Oak Alley

We left New Orleans heading west along the river road. The road is famous for having a number of restored anti-bellum plantation houses along the route. Those on our side of the river were about a mile apart and seem to have belonged to the same extended families. We visited Oak Alley named for the 300 year old oak avenue leading up from the river. Nobody knows who planted them or when but the purpose appears to be to create a wind tunnel of cooler air from the river.The house only dates from the late 1830s so although it is considered very old by american standards in a british context it is Victorian rather than Georgian.
There were about 120 slaves working the associated sugar plantation and in the house and some of the slave quarters were reconstructed using traditional methods to make double quarters each cabin divided into 2 with a family of 6 or more in each side.

There was quite a reasonable exhibition of the type of crops the slaves would grow. They had to work 10-12 hour days, 18 during the sugar harvest, but were not  fed so that each slave family would have an allotment garden to feed themselves Any surplus could be sold and they could keep the proceed and then perhaps invest it in raising chickens.
Jaques Roman the owner only manumitted one slave whom he had inherited from his aunt at her request. Although he was free his wife and children remained enslaved. Eventually he raised $350 to purchase his wife's freedom but not his children and it is thought He died on the plantation aged over 100.
Jaques built the house for his wife Celina but nver lived there dying in 1839. His eldest surviving son was nine and Celina a New Orleans socialite spent much time in town leaving an overseer to run the estate by the time the son took over in 1861 the estate was heavily indebted and although he at first halved the debt in 2 years the war and emancipation finished the finances and the banks forclosed. The plantation land was sold on but the house lay derelict until the Stewart family bought and restored the property in the 1920s. 
The house is open by guided tour with docents dressed in period costume.

 I was amazed by how small it was only eight rooms, 4 up 4 down, not what you expect in a british stately home. The house has been used as a set for several films, most noticeably as Brad Pitt's home in "Interview with a Vampire".

The dining room features the original fanpowered by a small boy slave in the corner tugging on a rope.