Is Slavery Bad?

When I was in school, in New England, we were told Slavery was Bad, although the "War between the States" was about "States Rights", not slavery. The Plantations were beautiful. Some slaves were happy and learned trades and loved their masters. Yeah, right.

My first visit to a US forced labor camp (aka a Plantation) was about 15 years ago, upstream of New Orleans. The emphasis was recreating the Gone with the Wind fantasy/lie: the docents had Scarlet-like costumes, and everything was beautiful. Yes, they admitted, there were slaves, but basically nothing was left of their ugly hovels and we don't talk about them.

White people still got married there since it was so romantic. 

When I think of forced labor camps, I think of Nazi Germany. It is unimaginable today to think that Auschwitz would celebrate weddings in the grandeur of the Kommandant's house, or that people would celebrate the work ethic of the enslaved Jews, Roma, gays and other minorities. (History factoid: probably more non-Jews were killed in the forced labor camps than Jews during the Nazi regime) Yet the South still celebrated/celebrates the "Lost Cause" of the Confederacy and the historical relics of chattel slavery.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cause_of_the_Confederacy

Last year I visited my second US forced labor camp, Monticello. The famous owner is not widely known as a pedophile, although he started raping a 14 year old enslaved girl when he was 44. Sally Hemings gave birth to her first of six children while in Paris with him. Technically she and her child were free while in Paris, as France did not recognize slavery. She could have left, and be a homeless, single mother of a mixed race child in a country where she didn't speak the language - not an appealing choice. She returned to enslavement at Monticello, and her child was enslaved, too.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Hemings

Fortunately, the present management of Monticello acknowledges Sally, her offspring, and some of the cruelty of enslavement. 

With this introduction, we went to see the Whitney Plantation (i.e., forced labor camp) which is highly focused on commemorating the horrors of chattel slavery. The Big House is not the focus, and the principal floor, upstairs, is not open to the public. A black granite monument, The Wall of Honor, contains the names of hundreds of enslaved individuals held on Haydel family-owned forced labor camps. Many anecdotes are engraved, too. One of the most grim was a woman who had 15 children by 15 men. Her children were mostly sold off as they reached adolescence, and she herself was sold many times and given to another enslaved man. She was a good breeder; her owners must have been proud.

The Whitney (unrelated to the NYC museum and family) is totally focused on enslavement, and has been the most moving museum I have ever visited, but I haven't been to Auschwitz yet. https://www.whitneyplantation.org/ A must see if in Louisiana.

The kitchen for the Big House. The enslavers did not want the smoke and smells  of cooking bothering them. The large iron bowl in front was for boiling sugar cane juice into solids. 

A monument commemorating the biggest enslaved person revolt in Louisiana - the 1811 German Coast uprising. All 95 captured freedom seekers were  put on "trial",  lawfully executed, then decapitated. The heads were put on spikes at the forced labor camps they had escaped from.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1811_German_Coast_uprising

To me, the most incredible action is the State of Louisiana reimbursed (from the general treasury) the enslavers $300 for the loss of each enslaved person executed, and paid for 1/3 of the cost of the enslavers' house that were burned. Interesting form of fire insurance.

In addition to direct artifacts, there is a lot of complementary sculpture and art at the site.  

The reader can see the highlights of my education on enslavement from three forced labor camp visits. Coincidently, I had just started reading the 1619 Project, which gives a strong foundation on slavery. Factoid: Ten of the first twelve US Presidents were enslavers (the two Adams were not enslavers): US citizens from all states voted for enslavers.

Why "enslavers" and not the more passive "slave holders"? The value of the enslaved people drove the economy. Producing more enslaved people was usually more profitable than the crops themselves.  Jefferson was nearly bankrupt when he died because of huge debts to finance his lifestyle. He was not a profitable farmer, but was a successful breeder of enslaved people. His thousands of acres of land were worth a pittance compared to the value of the hundreds of people he owned. Many enslavers were known to be relatively nice to enslaved women so they would be healthy and produce more children that would survive long enough to be sold.

Discussing our recent forced labor camp visits with a campsite neighbor couple from Ohio, she mentioned she had grown up in Mississippi. Every Friday night (in the 70s) there were KKK terrorist rallies at the high school she attended. It was just normal for back then. I guess I was so innocent and/or ignorant I thought that regular KKK terrorist rallies were extraordinarily rare, and thought the Skokie cases was the single exception. I was in high school in the 70s, distinctly remember the Skokie case, and had never encountered anyone even vaguely related to the KKK terrorists. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_America_v._Village_of_Skokie

Onward to Acadiana in southwestern Louisiana, the source of great cooking, especially with seafood. 

The Acadians (usually pronounced Cajuns) have a complicated history. Emigrants from France to Canada and Maine, then forcibly evicted by the British in the 1700s, and eventually ended up in southern Louisiana, under French control. They were given swamp lands. They mingled with free people of color and some indigenous peoples. One version of their history is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cajuns; I read several other versions.

They were from Acadia, which included what is now Acadia National Park in Maine. Sadly for Maine, when the Cajun were deported they took all their great recipes.

The most famous Cajun spice is Tabasco, produced on Avery Island by the McIlhenny Company. Edmund McIlhenny, a Yankee from Maryland, married a Miss Avery. The Civil War destroyed his banking business in New Orleans, he and his in-laws fled to Avery Island, and McIlhenny tinkered with his garden-grown peppers and recipes. The rest is history, at least according to the company's marketing, and disputed by others. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_McIlhenny and  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabasco_sauce

We went for a "factory tour", which was actually a poorly-Disneyfied PR attempt with low content exhibits, no access to manufacturing, and a $12 (for seniors) admission fee. Lotsa of blather on this down home local company and Louisiana-grown pepper, yet the peppers are all grown Mexico (never disclosed).

The Tabasco brand has been extended to include stretches as bizarre as Tabasco Bourbon (and apparently dozens or maybe hundreds of other product extensions, none of which I have ever seen or heard of), surely a sign of less than sharp wannabe marketeers. Their spread of basic products, pepper sauces, varied from exhibit to exhibit from five to seven  varying sauces, including sriracha (in a sriracha-style bottle), sweet and sour non-hot Chinese, super hot scorpion, and not sure what all else. One would think this marketing attempt at the company store and factory tour would have 1) current information of what is their product line 2) offer for sale all the current product line, and likely 3) have an opportunity to taste each one. I thought wrong; option none was chosen. Only about three or four sauces were available in the store.

On the "factory" tour we could look through a grate and see barrels.  We could walk through a residential sized greenhouse that had less than a dozen pepper plants growing. The sauce is aged for "up to three years" in oak barrels. Weasel words never appeal to me; does this mean usually three weeks, but sometimes sales drop, there is overproduction, so inventory sits around for years?

The signs never mention "used" or "whiskey" barrels (bad PR?).  A video shows a worker grinding out the charcoal on the inside of the barrels (charcoal absorbs a lot of the undesirable tastes out of wine and whiskey), and recoopering barrels with stainless hoops. I assume the original steel hoops rust too badly with the salty solution.

Barrels of Tabasco ageing in used whiskey casks

One piece of geological trivia stood out, and not metaphorically. Most of southern Louisiana is very flat and very near sea level. Avery Island is 163 feet high, the highest point on the entire Gulf Coast, on a salt dome. I heard "salt dome", which immediately signalled oil and gas to me. One of the old photos showed an oil rig in background, yet nothing is mentioned. The salt dome, 2000 feet thick, is currently quarried at scale by Cargill, mostly for "municipal uses" (road salt). The salt used in Tabasco is also from the salt works. Methinks the serious money for the family comes from oil and salt, not the romantic stories of growing local peppers with a "baton rouge", a red stick with red colors to identify when a pepper is ripe. https://64parishes.org/entry/avery-island

The salt works had a minor role during the Civil War. Avery Island was a major(?) producer of salt for the Confederate Army. Union forces took the island and destroyed the salt works, at least for the duration of the war.

The bright spot (both metaphorically and sunny) of Avery Island was the Jungle Gardens, included in the ticket price. The founder built a magnificent garden, importing many Asian species with the assistance of Dr. David Fairchild, the noted horticulturist I discussed when visiting Kampong Gardens near Miami. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kampong

McIlhenny received an ancient Buddha as a gift, now a centerpiece of the gardens.

This sets up possibly interesting looting issues. The statue dates to AD 1100. Was it looted? Is it a forgery? Should it be returned to China/will China demand it be returned?  https://973thedawg.com/the-story-behind-the-900-year-old-buddha-statue-at-avery-islands-jungle-gardens/ One source, which I can't seem to find now, claims it is probably a fake perpetrated on the friends who gave it to McIlhenny. 

McIlhenny also set up an aviary in one of the ponds (stocked with alligators). The egrets like nesting over alligators since then they have fewer predators. He started with six pairs; fifteen years later there were over 100,000 nesting pairs. Reportedly his friend Teddy Roosevelt declared it the most important bird sanctuary in America.

For better pictures of the park than mine, see https://www.howderfamily.com/blog/avery-island/ and https://www.junglegardens.org/attractions. The Gardens made up for the "factory tour". Still worth visiting Avery Island.

 

Part of the Rice Mill

Konrico Brand Rice (Conrad Rice Mill company) claims to be the oldest continuously running rice mill.  We got the nickel factory tour, some very old equipment, post and beam construction with corrugated galvanized walls. Fun to see history still running. They said their rice fields are sown from airplanes, and they grow carp in the flooded fields. We didn't get to see the fields.  The company store had all their varieties, so of course we bought some "Wild Pecan" rice. It is not wild nor does it contain pecans, but is milled differently so it has a little bit of bran, but is neither a brown or white rice. Anyway, tasted delicious. and a little nutty. Much more authentic than Avery Island. 

We stopped for a meal at an Oysters and Sushi restaurant in New Iberia. Must do raw, right? In addition to local oysters (fried), we ordered a "normal" crawfish sushi roll, and a "fried" sushi crawfish roll. The regular roll was barely so-so. The deep fried was huge (even sliced, too big to eat with chopsticks) and surprisingly delicious! Well, duh, of course they would deep fry it here.

Downtown New Iberia was an eclectic mix of preserved architecture, from 19th century grand homes to 1930s movie theatre, and bungalow-inspired houses. 

Holiday collage of places visited,  Advent calendar,  and food prep.

Our Christmas was stress-free and presents-free at Fausse Pointe Park. A Duck a la Krem  Orange, roasted with lots of Triple Sec and cardamom along with Wild Pecan rice was enjoyed on the Eve, and steaks on the barbie for Xmas. The park was only 10-15% full, which was nice.

Life is good.

Krem and Barbara