Laura Plantation is right on the Mississippi River and is the only Creole sugar plantation close to New Orleans that does tours and even gives you a history lesson about the Creole people, their culture and how they lived.
Creole homes are colorful. This is the working home for the plantation. The family lived here during the growing and harvesting season and then they went to live in New Orleans for the social season.
The first owners of Laura plantation. You can see the French influence. The gentleman of the plantation died at age 41. The running of the plantation then became the women's job. She ran it very successfully for almost 60 years.
The daughter went to France, married a man with property and a vineyard. Immediately upon the marriage the woman became the owner of not only the home plantation, but also the vineyard and land in France. She learned how to make wine and started making it in her southern plantation. The original wine bottles are shown above, just as they would have been stored years ago. With the corks down in order to stay moist. The big jars were sent over from Europe filled with olives, when empty they were cleaned, buried up to their necks in the ground (which is 42 degrees) and used as the refrigeration.
This is the entire family tree. As you can see it is very small and there are no direct descendants living today. The plantation is owned by the Laura Foundation and run as a historic monument. They are still restoring buildings.
A very small dining room table, for a small family. The largest room in the house.
These are some of the remaining slave quarters. Only one has been restored. We were able to walk through it. They are duplexes, with up to 12 people living in one room.
The overseer's home is the next largest home on the plantation as seen below. It hasn't been restored yet. French was the predomanent language in this area and until the 1980's it was taught in the local schools! Many people still speak French and almost everything has english and french printing.
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