The African American Experience in Louisiana

to the ongoing struggle of African Americans in this part of rural Louisiana from slavery, to
tenancy and sharecropping, to federal resettlement, this building is an example of a rural
twentieth-century house that could potentially be National Register eligible for its associations
with this context. 240
Although wage laboring, sharecropping and tenancy are a large part of the rural history of
African Americans, they are not the only story. Some African Americans, especially those who
were free before the Civil War, were able to attain or retain some wealth and land and build more
comfortable and substantial farmhouses. There were also community leaders, religious leaders,
and educators who were very significant in their rural communities and whose homes may be
eligible for the National Register. Eligibility for such properties depends upon clear
documentation of association with the individual and that individual’s role in the community and
the retention an easily recognizable historic appearance. Location and setting are important
aspects of integrity for rural residences, but loss of either may be able to be justified depending
on other factors of significance and integrity. Rural residences may also be significant for extraresidential
uses as described above in the urban residence section.
B. Enslavement (beyond the quarters)
While slave quarters were residential in purpose and therefore discussed in the above residential
property type section, there are many other property forms that most directly served the purpose
of supporting the system of enslavement and were created and controlled by slave owners or
traders. This section was created to encompass those buildings or collections of buildings.
Without recognition of these properties, the African American experience of slavery remains
obscured.
1. Plantation Complexes
Slave quarters represent the habitation experience of the enslaved population, but the broader
experience of slavery is better understood through intact plantation complexes that retain
multiple building types. Examples of such National Register-listed plantations are Evergreen, as
described in previous section; Oakland Plantation, which includes a cook’s house, two slave
quarters, a doctor’s house, an overseer’s house, a stables, a barn, and other buildings; Magnolia
Plantation in Natchitoches Parish, which includes eight slave cabins, a slave hospital, and a
cotton gin house. These plantations were nominated to the National Register for their
architectural and agricultural significance, but are clearly also significant for their association
with the African American experience of enslavement. All three properties are not only listed on
the National Register, but have been designated National Historic Landmarks, as outstanding
representations of plantation complexes in the southern United States. Another plantation,
Canebrake, was listed on the National Register not only for its significance as a rare surviving
plantation complex, but as an example of the unique circumstance of absentee ownership that
existed in Concordia Parish. Plantations in this area were mostly run by overseers while the
owners lived across the Mississippi River in the town of Natchez, Mississippi. Due to this
arrangement, typical plantation complexes in Concordia Parish included an overseer’s house of
240 A more detailed history of the Transylvania resettlement can be found in: Jane Adams and D. Gorton, “This Land
Ain’t My Land: The Eviction of Sharecroppers By the Farm Security Administration,” Agricultural History 83, no.
3 (Summer 2009): 323-351; John H. Scott with Cleo Scott Brown, Witness to the Truth: My Struggle for Civil
Rights in Louisiana (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2003).
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