the 107,000 Blacks enslaved in Louisiana compiled by Hall’s database. This insistence on memorializing those whose names and voices were erased and silenced is a singular part of what visitors of Whitney Plantation experience during their visit, an experience that differs greatly from the fantasy-based plantation tours: there is no ‘feel-good’ presentation of history at Whitney Plantation. In other words, the whole range of atrocities that existed during slavery is unmitigatedly presented as part of a sobering experience for the visitor, which includes walking by a graphic, gut-wrenching memorial dedicated to the enslaved victims of the 1811 German Coast revolt 23 ( cf.  figure 3) — which Dr. Seck considers as “the most important station ” of the tour 24 .

Figure 2. “The Children of Whitney” at Whitney Plantation Museum

Figure 3. Memorial of the 1811 slave revolt at Whitney Plantation

• 25 The photo can be seen at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/11/plantation-weddings- (...)
• 26 More precisely, according to Carter and Bright, a typical visitor would be around 50-year-old, from (...)

27 Personal discussion with Jane Boddie on April 12, 2019.

28 Personal discussion with Ibrahima Seck on April 17, 2019.

17 Practices in plantation tours are progressively and undeniably evolving towards a more inclusive depiction of the history of the slave South. Nevertheless, it is also obvious that the traditional, sentimentalized vision of the Old South remains widespread in tourist plantations. It appears too that the question of the representation and memorialization of slavery during these tours is heavily loaded politically. In some cases, the content of the visit of a plantation reveals a political agenda that goes beyond the issue of slavery. It is almost as if these romanticized plantation sites have become holy territories for Confederate pride. In 2015, it was discovered that Dylann Roof, the white supremacist who on June 17 perpetrated a mass shooting at Emanuel A.M.E. Church, a Black church in Charleston, South Carolina, murdering nine African American churchgoers, had visited several historical plantations and Confederate landmarks of the region. On one of the photographs he took during his “Confederate pilgrimage,” Roof can be spotted posing in front of the Big House at McLeod Plantation 25 . With such a conspicuous display of bigotry, one may easily understand the need for the counternarratives about the history of slavery in plantation tours, such as Whitney’s, to become commonplace. And yet the road toward social awareness seems far ahead and the damage done by these sentimentalized tours severe. Despite the emergence of new interpretive strategies focusing on the African Americans’ experiences, plantation museums remain unattractive tourist destinations for Black people, as if they had internalized the fact that these historical places were still tailored for a white audience. And they are, regrettably, not that far from the reality of plantation-museums: according to a survey conducted by scholars Perry Carter and Candace F. Bright (2016, p. 268), most of the visitors of tourist plantations are well-off white people over 50 26 . Here, tourist plantations face a business conundrum: how can they reconcile the inclusion of the history of slavery and of the enslaved with the diversity of tourists’ expectations? The question implies an extensive study of visitors’ typology and expectations when touring a plantation site. Some scholars have started to discuss this question, by trying to determine who the typical visitors are and how they may very well influence the content of the plantation tour itself (see Bright and Carter, 2016; Alderman and Modlin, 2016). Foreign tourists, especially Europeans, for example, tend to expect a significant discussion on slavery when they visit a plantation, but they also represent only a small portion of the patronage. Conversely, some visitors might just go on a plantation to experience the “fantasy of the Old South living.” In other words, how does a tourist plantation take on the topic of slavery when one part of the visitors might welcome such an inclusion whereas another would feel deeply disgruntled about it? In both cases, the tourist plantation faces the risk of losing attendance and therefore revenues. There is also the question of Black visitors: shouldn’t the plantation-museums now become places designed to welcome particularly African Americans after having neglected their experiences for so long? Jane Boddie, Director of Evergreen Plantation, told me that they were increasingly receiving descendants of slaves willing to learn more about their ancestors 27 –raising another range of questions having to do with the field of tourism, and more precisely “roots/genealogy tourism.” A lot more research is necessary to answer these questionings. The motivations behind representational changes in tourist plantations may be key to understanding the reluctance of many plantation sites to fully engage in a complete incorporation of the history of slavery and of the enslaved as part of their tour experience. Sites adopting the train of reforms simply for new business opportunities and profits are likely to fall short of their laudable intentions to discuss the topic in the first place. On the other hand, activist sites dedicated to promoting exclusively the story of the slaves from the onset, like Whitney Plantation, may encounter other representational issues. Because after all, one might argue that the type of memorialization of slavery found at Whitney Plantation is as politically engaged — some would go as far as saying ideologically tainted — as the white-centric interpretation of most tourist plantations. In a discussion with Director of Research at Whitney, Dr. Seck, reacting to this type of criticism, explained that “we cannot satisfy everyone” and that the real problem “[was] to do nothing.” Quoting John Cummings, former owner of the plantation-museum, he continued: “we may be doing something wrong, but at least we’re doing something…” 28

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1 Several operators are dedicated only to offering tours of River Road plantations, such as https://www.plantationadventure.com/ and https://plantationparade.com/ .

2 Six million visitors have toured the grounds of Oak Alley Plantation since 1974, according to a self-promoting sign at the entrance of the historical site, last visited in May 2019.

3 The movement that was initially focused on mass incarceration and police brutality has recently turned into a greater civil rights movement urging for racial justice as a whole and for better recognition of the critical role of African Americans in the development of the American nation throughout its history–and particularly on the central place of slavery.

4 The origin of the opening of Whitney Plantation as a slavery museum pre-dated the above-mentioned social calls for change since the project began in the early 2000s, not long after Louisiana lawyer John Cummings acquired the plantation grounds in 1999 and decided to invest his own fortune in the creation of a plantation museum dedicated to the history of slavery. For a detailed account of the elaboration of Whitney Plantation Museum, see Ibrahima Seck in Bouki Fait Gombo (2014).

5 From March to May 2019, I visited sixteen plantation-museums from Louisiana’s River Road, each time taking part in a guided tour as a tourist. These tours ranged from half an hour to an hour and a half depending on the plantation site. I paid specific attention to the narrative presented by the guides, as well as to the different museum practices of each site.

6 This idea of a “whitewashed” plantation tour was shrewdly introduced in Butler’s pioneering study of these “whitewashing plantations” in which he analyzed the brochures of over 100 tourist plantations throughout the South (Butler, 2001).

9 According to the tour guide at Greenwood Plantation on March 21, 2019, the expression originated in the fact that people in the antebellum era would not bathe on a regular basis and that, when they did so, the entire family used the same water – the baby being the last to be bathed. One can easily imagine the somewhat relative cleanness of the bathwater after such a process, and the tragic accident which could ensue when getting rid of the murky water…

10 Based on personal observations from two visits of Houmas House, the tour guide must follow a specific script, with close to no leeway to deviate from it. In other words, even though there are several docents in the staff, the tour narrative remains basically the same. This speaks to the relative agency of tour guides in plantation tours. For more on this issue of agency and performance of plantation guides, see Amy Potter (2015). Regarding tour guides as “creators of empathy” and how they unequally appeal to the visitors’ emotions when speaking about the planter class and not the enslaved, see Modlin, Alderman and Gentry (2011).

11 Pineapple being scarce at the time, it was a sign of exterior wealth to be able to procure the fruit. A planter willing to display his wealth would therefore greet his guests with a pineapple offered as a welcoming present.

13 It was said for example that if a gentleman happened to see the ankle of a white lady, he had the moral obligation to marry her. If not, the lady’s family and herself would be disgraced…

14 After a long ideological battle over the historical significance of former Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s statue and whether it was a symbol of Black oppression or an honorable southern heritage, former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, who pushed for the removal of the statue since he viewed the monument as a celebration of white supremacy, had Lee’s statue removed on May 19, 2017 ( The Guardian , May 20, 2017).

17 Beyond the romanticized representation of the house slave as an “elite” among the enslaved, which depicted them as supposedly well-fed, well-clad, and well-treated, the house slaves were to be ready to serve their master and mistress at all hours of the day, often at night too, and had to endure their whims and outbursts as well as to meet their unachievable expectations. The result was inevitably violence, harsh treatments, and abuse of all kinds against the house slaves. For their part, female house slaves experienced the double burden of toiling in the Big House and being a woman, therefore potentially bearing the brunt of their master’s sexual urges and assaults. (White, 1999, p. 49-50).

18 Most slave cabins simply did not resist age and decay as they were very often poorly built–and were also not considered worth saving. Some of the cabins were destroyed during the Civil War because they were reminiscences of an inconvenient past. This is why only about 30% of plantation sites nowadays still have slave cabins standing on their grounds (Eichstedt and Small. 2002. p. 99).

20 Personal interview with Hillary Loeber, Marketing Director at Oak Alley Plantation, on May 13, 2019. For a more extensive analysis on this aspect, see Stephen P. Hanna (2015).

21 John Cummings stepped down as owner of the Whitney Plantation in late 2019. The plantation-museum is now run as a nonprofit 501(c)3 organization.

22 “The Afro-Louisiana History and Genealogy, 1719-1820” database is available at https://www.ibiblio.org/laslave/ .

23 German Coast Revolt of January 11, 1811 is the largest slave revolt in U.S. history, involving about 200 slaves who marched on several sugarcane plantations towards New Orleans (Follett, The Sugar Masters , 2007, p. 134). The uprising was quickly quelled and the slaves in charge were beheaded. Their heads were impaled on posts displayed in front of their respective former plantations – as a gloomy reminder of what the enslaved could expect from any attempt to rise against their masters (Seck, 2014, p. 112-115).

25 The photo can be seen at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/11/plantation-weddings-are-wrong-why-is-it-so-hard-for-white-americans-to-admit-that .

26 More precisely, according to Carter and Bright, a typical visitor would be around 50-year-old, from a white household earning more than $100k per year, living in another state, and with a college degree.

List of illustrations

Electronic reference.

Melaine Harnay , “ Slavery and Plantation Tourism in Louisiana: Deconstructing the Romanticized Narrative of the Plantation Tours ” ,  Mondes du Tourisme [Online], 21 | 2022, Online since 01 June 2022 , connection on 12 April 2024 . URL : http://journals.openedition.org/tourisme/4595

About the author

Melaine harnay.

Doctorant contractuel à l’ED 625 (MAGIIE) – Université Sorbonne Nouvelle Civilisation américaine melaine.harnay[at]sorbonne-nouvelle.fr

The text only may be used under licence CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 . All other elements (illustrations, imported files) are “All rights reserved”, unless otherwise stated.

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