Swamps and Sugarcane

It was a breath of fresh air to travel again after a year-long break to have baby Rosalie! We are happy at home with our babies, but even happier to get to see the world with them.

Although to be honest, we were nervous about traveling with 2 kids for the first time. Thankfully, my mom volunteered to come with us and help out.

We decided to venture to New Orleans, Louisiana to check a new state off of our bucket lists and to check out a historic city and the interesting French/Spanish/Cajun (and more!) cultural hybrid found there.

On our first day, Mom offered to watch the girls so we could do a non-kid friendly tour.

First on the schedule was an airboat ride on the bayou. The boat went surprisingly fast and got surprisingly close to a lot of alligators. 

We enjoyed speeding through the swamp, looking for glimpses of gators, and also seeing a ton of birds and pretty Spanish moss.

The highlight for me were the tiny baby alligators- apparently born the same month as Rosalie (last September).

Next up was a visit to Destrehan Plantation- a former sugarcane plantation about 30 minutes away from downtown New Orleans and right on the banks of the Mississippi.

We learned a lot of Louisiana history, but one of the things we found the most interesting were the differences between Louisiana law (based on French civil law) and the rest of US laws (based on British common law).

One difference was the Code Noir, which governed slaves in LA before it became a state. In many ways it was less cruel than the American system. For example, working hours were limited and slaves were able to buy their own freedom by earning money for themselves outside of the time spent working for their masters.

The architect who built this beautiful house, Charles Paquet, was a slave when construction started but a free man by the time it was finished.

There was a document on display listing the prices of Destrehan's slaves. The least expensive was a 60 year old blind woman at $5. The most expensive was a 28 year old cooper (barrel maker) at $1500.

We visited several plantations on our last trip to the south (in Charleston and Savannah), and I had a lot of déjà vu. Every one that we've seen has been fascinating to me because they are otherwordly beautiful despite their brutal histories.

My favorite part might be the live oak trees. This first one is supposedly at least 800 years old.

One last bit of history we learned- this area was the location of the 1811 slave revolt. It was the largest slave revolt in US history, involving about 500 slaves. It was inspired by the Haitian Revolution and the thousands of free black people that had recently immigrated to Louisiana from Haiti. 

Despite being a history nerd, I had never heard of this event. Apparently it had a lot of influence in regards to both giving slaves hope for a future without slavery, and towards slave masters cracking down even more harshly to cling onto their way of life.

Slave cabin

We had a wonderful day seeing and learning interesting things, but we missed our babies all day and had fun sightseeing with them the rest of the week. More on New Orleans coming soon!