River Road Plantations: Antebellum Louisiana & the Story of Enslaved Labor

The only plantation museum in Louisiana dedicated entirely to the experience of enslaved workers — opened in 2014 after attorney John Cummings spent 16 years and $8 million transforming the property into a memorial and educational site. The Whitney presents no romanticized version of plantation life: the tour opens with the Field of Angels (a memorial to the enslaved children who died on Louisiana plantations), passes through the slave cabins, the Allées Gwendolyn Midlo Hall (memorial walls inscribed with 107,000 names of enslaved people documented in Louisiana), and the Wall of Honor for the leaders of the 1811 German Coast Uprising — the largest enslaved rebellion in US history, launched from the area surrounding the Whitney.

An 1805 Creole sugar plantation interpreted through 5,000 pages of family records — a multigenerational Creole family's memoirs document daily plantation life from both the slaveholder family's perspective and, unusually, include accounts of enslaved workers' names, relationships, and experiences. Laura Locoul Gore's 1936 memoir provides the tour's primary source; the interpretation covers the French Creole plantation culture (different from Anglo-American plantation culture in legal and social structure) and the Compair Lapin stories first collected here — the Br'er Rabbit tales brought to the US by enslaved people from West Africa.

The most photographed plantation in Louisiana — 28 Southern live oak trees planted around 1700 (predating the house by over a century) form a 300-yard canopy alley from the levee road to the 1839 Greek Revival mansion. The property was acquired in 2012 by new owners who overhauled the interpretation to include the enslaved workers' stories; the property now maintains both slave quarters interpretation and the traditional house tour. The oak alley itself is a Louisiana icon; the trees are now 300 years old and 35 feet in circumference.

Oak Alley operates overnight cottages on the property — Creole cottage-style rooms set in the plantation grounds, with the oak alley visible from the cottage area. The on-site restaurant serves Cajun-Creole cuisine. Tomorrow's drive to Nottoway and St. Francisville continues west and north along River Road.

The largest surviving antebellum plantation house in the South — 53,000 square feet, 64 rooms, built in 1858 by sugar planter John Hampden Randolph with 155 enslaved workers. The house was designed by Henry Howard in an Italianate-Greek Revival hybrid style with an all-white ballroom, a hand-carved marble mantelpiece in every room, and a noted original plumbing system (indoor water closets, running water from a cistern-fed system). A Union gunboat commander spared the house from burning because his wife had once been a guest there. Now a hotel and restaurant; tours run throughout the day.

A 28-acre formal garden plantation site in St. Francisville — the 1835 house and gardens were assembled by Daniel Turnbull after a European Grand Tour that convinced him to create an American version of the French formal garden. The allee of ancient live oaks leading to the house is one of the most dramatic garden approaches in the South; the garden design incorporates statuary, parterre beds, and a greenhouse that were restored by the state in the 1950s from original nursery records. The house tour covers both the Turnbull family history and the 450 enslaved workers who maintained the plantation at its peak.

An 1796 National Historic Landmark plantation house in St. Francisville — most known for being cited on various 'most haunted house in America' lists, centered on the legend of Chloe, an enslaved woman said to have poisoned the plantation family after being caught spying on their conversations. The Chloe story has no historical documentation, but the house itself is architecturally significant: the 125-foot Creole veranda wrapping the facade and the original Baccarat crystal chandeliers and Carrara marble mantels are intact. Tours cover the architectural history and the ghost legends equally.

St. Francisville has several bed and breakfast properties in historic buildings; The Cottage Inn is in an 1820s Creole cottage. The town's main street has a few good restaurants. Tomorrow's drive to the Audubon sites and Port Hudson is 20 minutes south.

The plantation where John James Audubon worked as a tutor to the Pirrie family's daughter in 1821 — during his four months here, he painted 32 of the bird portraits that would become The Birds of America, the most expensive book in the world when first published. The Oakley house tour covers Audubon's time here and the property's plantation history; the 100-acre grounds include the historic woodland habitat that drew the bird diversity Audubon needed. The naturalist trail through the property crosses habitats recognizable from his paintings.

The site of the longest siege in US military history — Confederate Port Hudson held against Union forces for 48 days (May 22 to July 9, 1863) before surrendering, the same day as Vicksburg. The siege is significant as the first time African American soldiers (the Louisiana Native Guards, the first Black military units officially mustered into the Union Army) participated in a major assault, charging Confederate earthworks on May 27, 1863 in an action widely reported in northern newspapers and credited with changing public opinion on Black military service.

The Port Hudson battlefield preserves 650 acres of original earthworks — the defensive trenches, artillery emplacements, and parapet walls constructed by Confederate forces are still visible as earthen formations throughout the site. A 6-mile trail system connects the key battle areas; the Mississippi River overlook on the bluff above the battlefield was the strategic position the Confederates held to maintain the last Southern control of the river. The site is less visited than Vicksburg but equally significant; most trail sections are quiet and evocative.