Whitney Plantation is the only former plantation site in Louisiana with an exclusive focus on slavery. Generations of Africans and their descendants were enslaved here to establish and maintain indigo, rice, and sugar crops. Visitors learn about this history through tours, exhibits, memorials, and artwork.
Education Tours at Whitney Plantation Museum
Bookings are required for all school group visits and are available on a first-come, first-served basis. A 50% deposit is required to finalize confirmation and to hold your group’s date.
To request a tour, please click the request a tour button on the right side of the page.
Our Tour Times:
Saturday, Sunday, Monday: 10:00am and 1:00pm
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday: 10:00am, 10:15am, 11:00am, 11:15am, 1:00pm, 1:15pm
Once booked, you will be contacted by a member of the Education team to confirm the details of your visit. Please plan your time, including travel, accordingly. Our Educators will begin the tour after your group’s check-in and restroom visits.
Policies At a Glance:
- Available for grades 5th through 12th
- Size limit: 18-40 people per tour (students and designated chaperones)
- Length: 1 hour
- Offered by advanced reservation only.
- We require full payment two weeks prior to your site visit.
- For groups larger than 40, please contact [email protected].
- Final numbers of students and adult chaperones must be confirmed two weeks prior to the booked visit.
Payment Process:
- To begin the booking process, groups must fill out a booking request form.
- All groups, regardless of size, will be charged for a minimum of 18 students to cover the administrative costs of tours.
- A member of the Education team will follow up your request confirming your date request or offer your alternative date requests if we are fully booked.
- We require a 50% deposit within 5 days of receiving your confirmation email to hold dates. We cannot guarantee the date requested will be available to you without a deposit. We do not hold dates.
- We require full payment two weeks prior to your site visit. This payment date will be given in the Education team’s follow up email.
- Once the Education Deparment has approved your date, time, and group size, they will send you a confirmation email with a link to payment. Please check your spam folder if you do not see it in your inbox.
Group Policies:
- Bookings are required for all school group visits and are available on a first-come, first-served basis. A deposit is required to finalize confirmation. Student groups are required to have 1 chaperone for every 10 students.
- Whitney Plantation is a site for remembrance. Attendees of guided tours are expected to treat Whitney staff and site with respect, including the buildings, land, and restrooms. Teachers and Chaperones are required to correct student behavior when needed. Failing to cooperate or respect staff or the site will result in the immediate ending of the tour.
- Chaperones must remain with student groups at all times.
Things to Know While on Site:
- Whitney Plantation is a largely outdoor site—weather, insects, outdoor smells, plants, and wild animals may be encountered at any given time. Wear comfortable clothing, closed-toed walking shoes, and dress for the weather.
- There is small picnic area available on a first come, first served basis for visitors. If your group must bring lunch, please leave them on the bus until mealtime. Other than water, food is not allowed onsite during tours.
- There is no storage area for coats, bags, or personal items onsite. Please only carry what is needed to be comfortable on the tour and leave all other items on the bus.
About Guided Tours for Middle and High School Students:
- Students will receive workbooks upon arrival to be used throughout and after their tour.
- Guided School tours focus on the themes of labor, survival, resistance, and collective memory. Students are encouraged to ask questions, make observations, and engage with the educator and the space around them.
- Tours will be tailored according to student ages. If there is a specific site you would like to visit please include that information in your booking request.
- For additional materials, see our Education Department tab: here.
School Standards this Tour Meets:
Louisiana Social Studies (K-12)
- 5. 14: Analyze the motivations for the movement of people from Europe to the Americas and describe the effects of exploration by Europeans.
- Describe the development of the transatlantic slave trade and the experiences of enslaved people in the Americas.
- 6.9: Analyze the development of the settlements and colonies in the late sixteenth century through the seventeenth century.
- Analyze the causes, interactions, and consequences related to triangular trade, including the forced migration of Africans through the transatlantic trade of enslaved people and experiences of the Middle Passage.
- 6.10: Analyze the growth and development of colonial Louisiana.
- 7.10: Analyze the growth and development of the United States from the early to mid‐1800s.
- Analyze the development of the agrarian economy in the South, including Louisiana, and explain how advancements in technology, such as the cotton gin and multiple‐effect evaporator for sugar, contributed to an increase in enslaved labor.
- 7.13: Analyze the causes, course, and consequences of the Civil War.
- Describe the roles and experiences of soldiers, women, enslaved people, and freed people during the Civil War.
- Analyze the role of Louisiana in the Civil War and how the conflict affected Louisiana and its people, including the importance of its ports and the occupation of New Orleans.
- Analyze the purpose, significance, and consequences of the Emancipation Proclamation.
- 7.14: Analyze the major events, key people, and effects of Reconstruction.
- Analyze the development and effects of tenant farming and the sharecropping system in the postwar South.
- Explain how federal action affected individual rights and freedoms during the Reconstruction era, including through the Thirteenth Amendment, Freedmen’s Bureau, Civil Rights Bill of 1866, Reconstruction Act of 1867, Fourteenth Amendment, Fifteenth Amendment, and analyze the challenges, achievements, and effectiveness of each.
National Standards
ERA 6: Standard 4B
The student understands the origins and consequences of the trans-Atlantic African slave trade.
- Explain how commercial sugar production spread from the Mediterranean to the Americas and analyze why sugar, tobacco, and other crops grown in the Americas became so important in the world economy.
- Explain the organization of long-distance trade in West and Central Africa and analyze the circumstances under which African governments, elites, merchants, and other groups participated in the sale of slaves to Europeans.
- Explain how European governments and firms organized and financed the trans-Atlantic slave trade; and describe the conditions under which slaves made the “middle passage” from Africa to the Americas.
- Analyze the emergence of social hierarchies based on race and gender in the Iberian, French, and British colonies in the Americas.
- Describe conditions of slave life on plantations in the Caribbean, Brazil, and British North America and analyze ways in which slaves perpetuated aspects of African culture and resisted plantation servitude.
ERA 4: Standard 2D
The student understands the rapid growth of “the peculiar institution” after 1800 and the varied experiences of African Americans under slavery.
- Analyze the impact of the Haitian Revolution and the ending of the Atlantic slave trade.
- Explain how the cotton gin and the opening of new lands in the South and West led to the increased demand for slaves.
- Describe the plantation system and the roles of their owners, their families, hired white workers, and enslaved African Americans.
- Identify the various ways in which African Americans resisted the conditions of their enslavement and analyze the consequences of violent uprisings.
- Evaluate how enslaved African Americans used religion and family to create a viable culture and ameliorate the effects of slavery.
Hard History Framework:
- Slavery and the slave trade were central to the development and growth of the colonial economies and what is now the United States.
- “Slavery was an institution of power,” designed to create profit for the enslavers and break the will of the enslaved and was a relentless quest for profit abetted by racism.
- Enslaved people resisted the efforts of their enslavers to reduce them to commodities in both revolutionary and everyday ways.
- Slavery shaped the fundamental beliefs of Americans about race and whiteness, and white supremacy was both a product and legacy of slavery.
- Enslaved and freed people worked to maintain cultural traditions while building new ones that sustain communities and impact the larger world.
- By knowing how to read and interpret the sources that tell the story of American slavery, we gain insight into some of what enslaving and enslaved Americans aspired to, created, thought and desired.
[1] This monument can be jarring to visitors and may not be appropriate for younger students. Please speak with your Education Department contact for more details.
Pre and Post Visit Materials
This packet includes curriculum material to help students prepare for their visit with the Whitney.
For Educators: Please check our Education Department Page for information on curriculum, lesson plans, and additional teaching resources.
