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Cane River Creole National Historical Park
History & Culture
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| NPS Photo by Jarred McCauley |
Portrait of Jean Pierre Emmanuel Prud'homme, (1762-1845) painted in Paris in 1822.
The roots of Oakland Plantation can be traced to Jean Pierre Phillippe Prud'homme, a second generation Frenchman from Romans, a French province of Dauphine. Born in 1673, Jean Pierre became a soldier of France assigned to the French colony of Louisiana. At the age of 52, Jean Pierre married Catherine Picard and acquired part of the land that became Bermuda Plantation, now known as Oakland Plantation, through a land grant on the Red River. Jean Pierre and Catherine became parents of seven children, including Jean Baptiste Prud'homme, father of Jean Pierre Emmanuel Prud'homme who built Bermuda Plantation in 1821. |
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| NPS Photo |
| The African American and Creole peoples who worked on Oakland created their own multifaceted lifestyles, institutions, and community values. Sometimes these were similar to those of their owners/employers, and sometimes dissimilar and uniquely their own. |
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| NPS Photo |
| Cane River Creoles, Camille and Leo Metoyer Sr., occupied the Oakland Plantation overseer's house throughout the 1940s and 1950s. |
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| NPS Photo by Jarred McCauley |
Prominently marking the edge of Magnolia Plantation is the cotton gin with its wooden screw-type press. The press is the last one of its kind in the United States that remains on its original site.
Secession, Civil War, and Reconstruction brought about many changes in the Cane River area; politically, economically, and socially. Crops, lands, and lives were lost. Enslaved workers found new opportunities as freed people to stay, move on, or re-establish themselves on new plantations. Planter families, including the LeComtes and Hertzogs, were forced to negotiate labor contracts with freedmen that gave way to agricultural systems of sharecropping and tenant farming.
As Magnolia's ginning equipment and general farm equipment were modernized, sharecropping and tenant systems were phased out. This signaled the beginning of the end of the area's plantation system. |
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Did You Know?
The layout of Magnolia's slave houses does not seem to facilitate the feeling of community. The fronts of most of the houses face the backs of other houses. Perhaps the owner placed a high priority on the look of solid uniformity achieved with the grid-like arrangement.
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Last Updated: April 26, 2008 at 09:44 EST |
