Gone With the Wind is a book I've never read and a movie I've never seen, but I've always wanted to visit and plantation and so has my mom. So, on my mom's birthday (October 2), that's just what we did. We visited the Destrehan Plantation, that is.
The Destrehan Plantation is located in Destrehan, LA, and is the oldest documented plantation home in the lower Mississippi Valley, established in 1787! The Plantation is named after the family whom established and resided in the plantation, the Destrehans. The plantation is actually only 1/4 mile from one of Travis's locations.
Indigo and sugarcane were grown during the family's ownership of the plantation. The plantation became "home" to many oil manufacturing companies from 1910-1959. Amoco finally deeded the plantation house and 4 acres of adjoining land to the non-for-profit River Road Historical Society in 1971, but only after it had been vandalized, looted and burned as it sat empty for twelve years. The River Road Historical Society and community made HUGE efforts to restore the plantation home and it is a beautiful and rich historical place today!
Okay, Y'all. I don't know how easy Rhett and Scarlet had it, but life for the Destrehan plantation owners was not as glamorous as it seemed. Our tour guide explained it well when he said the Destrehan family owned slaves, yes, but they were just as much slaves to their own high society rules.
I was completely confused while the tour guide, Ernie, was taking us through the bedrooms upstairs. He was showing us the "ladies' side" of the house and the room where the mother/wife slept. I had to break in, because the question was eating me alive.
I asked, "So the wife and husband didn't sleep together?!"
"No." replied the tour guide.
"Now how did that work, then?" I asked. "Didn't you say they had 14 kids? If they didn't sleep in the same bed, how did they have 14 kids?!"
Our tour guide explained that the husband had to formally (in writing) request to "see" his wife. The man of the house would make his written request, then a slave would take it to his wife. The wife then wrote a written response and it was sent back (via slave), to her husband. Nothing like the whole house knowing what Mr. and Mrs. Destrehan were up to on any given night!
I am also glad I was not a plantation wife. One of the wives of the house died of poisoning. The makeup she wore to make her skin light had arsenic and something else in it that killed her. The lighter the skin meant the wealthier the slave-owner (or so society viewed it). Lighter skin meant the lady had more money for slaves so she spent less time in the sun doing their hard work. Not only that, the poor women could not take naps in their own beds! They had a bed at the foot of their bed that was for napping. They didn't want to be seen (by passersby on river boats) sleeping in bed and labeled lazy. It was okay, though, to take a nap in the "bed at the foot of the bed". Oh, brother. If a lady can't take a nap in her own bed, what's the point?
We watched a demonstration on how bousillage (a mixture of Spanish moss and mud) was made and used to construct build the walls of the plantation. Don, the man who gave the demonstration, filled my dad in on Louisiana politics after the demo.
I discovered that my favorite "palm" I see everywhere here is actually a banana tree! Bananas were hanging under the branches in full view when we were on the balcony of the plantation. Mom and I are pictured in front of some banana trees at the top of the blog.
Thank God for the outcome of the Civil War. Thank God the plantation way of life isn't the way we do things anymore. Slaves being "owned" and white people being slaves to their own silly rules seems to me a hopeless way to live. I am also glad, however, that pre-Civial War history was restored so we can learn more about the history of our cultures and country.
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