This structure was donated about 10 years ago by the descendents of that congregation. They bought the land in 1870, two parcels of land, for the express purpose of building a house of worship. In the sale document we have from the courthouse, they named their congregation the antiyoke baptist congregation. That message of being against slavery is something important to our story here. This is a Significant Church for newly freed slaves on the east bank of the river. We are talking about the lives of people who saw freedom after the end of the civil war. We like to start our to her here in this building so we can see what happens to people our tour here in this building so we can see what happened to people after freedom came. The whitney plantation is the only plantation in louisiana exclusively dedicated to telling the story of an slaved people. This land we are on now was historically known as habitation hideout, and our owner, John Cummings, purchased the property 15 years ago and
His name is peter dixon. He represents the military order of the loyal legion of the United States. Which is responsible each year for the laying of reefs at the lincoln memorial. The Lincoln Group of d. C. Has been very proud to be one of the Many Organizations that pays tribute to Abraham Lincoln and we had that opportunity courtesy of the organizing efforts of peter dixon. [applause] our speaker tonight is Catherine Canavan author of lincolns final hours. In two what it was like to be in washington that terrible night. April 14, 1865. Theatereer at fords and ive had the opportunity to visit with the thousands of americans who come to fords theater. Buy isthe things you can her book. It is a pleasure to welcome her to talk to us this evening. Thanks to all of you. It is an honor to be here. Who is lincolns archives digital project has made so many records available to so many researchers who arent fortunate enough to live near the archives. Thousands of people witnessed what went on
Is that all of these people, we can see that most of them are born in africa and thats listed here. Their places of origin and yet their names are european names. In this case theyre french. We also see in the early years a few spanish names as well. And so we know that these people who have these european derived names were not born in africa with those names so that tells us something about that cultural annihilati annihilation. Slave traders often renamed people and its something that continued to happen throughout the course of slavery in the United States over the course of the 19th century when people were sold from one plantation to another, their new owner could choose to rename them and here in louisiana, we use the example of solomon northup. He was sold as a slave for years and then the movie that was recently made about it. The reason he was lost for that time is he was never sold under the name of solomon. The first slave trader called him plat and so he was living for 12
And so right around the same time that that first sugar crop was being granulated, indigo was not really a viable crop anymore. So this plantation transitioned at some point after that by about 1805. It was planted in sugar and it remains planted in sugar till today. Sugar is still a Huge Industry in south louisiana and all around us our historic cane fields still planted in cane that is still sent off to the domino sugar refineries. So three generations in this plantation. Over the course of the 100 plus years that they owned this land, there were many successful generations of people who were enslaved here and so the population would have shifted over time with Market Forces. The highest number that we ever have recorded at one single time of enslaved people in this land is 101, but we believe that thats a little low. We think there were perhaps as many as 200 people enslaved at the highest point. We have record of people that weve found, 357 over the course of that 100 plus years, b
Dedicating his flag to all the other men who are still missing in action or prisoners of war in vietnam. A lot of times veterans, if they want to come see the things that they left, we are always willing to give them a tour and show them around. It also helps us because we can connect specific names, donors to what they left. We have a big barrel that was left. I think it was left in 2002. I am too young to know what it was. But i have been told that in vietnam they used it as a letrine. An unfortunate soldier was given the job of burning it. But they came and they gave us a bit of context about what it was and when they left it and why. So thats really cool. Theres some donors who are still really active and want to see the things that they left. So this, as you may or may not know, is a roll of toilet paper. You may wonder why we have it in our collection. But toilet paper was as good as gold in vietnam, because if you were out in the field and you didnt have any toilet paper, you ha