We Remember So We Don't Forget

Just outside of New Orleans lies River Road, home to around 400 plantations but what distinguishes The Whitney Plantation is a searing sense of honesty. Nestled in amongst the lush landscape of Wallace, Louisiana lies what once was Habitiation Haydel.

From the first illustrative models of the main house to the manacles encased in a glass box in the Welcome Centre Whitney does not lack in artefacts from the era but more significantly an emotional awakening. Entering the plantation you are provided with name cards of enslaved people who had lived on the plantation and a little detail about them. It was the personal detailing, the figurines of children in the Antioch Church waiting and listening patiently as they observed the service. The untold narrative was powerful. Onwards from the church this continued. Moving behind the church to The Field of Angels. The simple statue of a black angel carrying a baby in her arms and the personal quotes from a selection of the 2,200 Louisiana child slaves who died under the age of 3 are engraved on granite slabs. Further monuments such as the Wall of Honour provide a roll call of names, documenting all of those enslaved on The Whitney Plantation.

The information provided at Whitney is extensive and crucially of historical integrity. Telling the narrative from the enslaved people provided challenges, slaves were not allowed to write or read, as a result little written testimony survived but records from individuals such as Gwendolyn Midlo Hall helped document. Hall created a record of 107,000 enslaved people in Louisiana, the names of which are engraved on a configuration of stone plinths alongside illustrative quotations. Pauses are made in amongst the tour where explanations and details are given of the artefacts, monuments and historical context but these never overshadow your individual time silence for introspection, where you’re immersed in the reality of the past.

Further into the grounds of the plantation can be found outbuildings, such as a kitchen, overseer’s house and others but also the cabins that enslaved people lived in. These are stark and provide an insight into everyday existence on the site. There is also the Big House constructed in a distinctive Spanish Creole style, I didn’t get this due to filming occurring at the time. What I left The Whitney Plantation with was a real and tangible glimpse into the past, a harrowing narration by the people and a greater sense of perspective.