The Antebellum Period | West Baton Rouge Parish, LA
The Making of a Plantation EconomyAfter the indigo crops failed in 1794, many south Louisiana planters focused their efforts on sugarcane. In 1795, Etienne de Boré successfully granulated significant amounts of sugar by boiling it in iron kettles at his plantation in New Orleans. This event allowed sugar to be manufactured on a commercial scale, and led to the establishment of sugar as king in south Louisiana. Louisiana’s sugar economy was further developed by a large influx of knowledgeable sugar planters from the French West Indies, who came to Louisiana after a series of slave revolts. After 1830, sugarcane plantations comprised 75% of the parish’s total improved acreage; the rest of the land was mostly composed of subsistence farms. Some of the large sugar plantations that emerged in the parish during the Antebellum Period include Allendale, Anchorage, Arbroth, Ashland, Bayou’s Belle Vue, Belmonte, Camp, Carolina, Cypress Hall, Marengo, Poplar Grove, Smithfield, Westover, Yatton, B...