The Enslaved People of Oakland Plantation

The institution of enslavement and the act of emancipation have left indelible imprints on many aspects of Cane River life, and the park has been working for years to uncover the stories of all the people that lived on the plantation. Their labor sustained Oakland Plantation and contributed to the wealth of the Prud’homme family who founded the plantation.

However even with all their contributions, it is difficult to describe their lives. Each person experiences enslavement differently according to their occupation, sex, age, and status in the enslaved community. They also internalized the concept of being enslaved in different ways, so it is difficult to describe the "typical" experience. Furthermore, documents speaking to the enslaved experience are limited and primarily from the perspective of White owners or overseers, whose main objective were to document labor and crops, not the life of the enslaved.

Despite these difficulties, information about the enslaved people has been ascertained from baptismal records, journals of Pierre Phanor Prud'homme, who owned the plantation from the early 1800s until 1865, and Seneca Pace, the White overseer in the 1850s and 1860s.

1700s

1810

1830s

1845

1850s

1860s