Destrehan Plantation tells the whole story of slavery at the antebellum home

Exhibits, tours outline workers slave revolt role in history

Standing in stately grandeur draped by ancient oaks, Destrehan Plantation is one of the great River Road mansions telling its whole story to visitors including its own chapter with slavery.

“We’ve always done that,” said Nancy Robert, executive director of Destrehan Plantation. “We try to tell the whole story and that’s been our philosophy all along.”

While other Louisiana plantations are catching up to telling their story, Robert said their exhibits and tours don’t candy coat the Old South’s dark side when it comes to educating the public about the largest black slave insurgency in U.S. history.  The uprising occurred in St. Charles and St. John the Baptist parishes. Following the slaves confrontations with military and executions after the trial, 95 black people were killed.

This historical recount, along with its days of owning people, are part of the plantation’s story.

At the slave quarters exhibit is a list of the names of the men, women and children enslaved on Destrehan Plantation.

The quarters depict sparse accommodations with the wooden bed there being described as a luxury because many lacked one. Across the room, a small placard with an arrow points to a child’s pallet bed near a fireplace with homemade cooking implements on the mantle.

Adjoining the exhibit is another one showing the tools that some slaves used on making barrels or fixing wheels that kept the plantation running.

In the home, an exhibit featuring a statue of Marguerite, born in Louisiana 1740 and “enslaved resident of Destrehan Plantation – cook and laundress” was described in a plantation tour. Freedom never came for her or her children.Artwork (wood cutouts) by artist Lorraine Gendron recreates the 1811 German Coast Uprising, which is significant for the plantation.

Robert said this exhibit has been at the plantation for several years, as well as the slave quarters.

On Jan. 8, 1811, the slave revolt led by Charles Deslondes swept by Destrehan Plantation. The insurrection began at the plantation of Manuel Andry in St. John the Baptist Parish.

The revolutionaries marched downriver recruiting additional slaves as they headed towards New Orleans.

The next day, word of the revolt reached river plantations, and residents fled to Destrehan Plantation.

Soon after, a detachment of troops led by Gen. Wade Hampton encountered the revolutionaries at Fortier Plantation (present-day Kenner). The rebel force split into three groups, some going north toward the lake, others upriver with Charles, and the rest downriver. The down river group was stopped at Ormond Plantation, and the upriver group was stopped in Kenner at Henderson Plantation. At 4 a.m. Jan. 12, 1811, in the swamps behind the Picou and Trouard Plantations, Charles was captured and brutally killed by detachments led by Deslondes, his owner, and Picou.

Judge Pierre Bauchet St. Martin appointed Jean Noel, one of three tribunals. Among the executed slaves, Gros and Petit Lindor, 30 years of age, and Jasmin, 45 years of age, were from Destrehan’s plantation.

The plantation was likely designed and built by Charles Parquet, “a free man of color” described as a free mulatto, carpenter and mason in the 1787 contract hiring him for the job. His contributions to the plantation are outlined in a booklet at the museum’s gift shop.

After the Civil War, the plantation served as the Freedmen’s Bureau, where former slaves were assisted to living as free people.

A more recent addition to the tour is Eddie Boyd, a retired professor who provides a demonstration of African-American herbal remedies.

“We think we’re one of the trailblazers putting this information out,” Robert said. “And, as more information comes available, we put it on our tour.”

 

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