Today we head to New Orleans which is our final location before we head home, I can’t believe we are almost at the end! Before we get to New Orleans we have a number of plantations to visit so we set off early and got to our first stop Nottoway which is the South’s largest remaining antebellum mansion. It is now a hotel but was built in 1859 and the house is 53,000 square feet. You can do a self guided tour which is what we decided to do as it meant we could wander around at our own pace. The mansion was built with the intention that no expense would be spared. The main entrance faces the Mississippi River with impressive steps leading up to the first floor, ladies to the left so that they could lift their skirts and men wouldn’t see their ankles as they climbed and gentlemen’s to the right where the boot scraper is at the bottom. unfortunately this wasn’t the way in we entered via the back stairs but went up to the first floor. It was built with 200 windows and 165 doors so that they had something different to look out off every day of the year! This was very much built to show off how wealthily they were as a family. Soon after the house was completed the Civil War began. Randolph didn’t support succession from the Union, but he backed the war financially and sent his 3 sons to fight for the Confederacy, he lost his oldest son at the battle of Vicksburg. With the war coming close to Nottoway, Randolph took 200 slaves to Texas to grow cotton while his wife stayed at Nottoway with the youngest children, hoping their presence would save it from destruction. The plantation was occupied by both Union and Confederate troops who damaged the grounds and plundered the animals only a single grapeshot hit the far left column, this finally fell out in 1971. With emancipation Randolph contracted with 53 slaves to continue working as paid labourers and when he returned to Nottoway most chose to return with him. The sugar business was not as profitable and by 1875 the plantation was reduced to 800 acres. He died in 1883 leaving the plantation to his wife, she sold the plantation for $50,000 which she divided between her nine surviving children. We walked all round the house where most of the rooms contain wonderful furniture especially the music room which had three piano’s and another one in the hallway, on the other end of the scale they had a white ballroom where everything is white, the walls, ceiling even the fireplaces. Because it is now a hotel, none of the outbuildings are still around and they have a pool which is where they used to store the gas. After we finished walking round we handed back the audio guides and set off for the next plantation. We arrived with about 5 minutes to spare before the guided tour started. The land the plantation sits on was originally owned by the Houmas Indians, in 1803 Donaldson and Scot built a hall in front of the 1700s French house and in 1829 Hampton began the task of turning the house into a mansion, he died six years later in 1835 when he died his estate was valued at $1,641,065. His son inherited the estate but decided to give it to his step sisters. It passed through a number of other families, always remaining a sugar plantation, it wasn’t clear when the plantation lands were sold but it has been used as a home for about the last 70 years. We had a whistle stop tour around the house which is currently owned by a millionaire who lives in the house. We walked round a number of rooms again all wonderfully furnished, the grounds were also lovely and there had been a line of Oak trees from the Mississippi to the house but some of them had to be pulled down when the levee was built. After we finished the tour we walked around the grounds then set off for our third plantation of the day. This was San Francisco plantation which is probably the most dramatic house we have seen as it is painted more like a Spanish house than a plantation one, which is interesting as the lady of the house was actually German from Munich. She was a translator and met her husband while he was traveling in Europe, she had five daughters of which three became adult’s and she taught them all English, French, German and Spanish as well as making sure they could all play the piano! It was built in 1856 and was originally called Sans Frusquin, which is a french slang phrase meaning “without a penny in my pocket” in reference to its high construction costs. It was built in the old Creole style but influenced by Louise’s Bavarian heritage. When her husband died she had no family in America and moved back to Germany with her three children, apparently her great grandchildren came back to see the house a few years ago. The name was changed to San Francisco by the next owners as they didn’t like the association with cost. We were shown round the house then walked round the grounds where they have a couple of slave cabins, but not much history. There is not much land around the house as it is now owned by an oil company and have made the house a non profit but it is pretty much all that is left. We had a late lunch once we had finished walking round then set off for our final plantation of the day. This one was different again, it was designed and built by an enslaved mulatto (mixed race) master builder Charles Paquet who did a wonderful job as it is a lovely house. Construction began in 1787 and was completed in 1790. Paquet was paid in rice, corn, livestock, 100 posters and a male slave named Leveiler, Paquet was ultimately able to buy his freedom, Robin deLogny who commissioned the build only lived for two years after its completion, his daughter Celeste purchased it and the 59 enslaved workers who were all involved in the growing of Indigo. By 1804 they had moved to growing sugar cane and by 1804 56 enslaved workers produced 203,000 pounds of sugar. Because this area came under French rule they were covered by Code Noir which states how slaves should be treated, it stated that salves should be brought into the Catholic Church, Sunday was a day off but a slave could work with his master’s consent but he must be paid for this work. Some enslaved couples married within the Church but most did not. Since the Code Noir forbade the separation of husband from wife, the owners discouraged church marriages as it limited the opportunities for a sale of slaves, equally the code said that slaves could be put in chains or shackles for punishment or beaten with a rope or switch. There were over 200 slaves on the plantation before it was seized by the Union during the Civil War. We walked round the house with a guide that could quite easily have lived there during the plantation days, the walked round the grounds where there were a couple of slave cabins and a quite interesting display on the slave revolt but I think we will hear more about this tomorrow when we visit some of the other plantations. By the time we had done all this, all that was left to do was to head into New Orleans and find the hotel which is right in the middle of downtown, we even saw a street band on the way in. By the time we got into the room and sorted everything out all we had time to do was update the website, have a drink and collapse.
