Mississippi Day 2: Cane River Creole

Another Early Start

We had another bright and early morning as we left Wichita Falls at 5:30 AM (it felt worse though because we were in a different time zone). This day the kids were feeling the sleep and all of them slept in the car for a little bit (except Jacob – it’s not his thing) during the early morning.

Dallas was bonkers. The traffic was packed, plus we saw a car on fire. It was nutty and we were definitely happy to get that behind us.

Eastern Texas is truly very pretty though and we enjoyed that as we continued our trek across Texas. We then made our way into Louisiana and had our stop for the day.

Oakland Plantation

We stopped at the Cane River Creole National Historical Park in Natchez, Louisiana. A couple years ago when we went to Louisiana on one of our trips, we stopped at the Oak Alley Plantation and I fell in love with it. This one had its beauty but it was very different and the “other side” of plantation life was much more apparent in not a good way for me.

This historical park has two different plantations (separated by about 10 miles). We did the Oakland Plantation and pretty much had the whole place to ourselves. This plantation is one of the best preserved “Creole” plantations. “Creole” refers to people who are born in Louisiana and have a combination of heritages, which may include African, French, Spanish, and Native American influences. The term can be used to describe people and architecture. And here, cotton was king.

Oakland Plantation was founded by Jean Pierre Emanuel Prud’homme in 1785. It first grew tobacco and indigo and slavery was crucial to the plantation’s survival from the very beginning. Once the cotton gin was invented in 1793, the main crop became cotton. As demand increased, so did the amount of slaves. By the Civil War, almost 150 slaves labored here on this plantation and lived in one room cabins. After the Civil War, descendants of the slaves remained as tenant farmers and sharecroppers.

Main House

The main house was built by slaves out of Cyprus. The house that stands today was built in 1821 and only had four rooms at first and has seen many additions through the years.

I fell in love with the big white house with the big green shutters and white picket fence. And these live oak trees in the south are maybe my very favorite part – they were planted clear back in 1825 and I love them so much.

Old (not very nice, me), would see this and think of it as an eye sore, but they don’t seem to be there too often and it made this place accessible for our little Lydie and I was grateful for that. Normally you can tour the inside of the house, but it was closed that day so we had to just look through windows. I loved the big porch.

This part was a struggle for me. Underneath the home was the enslaved nanny’s room. There was a staircase leading to a trap door that opened to the children’s bedroom above it. That way any hour of the day or night, the nanny could be “summoned” to care for the children. This one really hit me. She had to live in a place that probably flooded (all other building were lifted off the ground) but she had to live underneath it all.

Bottle Garden

The formal front garden was once bordered with boxwood hedges. Later they used inverted bottles to decorate the edges. So strange and definitely unique!

Mule Barn

Plantation Store

After the Civil War, they opened a plantation store where the sharecroppers, tenant farmers, and other locals would buy supplies. It was used until the 1980s. Inside was also the Bermuda Post Office until 1967.

Cook’s Cabin

This used to be behind the main house but was later relocated a little further away to be used at a “fishing camp”. They rented rowboats and bait.

Doctor’s Cottage

This cottage was used as the home for young couples from every generation of the Prud’hommes family. After the Civil War, it was rented to Dr. James Leveque, whose daughter married into the family.

Overseer’s House

The overseer’s home was used until the 1960s.

Slave / Tenant Cabins

There are only two structures still standing of what must have been a much larger community. After the Civil War, sharecroppers and tenant farmers continued to live in these quarters up until the 1960s.

LONG Drive

It felt like we would never get to Mississippi once we left the plantation. We had to change our route because of some major accidents and ended up going south to New Orleans instead. We finally got to our AirBNB about 8:45. We were all so excited and happy to not be in the car and for all of the fun to begin the next day. In Ben’s words, “It’s going to be glorious.”

Mississippi Day 2: Cane River Creole

Another Early Start