DARROW, La. — The grand old homes that sit along the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans — an area called Plantation Country — are filled with tales that stretch back hundreds of years. But the history and the stories that are shared vary wildly depending on which plantation you visit.
At Houmas House, an 1829 Greek Revival mansion flanked by manicured gardens, a tour guide walked visitors through the high-ceilinged rooms on a recent gray afternoon. The house was brimming with pricey antiques and cases of shiny bric-a-brac. The guide stopped to show tourists a room where Bette Davis slept during the filming of 1964′s “Hush ... Hush, Sweet Charlotte” and pointed to the lawn featured in a scene from 2018′s “Green Book.”
What the guide did not talk about were the more than 800 enslaved people at Houmas House who were forced to work in Louisiana’s dangerous sugar trade. At one point, Houmas had more enslaved people than any other plantation in Louisiana.
“This tour isn’t about that,” the guide said when asked about the plantation’s enslaved population. Instead, he dispensed more than an hour of “Gone with the Wind”-style revisionist feel-good history about plantation life filtered through a lens of moonlight and magnolias.
But increasingly, those romanticized narratives of a genteel antebellum South are being stripped away. Plantations along the serpentine River Road in Louisiana and throughout the South are increasingly sharing what life was like for enslaved individuals. Some plantations have only just begun incorporating those brutal and traumatic histories into their tours. Others, like the Whitney Plantation, have taken the lead by showing plantation life from the perspective of those who were enslaved.
The 234-year-old Whitney Plantation is located in Louisiana’s Plantation Country, but despite its proximity to other plantations, its mission is worlds apart from its neighbors. There’s no air of sentimentality or mint juleps. The nonprofit Whitney offers a clear-eyed view of what life was like for its 350 enslaved inhabitants. The 14-room “big house,” as it’s called on plantations, has been stripped of its ornate furnishings. Unlike most plantation tours that focus on the main house, the emphasis at the Whitney is the world outside of those walls.
It’s an emotional experience. Tour guides give visitors an unflinching description of what life was like, from the heat of the outdoor kitchen to the cramped, rough-hewn cypress cabins that would have housed up to a dozen workers each. The emotion carries over into the art, which includes life-size sculptures of the children who were enslaved here, a wall of more than 100,000 names of the enslaved who lived in Louisiana, along with a more visceral and jarring art installation that pays tribute to those killed in the 1811 Slave Revolt.
Absorbing the information and hearing about the brutality can be overwhelming. But, as the executive director of the Whitney points out, it’s a large part of US history that many of us were never taught or couldn’t fully grasp from textbooks.
“I think people should visit plantations,” said Ashley Rogers, executive director of the Whitney. “And I think the reason you should visit plantations is because you need to understand our history. Our nation became powerful in part, in significant part, because of the forced labor of Africans and African descent people that we put to work on and off plantations. Slavery is not just plantations, slavery was everywhere. It was the fuel of our early economy, our early republic. So there’s no way to understand the United States today without understanding a plantation. Period.”
The Whitney Plantation is unique in that it never operated as a place for tourists before its current incarnation. It was purchased by New Orleans attorney John Cummings in 1999 after it had fallen into disrepair. He spent $8 million and 15 years creating Louisiana’s only slave museum. It’s now a nationally heralded example of an ethical way to show plantation life.
“I do think that we’ve influenced other sites,” Rogers said. “There are more plantations that are telling the story differently, from both sides. But our focus is different. Our mandate is really helping people understand the slave trade, helping people understand slavery, and how the story of what happened here fits into the wider story of our country.”
About 30 minutes from the Whitney, guides at Laura Plantation spend equal time talking about the Creole families that owned the plantation and the people who were enslaved there. On an overcast morning earlier this month, a guide leading the tour at Laura didn’t shy away from talking about the physical and psychological abuse that was part of daily life.
By the end of the hourlong tour, one woman was fighting back tears.
If all of this sounds overwhelming — and it is — keep in mind that many tours also touch on the resilience of generations of enslaved people.
“I think there are amazing stories to learn at these places,” said Braden Paynter, director for methodology and practice at the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience. His organization works with historical sites around the world, including several plantations. “There are things that you can learn about the hardships, but also about the incredible capacity of humans to find their way through really hard times and build love and family.”
The grander houses in Louisiana and elsewhere in the South have been slower to adapt. Many of them derive their income from hosting weddings, or from restaurants and lodging. Nottoway Plantation, which bills itself as Nottoway Resort, provides visitors with more information about the trees on the property than it does about the enslaved laborers who built the house. Oak Alley Plantation in Vacherie has lodging and a restaurant, but it’s also starting to give a broader view of plantation life, including re-creations of cabins. But the focus remains on the ornate big house and its surrounding trees. Tours at Oak Alley end with a stop at the bar to sip a mint julep served in a commemorative glass.
If you have an interest in visiting plantations, there’s an ethical way to do it. Experts say to start by researching a location online. If a plantation’s website includes a database of the people who were enslaved, along with information about the big house and its occupants, there’s a good chance you’ll hear a broader perspective on plantation life. Websites that include images of tour guides in period garb or focus on weddings and events will likely present a whitewashed version of the history. Paynter advises building extra time into your schedule after visiting a plantation to process and reflect on what you’ve learned.
Two plantations are frequently held up as examples of ethical tourism: the Whitney Plantation and McLeod Plantation in Charleston, S.C. The Charleston County Parks and Recreation Department acquired the McLeod Plantation in 2011 and spent years carefully restoring the estate. Historian Toby Smith, who gives tours of the former cotton plantation, said initially there was resistance from some in the community who were uncomfortable with the way the history of the plantation was being told.
“When you talk of all of the blood that was shed here, it changes the conversation radically,” Smith said. “You are acknowledging the humanity of the hands that were pricked by the thorns, and the hours and the burnt backs that were bent over in the hot sun. You’re talking about the children who were out there as young as 5 or 6. It brings the story forward in a way that it is almost palpable.”
Back in Louisiana, a pair of sisters who live in the River Parishes, where plantations were once plentiful, have launched the Descendants Project. Their mission is to make life better for the descendants of the enslaved families who live in these primarily Black towns. When the plantations closed, more than 200 petrochemical plants and refineries moved in along the river. Pollution from the factories has resulted in another nickname for Plantation Country: Cancer Alley. Sociologists and environmentalists refer to the scenario as environmental racism. According to a study from Tulane University, Louisiana has the second highest rate of new cancer cases in the nation.
The sisters behind the Descendants Project, Jo and Joy Banner, have been fighting further industrialization here. On top of that, they’ve done something quite remarkable. The siblings, who can trace their roots back 300 years and have ancestors who were enslaved at both Laura and Whitney plantations, acquired a plantation earlier this month. The Banner sisters now own Woodland Plantation in LaPlace. It’s the first time that the plantation has been under Black ownership in its 231-year history.
“Woodland Plantation will be a cultural center,” said Joy Banner. “It’s not just a place for tours. it’s a place for education. The idea is that we are connecting Black history. This is a historic Black community. We’re the foundation of everything. Our people built the infrastructure. Look how much our ancestors contributed. This is a way of owning and celebrating our ancestry.”
Christopher Muther can be reached at christopher.muther@globe.com. Follow him @Chris_Muther and Instagram @chris_muther.