THE SLAVE QUARTERS

Before the Civil War, the Whitney Plantation counted 22 slaves cabins on its site. The 20 cypress slave cabins, which housed the field hands, were located along the road, downriver from the Big House. They were still in a very good shape in the late 1970s when they were torn down and removed from the site in order to allow the big tractor-trailers to swing easily into the plantation from the River Road, and get loaded with cane, which was transported to the cooperative sugar mill located upriver near Oak Alley plantation. This happened when the plantation was owned by the Barnes family of New Orleans. The children of Alfred M. Barnes did not have the same interest in the plantation that their father did and they had no other plan but selling it. Steve Barnes, a grandson of A.M. Barnes, remembers, with a bit of anger, members of his family advocating the bulldozing of all the buildings on the site in order to sell it for a better price. Slaves cabins acquired from nearby plantations have been moved on the site.