This is the last post about Oak Alley, a plantation in Louisiana that we visited on our southern road trip in January.
These large saucer type kettles were scattered throughout the grounds of Oak Alley. According to the brochure "sugar kettles, made of cast iron were vital to the process of making molasses and crystallized sugar in the South during the 18th and 19th centuries. Each cane plantation in Louisiana had its own sugarhouse and the cane was crushed using an animal-powered three roller mill. The extracted cane juice was heated, clarified and evaporated in a series of four kettles from large to small..."
All these jobs from planting and harvesting sugar cane to making sugar and molasses were done by slaves. Oak Alley has a re-creation of the slave quarters with informative signage.
There were other jobs done by slave labor throughout the plantations of the south.
Manumission was rare as this sign attests.
Slavery was a terrible wound in our nation's history, one we are still trying to find ways to heal.
