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[CHAPTER 7]
[Page 1]
SLAVE HOUSING
During the entire period of slavery in Louisiana, the living quarters of the slaves on the plantations and those removed any distance from “the Big House” underwent little change. Le Page du Pratz, the manager of the King’s Plantation, saw to it that the Negroes placed in his charge were assigned to cabins located a good distance from the master’s house so that the winds might not blow any offensive odors from the slave quarters in that direction. Surrounding the slave quarters were palisades, each containing a door with a lock and key, by which the slaves could be locked in for the night in a manner similar to that of Louisiana plantations of a later period.1
A description of the cabins of the slaves on the great Chaouachas plantation in the early years of French Domination in Louisiana is particularly interesting. This plantation was at English Turn, about seven leagues below the little town of New Orleans.2 Located on the plantation were, “Twenty negro cabins surrounded by stakes, roofed with palmetto serving as a lodging for the negroes of the Concession.” And near these cabins were also “Eighteen cabins roofed with palmetto surrounded by stakes, serving as a barn for the supplies of the negroes.” In several of these barns “belonging to different negroes of the said concession were found: Eighty-six barrels of rice, twenty-five barrels of beans and four barrels of potatoes,” the rice still unthreshed.3 Many of the other buildings on the estate were either roofed with palmettos or with bark--only a few of them being roofed with shingles.
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