A Tour of the Laura Plantation

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The Laura Plantation is a "Creole" home, a conglomeration of the three cultures - French, Indian, and African-American - that predominated in Louisiana before it became an English colony.  When Americans began to arrive in Louisiana, locals began identifying themselves overtly as Creoles to distinguish themselves from the "nouveaux-arrivés" from New England and the American South.  They had a more flamboyant culture and one way they maintained their uniqueness is in the color of their houses.  The new English settlers' homes were white with imposing columns.  In contrast, Creoles used vibrant colors and usually more than one.

Joshua practiced walking in the lovely yard while we waited for the tour to begin.

The Creole home was also the center of commerce.  The ladies who ran the Laura plantation followed the old French custom of transacting business in their bedrooms.

I think the baby in the picture is the Laura whom the home is named after.

Gardens.

In the 1870s, Alcée Fortier, a young neighbor of Laura's, visited the workers' cabins at this site and at nearby plantations.  On his visits, he began to collect the stories he heard from former slaves, just as they told them to their children, all lively accounts of Compair Lapin and Compair Bouki, the clever rabbit and the stupid fool.  In 1894, he published his stories, entitling them "Louisiana Folktales."  One year later, Fortier's friend and colleague in Georgia, Joel Chandler Harris, published stories that he had heard in English, tales told by former slaves in Georgia and the Carolinas.  To great success, Harris published Tales of Uncle Remus, including his "The Little Tar Baby."  Ever since, English-speakers would know Compair Lapin as that rascal: Br'er Rabbit.

I would love to have a front porch like this!