+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| ##                                | Muriel (Miki) Crespi              |
| A BRIEF ETHNOGRAPHY OF MAGNOLIA P |                                   |
| LANTATION: PLANNING FOR CANE RIVE | Archeology and Ethnography        |
| R CREOLE NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK | Program                           |
|                                   |                                   |
| *Studies in Archeology and        | National Center for Cultural      |
| Ethnography #4*                   | Resources                         |
|                                   |                                   |
| ## http://www.cr.nps.             | National Park Service,            |
| gov/aad/pubs/studies/study04a.htm | Washington, DC                    |
|                                   |                                   |
|                                   | 2004                              |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+

**SUMMARY**

Interest in the people with traditional associations to Magnolia
plantation, one of the two plantations incorporated into Cane River
Creole National Historical Park (CARI), and in the development of the
new park's General Management Plan prompted this brief ethnographic
study. We hoped to bring diverse voices to planning dialogues about
resources, interpretation, and alternatives by walking the grounds that
associated people consider culturally meaningful and by interviewing
ethnically different peoples individually or in groups. Our interest
focused particularly on the associated peoples who perceive park
resources as essential to their development and continued identity as
culturally distinct people. The same community members rarely
participate in public planning hearings, but the research process would
help inform them about the park taking shape in their midst.
Additionally, the project would demonstrate the value of professional
cultural anthropological or ethnographic work to "ground-truthing"
community concerns by the researchers' direct interaction with people
and places. We interviewed people who were born or lived and worked at
and near Magnolia. We identified the ethnographic resources, or places
and landscapes they considered culturally meaningful, and the ways they
perceived their past and wished it conveyed to the visiting public. To
help contextualize people's responses, we also lightly sketched the
political, economic, social and geographic aspects of plantation life in
the mid-20^th^ century.

For more than a month, Dr. Muriel (Miki) Crespi, National Park Service
Chief of Ethnography interviewed people linked to Magnolia. For another
month, Northwestern State University anthropologist Mrs. Dayna Bowker
Lee and historian Ms. Susan Dollar interviewed people primarily from
neighboring communities in the Heritage Area. Crespi also analyzed the
data and prepared this report. The brief research period necessarily
limited our work to people and planning issues directly associated with
the park. Sharecropper life in the area beyond park boundaries, although
important, received less attention. Generally, this study offers a
stop-gap solution to the ethnographic data shortage on the full array of
people whose combined labor, land, and goals built and maintained the
plantation. Nevertheless, it provided valuable lessons about the
benefits of conducting early ethnographic research with people whose
intimate relationships to park resources and unique insights into local
life make them candidates for the planners' special consideration.

We found an immensely complex situation, reflected in a landscape
faceted by the diverse uses of diverse people. Until the rural exodus of
the mid-20^th^ century reconfigured local farms and settlements,
Magnolia had formed part of an extended landscape peppered with places
local residents considered important in their work, worship, recreation,
and marketing. Probably the most frequented area reached from
Cloutierville to Derry and urban Natchitoches. Many places fronted Cane
River or left their mark on the neighboring plantations and settlements
in the Cane River Heritage Area. Some were in the forested Kisatchie
hills. For the plantation owners, the Hertzogs, the culturally
meaningful landscape extended to more distant places, including New
Orleans. Until the 1950s and 60s, when agricultural mechanization drove
rural residents away, people's class and ethnicity affected their
distribution, activities, and the places that welcomed them across this
landscape.

Magnolia's own resources form a named landscape, best known by its
owners' name, "the Hertzogs'." The section now under National Park
Service management includes the farm operational center with the
quarters, first built to house enslaved workers and later serving the
tenant laborers; the former slave hospital and later overseer's house;
the store; cotton gin and other farm structures. Beyond park boundaries
is the standing Big House and cultivated fields. They, along with the
former church and sharecropper area along Highway 119, mirror the
earlier plantation community. Many of these still-meaningful places have
become mostly "shadows" or ephemeral memory places and nearly invisible
reminders of formerly standing structures. Still, in the conceptual
landscapes of traditional residents, the barely visible remains mark the
places and call to mind the people, events and structures that gave
meaning and shape to local life and geography.

Local people tended to classify themselves and others as members of one
of three principal ethnic categories. Combining views about ancestral
birthplace with views about ethnicity and race led people to categorize
themselves and others as: (1) Creoles of color or Creole who descended
from the cultural and biological meeting of African, French, Spanish and
perhaps American Indian peoples; (2) whites, including French Creole
(different from Yankees, Anglos or Americans); or (3) blacks, a term
people preferred for themselves over African American. Differences were
attributed partly to ethnic heritage, including religion. For example,
black people, along with Yankees, Americans and Anglo whites were mostly
Protestant, but whites of French ancestry and the Creoles of color
tended to be Catholic. Ethnicity and class tended to overlap so that
"black" usually equated with agricultural laborers who, in the 19^th^
and 20^th^ centuries, occupied the quarters. Some might become
sharecroppers but, generally, they struggled against enormous economic
and political odds. Changes since desegregation have tempered past
inequities so that many black people became successful businessmen and
professionals. Still, change has not fully erased inequities and the
accompanying pain. Creoles of color enjoyed slightly higher status as
sharecroppers in Magnolia and successful landowners and businessmen
elsewhere in the area. The social hierarchy peaked at the white Hertzog
family. They are the French Creole descendants of French Europeans, the
centuries-long stewards of Magnolia Plantation and the occupants of the
architecturally important Creole-style Big House, the plantation command
and control center.

Until mechanization fully transformed "the Hertzogs'" into a modern
agribusiness, organizationally, Magnolia reflected historic European
manors in its power relationships and dependence on tenant laborers and
tenant farmers, such as sharecroppers, whose compensation came partly in
residence sites and only partly in cash. These arrangements, in addition
to the practice of delayed cash compensation, mitigated management's
problem of scarce funds until harvest. Limited cash troubled everyone,
but none felt it more acutely than tenant laborers and sharecroppers.
Their survival rested on foods from gardens and barnyard animals, on
fishing, hunting, neighborly cooperation, and on credit at the
plantation store.

Status in the community reflected people's ethnic/class identity and
relationships to land and coincided with their distribution across the
landscape. People of French Creole descent, the Hertzog family of
planters who enjoyed the highest status, occupied the Big House. Other
whites, geographically and socially distant from the Hertzogs, lived in
the overseer's house. The tenant farmers were mostly Creoles of color
whose temporary use of plantation fields increased their earning
potential. Landless black people, rural proletarians, lived primarily in
the quarters. Although the most economically vulnerable of Magnolia's
residents, stable kinship, friendship, and church ties knit blacks into
a support system and community with a sense of their own worth.

Black residents and Creoles of color lived among kin and friends whose
activities, interests and special places created the "community" of
place. Health care, work, recreation, and social gatherings brought
people together, sometimes at ethnically mixed public events such as
baseball games and horse races, and sometimes in ethnic-specific or
private settings such as house parties and church suppers. Churches of
all denominations were social linchpins that held people together
through shared beliefs, ties to particular places, and joyful events
such as Christmas and June 19^th^ celebrations.

Plantation-supported holidays periodically and symbolically bridged the
social divisions. At Christmas, "Juneteenth" or June 19^th^, and July
4^th^, Mr. Matt Hertzog, Magnolia's family manager, gave residents food
gifts and brought a popular local band to play at the plantation store,
a social, communication and commercial center. Juneteenth celebrated the
day black people say they learned of their emancipation, a day holding
special but different meanings for blacks and whites. Although marking
slavery's end and new bases for relationships between previously
enslaved people and their former owners, lingering noblesse oblige found
plantation owners giving resident workers food gifts and a holiday.
Magnolia celebrated this day until farm mechanization and reduced labor
needs drove workers from the countryside. June 19^th^ celebrations
continue today, now in urban areas, where, revived and modified, they
continue to signal change in black/white relationships.

The new park and its resources intrigued most blacks, whites, and
Creoles of color. Perspectives on the past reflected their different
experiences at Magnolia, but agreements existed too. White people and
blacks independently agreed that three principal features characterized
the plantation's importance: (1) continuity as a successful agricultural
enterprise, (2) organization as a self-supporting family enterprise, and
(3) a long-term community and workplace, or rural company town. Former
tenant workers still recognize "the Hertzogs'" as their birthplace and
the quarters as their community and venue of life-shaping experiences.
They take pride in their labor as the lifeline of plantation production
until the mid-century. Blacks and whites both viewed the Hertzog family
line and its commitments to Magnolia as essential in keeping Magnolia's
natural resource base intact and productive and in protecting its
historic integrity. In addition, the weak name recognition interviewees
gave to "Magnolia" but the high recognition given to "the Hertzogs'"
suggested that local people viewed the plantation as a place and the
Hertzogs as a family as inseparable. Indeed, Magnolia has no identity
without the Hertzogs, nor an existence without the black community.

Speaking about slavery proved difficult for whites and blacks and less
so for Creoles of color from the Heritage Area. This topic, like
discussions of who constitutes Creoles of color, seriously challenges
park interpretation to fully treat the ramifications of this
multi-faceted and controversial theme. Blacks and whites treated slavery
as a delicate, nearly tabu subject for public discussion. Some blacks
expressed anger at the inhumanity of slavery and some perhaps a victim's
shame at being stigmatized by a system that prevailed through no fault
of their own. Embarrassment about participating in a system that is
vilified by some others or discomfort about defending what some still
see simply as a pragmatic labor system may have troubled white
interviewees. There was concern about how outsiders, such as visitors
who represented other regions and views, would perceive local peoples
and cultures if slavery was interpreted. Initial black and white
reluctance about public discussion of slavery gave way to agreement that
slavery could be considered but not as an exclusive theme. Both favored
attention to the recent times they recalled and, for black people, the
times since desegregation. Both would find the topic more acceptable if
presented as one dimension of their multifaceted past, one phase in a
sequence of adaptations to changing morality, and economic, political
and social conditions. Blacks thought slavery might be shown in contrast
to their present accomplishments as a way to educate youth to the
continuing struggles towards equity. From slavery to contemporary times
was an acceptable thrust if it offered a morality lesson about the
dignity and humanity of African Americans and the capacity for change in
all people. Agreement among different peoples about interpreting slavery
implied permission for the National Park Service to assume
responsibility for bringing a painful, complex topic to the public on
behalf of the diverse Magnolia community. In effect, the community is
transferring its trust to the agency by making it a partner in conveying
the thrust of a contentious past and its lingering repercussions.

Strategies for projecting Magnolia's many voices might include
developing mini life histories of selected families of black laborers
and sharecroppers and Creoles of color whose identities and histories
were as essential to the plantation system as the landowning Hertzogs.
Calling up stories of selected workers will offer gateways to the
culture of the tenant and farming community, the community-centered
roles of the Baptist and Catholic Churches, and the related ethnic and
class complexities of plantation society.

Interpretive discussions of "creole" as an architectural, food and music
type and "Creole" as peoples and cultures are needed to clarify meanings
and dispel stereotyping. The National Park Service concern with
inclusiveness also makes it imperative to show how the story of Cane
River Creole National Historical Park incorporates the black community,
although "Creole," as used in the park name, is not a term they
ordinarily used for themselves, or others would use for them. The park
is also challenged to discuss Creoles of color, blacks, and French
Creoles who share many Louisiana ways but necessarily have dealt with
the effects of occupying quite different positions in the local
hierarchy. This requires an interpretive approach that does not violate
the local spoken and unspoken implications of "Creole," yet acknowledges
the different Magnolia peoples. A related task is to interpret the park
in ways that make present-day members of all traditionally associated
groups proud of their special contributions to the development and
survival of Magnolia.

It is important to emphasize the distinction between the park's physical
boundaries and the plantation community boundaries; they are not
equivalent. Interpreting life in the quarters requires attention to life
outside the quarters, especially in the Big House and sharecropper area
as well as within the context of Cloutierville, Derry and the more
extensive ethnographic landscape. Consistent with the theme of
acknowledging resources beyond the park but traditionally associated
with Magnolia blacks, we suggest recognizing the site of the St. James
African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) at Magnolia. A plaque that
interprets the formerly standing AME Church and its standing partner,
St. Andrew, on the opposite Cane River bank would enrich local lore and
acknowledge a major black ethnographic resource.

Interviewees proposed interpretive approaches that included
ethnically-marked events. Black people suggested celebrating June 19 and
encouraging homecomings at that time. Black former residents and some
others also objected to labeling the cabins formerly occupied by
enslaved peoples as "slave quarters." They preferred "quarters" because
tenant laborers had occupied the cabins from about 1865 until the 1960s.
Creoles of color proposed story-telling, French language classes, and
quilting demonstrations, and events that coincided with Creole Heritage
Day. Agreements with churches such as St. Augustine Catholic Church and
St. Andrew Missionary Baptist might formalize relationships with the
communities and regularize access to local talent.

People also suggested emphasizing Magnolia's special features, such as
its prize-winning horses and the horse races and baseball games that
might briefly bring ethnically different people together. Rehabilitating
and restocking the plantation store and replaying events such as
Christmas celebrations were proposed. Techniques for interpreting
slavery might include displaying historic records about commerce in
slaves, but most people opposed costumed interpreters and efforts to
mimic slave speech.

Varying familiarity with national parks and tourism in general framed
local views about the potential value of the new park. Tourism's adverse
impacts raised concerns for Creoles of color who lived along the travel
path of Magnolia-bound tourists and were experienced with the crowds
attracted by the now annual Creole fair. They anticipated threats to
their well-being from traffic on lightly traveled country roads and
intrusive visitors armed with cameras. They suggested building a Visitor
Center on Highway 1 to divert traffic away from residential areas,
developing shuttle bus service from urban Natchitoches to the park, and
off-road parking lots with jitney service between the park and other
heritage sites. Whites feared the environmental consequences of new
tourism facilities and housing development in rural and urban
Natchitoches.

People seeking jobs or other income-generating opportunities found the
employment and commercial potential of tourism attractive. Work as park
interpreters and sales of local crafts and foods seemed attractive ways
to highlight unique local knowledge. Starting a roster of people
interested in jobs or in volunteering their services and materials, such
as photos, for interpretive programs, could be useful. Former residents
of the quarters proposed photographic exhibits on the Magnolia
community, using Dr. Hertzog's photographs and others. Useful additions
could be found in B.A. Cohen's photographs.

Local residents, we suggest, could be usefully engaged in helping the
park prepare educational brochures or flyers for visitors addressing,
for example, "what Cane River country people invite you to know." This
could be a vehicle for describing folkloric information and local
etiquette regarding, for example, appropriate ethnic terms, not
photographing local children or others without their permission, and
respecting private residences and driveways.

Magnolia presents unique gateways to the complexities of plantation life
and the broader cultural and natural environments within which it was
embedded. Professional cultural anthropological/ ethnographic studies,
conducted with assistance from people of all ethnicities would help
identify and document these complexities. A long-term comprehensive
study plan is needed to identify the types and sequence of needed
studies. Some studies would address traditional resource uses and the
social consequences of the transformation of the plantation from
traditional to mechanized agricultural systems. Others would consider
ethnographic landscapes with the storied and named places assigned
heritage value by different peoples. Studies would also consider the
social labels people assign to themselves and others, the significance
people invest in ethnic terms, and change in interethnic relations.
Studies of the social, political and economic roles of Catholic and
various Protestant churches, the consequences of rural migration for
family and community, and the role of homecomings in maintaining and
expanding communities of blacks and Creoles of color will be important.

Neither Magnolia nor its sister plantation, Oakland, the second
plantation in Cane River Creole National Historical Park, developed or
changed in isolation, making it essential to understand and interpret
them within a regional context that includes people and places beyond
the narrowly defined park boundaries. The sharecroppers are essential
components of the Magnolia story, as is the Heritage Area. Studies of
social, economic and political relationships among plantation owners and
players in the local economic and political system and relationships
among tenant laborers and farmers across plantation borders will
highlight the factors that affect decisions and promote change or
stability within families and particular farms. Framing local conditions
within national and international factors, including political changes,
markets and technological innovations, would be essential.

Finally, collecting ethnographic and economic data on present-day urban
and rural Natchitoches society, culture, and resource use is essential
for establishing baseline information from which to assess the future
impacts of the park and tourism in general and to inform future planning
in the heritage area. The local community, the National Park Service and
the general public, and the resources, would all be beneficiaries.

**CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION**

## LOCATION OF MAGNOLIA 

Magnolia Plantation is in northwest Louisiana in Natchitoches Parish or
"county." It is situated near Derry and, some 18 miles south of the
Parish center, a small city also called Natchitoches. Located on the
banks of the lower Cane River, the plantation neighbors the town of
Cloutierville in southeastern Natchitoches Parish (see Figure 1). The
nearly nineteen acre park under National Park Service (NPS) management
is in the plantation's southern end, fronting on Highway 119 and near of
119 and Highway 1. The larger plantation consists of several thousand
acres of arable flat lands along with the main plantation house and
owners' residence, the "Big House" with its broad avenue or alley of 150
year-old live oak and magnolia trees. On the other side of the
tree-lined alley is the National Park Service area with the pigeonnier
(pigeon house), small field, and the farm operational center. This
section also contains the overseer's house, an ample 19^th^ century
structure once used as a slave hospital. The quarters are here too.
Originally constructed to house enslaved workers, eight of the original
two-room red brick structures remain standing. Tenant laborers occupied
them from abolition until the late 1960s. Tenant farmers, the
sharecroppers, had lived north of the Big House, beyond the NPS holding.

Geographically and historically, Cane River Creole NHP has been nested
in the complex cultural landscape known as the Cane River National
Heritage Area. The law creating the park had established the heritage
area as well. It includes dispersed 18^th^ and 19^th^ century structures
linked through their past contributions to Cane River's political,
social, cultural, and economic system. The structures are in mixed
ownership, most held privately and some publicly, especially by the
state. Establishing the Cane River Creole NHP added Federal holdings to
the mix. The lands and structures cut an inverted "V"-shaped swath
starting about 50 miles southeast of Shreveport.

The city of Natchitoches is found at the center of the "V," near the
banks of Cane River Lake. The Natchitoches Historic District is there
too, with town houses formerly owned by important planters, along with a
complement of civic and commercial structures. Some of these properties
could be included in the heritage area if their managers and the NPS
mutually sought the arrangements known as cooperative agreements. One
wing of the "V" runs to the southwest and includes three State
Commemorative Areas. One is the early French settlement and precursor of
Natchitoches, the reconstructed Fort St. Jean Baptiste. A second is the
Spanish mission post and Caddoan Indian settlement, Los Adaes. The third
is Fort Jesup, the reconstructed American Frontier post, at the tip of
this wing. The other wing runs the course of the Cane River lake and
Cane River, to the southeast, with antebellum plantations such as
Oakland and Magnolia on its banks, and Cloutierville at its tip.
Although the heritage area legislation identifies no specific American
Indian resources as such, the potential for identifying and interpreting
indigenous groups and places is high.

**Figure 1 is a PDF that can be downloaded at**
<http://www.cr.nps.gov/aad/pubs/studies/pdf/study04fig01.pdf>

WHY THIS STUDY WAS CONDUCTED

In 1994, Congress added Cane River Creole National Historical Park
(CARI) to the system of parks managed by the National Park Service (U.S.
Congress 1994). The park acknowledges the special architectural and
other cultural qualities the Cane River area contributed over the
centuries to the nation's heritage. Resources from two antebellum
plantations comprise the park. First, the National Park Service acquired
the Magnolia resources via donation from Museum Contents, Inc., a local
heritage organization. The Hertzog family, which owns Magnolia, had
previously donated that section to Museum Contents. Then, the NPS
purchased the second section of the park, which includes Oakland, the
Prud'homme family home, and adjacent resources. Both plantations are
nationally recognized as outstanding in several ways. Each is a
Bicentennial Farm. The U.S. Department of Agriculture so-designated them
in 1988 because of their continuous cultivation by the same families
since at least 1787, the year of the signing of the U.S. Constitution.
Each plantation is a National Register site, and in 2001 the National
Park Service also recognized each as a National Historic Landmark.

Consistent with the National Park Service planning process, a General
Management Plan (GMP) is being prepared by the Denver Service Center
(DSC), the agency's major planning facility (NPS 2000). By formulating
broad guidance on interpretation and cultural and natural resource
management, the GMP will help set the stage for managing and developing
park facilities and programs over the next several years. Interest in
the people traditionally associated with Magnolia is basic to planning.
It is also a basic National Park Service policy to consider the
present-day peoples whose ways of life and cultural identity are
traditionally linked to park cultural and natural resources. Systematic
ethnographic or anthropological investigation is the expected vehicle
for gaining insights into contemporary peoples and concerns (1988
Management Policies, Chapters 2, 5; Directors Order #28, Chapter 5:
Ethnographic Resources 1997).

Limited social science information existed about the historic Cane River
area and its people (e.g., Mills 1977, Cohen 1984), particularly about
Magnolia. To fill that gap, the park arranged for planning-oriented
studies on Magnolia's archeology (NPS 1999a), history (Malone 1996), and
cultural landscapes (Lawliss et al. 1996). A study of Creoles of color
in the nearby Isle Brevelle farming community in the heritage area was
underway (e.g., Gregory and Moran 1996). But information about the
people who once lived and worked at Magnolia itself remained meager.
This data gap, coupled with the evident social complexity of Magnolia
and the need for community input into planning, troubled the planners,
the former Cane River Creole superintendent, the Jean Lafitte staff
associated with establishing the new park, and the Washington office
ethnographer. They recognized the need to consult people whose
traditional and varied associations to Magnolia would contribute rich
and potentially hidden dimensions to the planning dialogue. Too often,
community people who are not specialists in historic preservation or
related professions avoid the public meetings that offer opportunities
to participate in the planning process. As a result, their voices tend
to remain muted and both they and the resources they value invisible.
These considerations prompted the decision to conduct a rapid cultural
anthropology or ethnographic study that would find and reach out to the
otherwise silent or absent players.

## THE STUDY

This report addresses the people associated with the resources now under
National Park Service management. Whether they are the Hertzog family of
owner-managers or tenant laborers and farmers, they have important
stories to tell. Their different voices speak of their own pasts,
community and work in the mid-20^th^ century, and survival in the face
of political, natural, economic, and technological challenges. This
work, however, is a modest "starter" ethnography. Its aim is to sketch
the context for life at Magnolia and make certain voices more audible
and traditionally valued places more visible. We hoped the outcomes
would advance the ethnographic research on living communities called for
in section 304 (e) of the park legislation. To accomplish this within
our limited funds and time, we sought peoples' perspectives on their
past and present lives, and their views on park planning and
interpretation. People experience, interpret, and report events in
different ways because they occupy different places in the social and
ethnic or racial hierarchies and play correspondingly different economic
or political roles (cf. Bond and Gilliam 1994). This reality prompted us
to meet a range of people who might share their varying perspectives, or
constructions of the recent past, and expectations of the National Park
Service. Trying to be inclusive, we sought African American, or "black"
people as they usually said, and Creoles of color, or they might say
Creoles, who traced their ancestry to African and French people,
possibly to American Indian, and perhaps to Chinese immigrants, as well.
Other interviewees were white people, including the Hertzog family, who
traced their ancestry to French Creole.

## CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGICAL NOTE

## SCOPE OF WORK

The study goals reflected discussions among NPS staff, including Joan
DeGraff, then a DSC planner, and the previous park superintendent, Randy
Clement. In late May, 1996, Dr. Muriel (Miki) Crespi of the National
Archeology and Ethnography Program in Washington, D.C. and Ms. Allison
Peña, Anthropologist at Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and
Preserve in New Orleans, met with the staff of the Social Science
Department at Northwestern State University (NSU). Anthropologist Dr.
Hiram (Pete) Gregory, historian Dr. Ann Malone, and historian Ms. Susan
Dollar participated. We discussed the goals and methods of Rapid
Ethnographic Assessment Procedures (REAP), which was the originally
intended research paradigm, the park data needs, and use of Jean
Lafitte's Cooperative Agreement with Northwestern State University as a
mechanism for accessing field assistance.

The group agreed on the need to address these general topics:

-   identification of associated ethnic groups, activities, and
    settlements relevant to understanding Magnolia;

-   places, or ethnographic resources, in and around Magnolia considered
    special to peoples' ethnic history and identity;

-   the ties people perceived between certain places and their own and
    their groups' past;

-   ways of life believed to be most related to cultural and natural
    resources in and around Magnolia;

-   aspects of culture and history park visitors should know in order to
    understand Magnolia's qualities and the materials, such as letters
    and photographs, that would convey the messages; and

-   techniques such as exhibits, cultural events, and music or food
    festivals that could involve local people in presenting Magnolia's
    special qualities to visitors.

We refined these topics during research, an iterative process in which
researchers modify their questions to reflect the new information
acquired in the course of study; as questions are asked and answered
they tend to stimulate new lines of inquiry. Questions were also
adjusted to consider peoples' different ethnicity, age, gender, and
relationships to the Magnolia land and labor force. We also asked people
what they thought the National Park Service should avoid saying or
doing. Additionally, the pivotal role of slavery in driving the
traditional plantation and National Park Service interest in
interpreting the quarters made questions about this political/labor
system essential. We regret the discomfort questions of slavery caused
some people.

The National Park Service expected to conduct a Rapid Ethnographic
Assessment Procedure (REAP) in cooperation with NSU field researchers.
The REAP is an abbreviated intense field investigation that can satisfy
the quite specific planning needs and deadlines of the National Park
Service (Directors Orders 28 and Cultural Resource Guidelines, Chapter
5: Ethnographic Resources 1997). Its value to the National Park Service
had already been demonstrated (cf. Low 1995, Williams 1998). A team
approach is essential to the technique (cf. Beebe 1995), but,
unfortunately, no such team could be established. Unexpected
administrative, scheduling, and other complications prevented the timely
development of a research team with coordinated methods, tasks, and
priorities. Instead, although the brief time originally allocated to
fieldwork could not be changed and the original research topics remained
the same the National Park Service researcher and the Northwestern State
University researchers conducted two sequential, related, yet somewhat
different projects. Funding came from two sources. The Denver Service
Center covered the University costs whereas the National Archeology and
Ethnography Program paid Dr. Crespi's field expenses and salary during
fieldwork, analysis and write-up.

## PROJECT PERSONNEL

Several people contributed directly to this study:

Ms. Allison Peña, Anthropologist for Jean Lafitte National Historical
Park and Preserve and expert in community outreach, helped identify
consultants in urban Natchitoches and oriented Miki Crespi to the park
and the area. She prepared and managed the Cooperative Agreement, CA
7029-4-0014, between Jean Lafitte and Northwestern State University,
which was the vehicle for accessing University field assistance. She
supported this work from its inception and commented in detail on the
several drafts.

Dr. Muriel (Miki) Crespi is a cultural anthropologist and Chief
Ethnographer for the National Park Service, Washington D.C. She has
studied Latin American plantations and haciendas, conducted research in
the United States, and introduced the concept of Rapid Ethnographic
Assessment to the National Park Service. She was primarily responsible
for developing this research project and conducting Magnolia interviews.
She was alone responsible for analyzing data and preparing this research
report.

Ms. Susan Dollar is a longtime Natchitoches resident with a M.A. in
History from Northwestern State University. She reviewed the draft scope
of work, conducted individual and group interviews, identified archival
materials, and annotated a bibliography of relevant historical works.
For this study, she reported to Dr. Ann Malone.

Ms. Dayna Bowker Lee has a M.A. in Anthropology from Northwestern State
University and is a doctoral candidate in Anthropology at the University
of Oklahoma. She conducted individual and group interviews and
identified religious and recreational sites in the heritage area. For
this study, she reported to Dr. Pete Gregory.

Ms. Barbara Anne (B.A.) Cohen, a photographer, ceramist, graphic artist,
and Cane River native whose family once owned Lakeview Plantation, which
adjoins Magnolia, helped identify community consultants, organized group
interviews, and shared her insights into the local culture.

Mr. Randy Clement is former Superintendent of Cane River Creole NHP. He
helped identified community consultants and relevant heritage sites,
reviewed draft materials, and encouraged and supported this project
since its inception.

Dr. Hiram (Pete) Gregory is an anthropologist on the faculty of the
Northwestern State University Social Science Department and expert on
Louisiana's American Indian archeology and history. He reviewed the
draft scope of work and shared his insights about local cultures. He
supervised Dayna Bowker Lee's work for this project and commented on the
draft report.

Dr. Ann Malone is an historian, expert in Louisiana plantation systems,
and then-faculty member in the Northwestern State University Social
Science Department. She reviewed the draft scope of work and shared her
insights about the area. She guided Miki Crespi and Allison Peña on an
informative tour of major rural churches and supervised Susan Dollar's
work on this project.

## FIELD RESEARCH

Field research began in the Summer of 1996 and continued intermittently
through the Fall. Miki Crespi spent a total of about 38 days in the
field, starting with four days at the end of May and beginning of June,
another 12 days between the end of June and beginning of July, six days
at the end of August, and seven days at the end of September. She spent
several additional days in Natchitoches in December 1996 and made brief
trips in 1997 and 1998. Additional information came during interviewing
in 1999 on the Oakland component. Crespi also made brief trips in 2001
to review the draft report with community members. Dayna Bowker Lee and
Susan Dollar initiated work early in September 1996 and interviewed
intermittently until the end of November, each one working for about 30
days and usually conducting interviews together.

Lengthy open-ended interviews were a major research tool. Local
diversity (see Figure 2) compelled us to interview a cross-section of
ethnic groups, working with white people, including French Creole, black
people, and Creoles of color with long-term associations to Magnolia.
Although the census categories did not identify groups who defined
themselves as being racially and culturally mixed, such as Creoles of
color, they had been highlighted through personal experience and
publications (e.g., Mills 1977). American Indian people, people of
French/Indian descent, and other residents of Kisatchie "hill"
communities were considered potential interviewees if time allowed and
initial interviewing indicated their importance to Magnolia.
Unfortunately, time did not allow systematic interviews of Kisatchie
residents, but casual conversation occurred with an Apalachee man and
Crespi met with the Clifton Choctaw Tribe after the Magnolia study
formally closed.

Our interviewees represented a sample of convenience, rather than a
random sample, and took on aspects of a network sample as individuals
suggested other interviewees and concurred on several who were thought
to be especially knowledgeable about local history. Identifying and
personally contacting Magnolia's black and Creole former residents
proved to be a time-consuming and formidable challenge. The last
resident laborers had left Magnolia about three decades ago as the rural
exodus prompted by mechanization drew to a close. Crespi later learned
about several former Magnolia sharecroppers who had remained nearby but
could only briefly interview one. Some families had relocated to urban
Natchitoches, others moved elsewhere in Louisiana, such as Alexandria.
Some went to Houston, Texas, but many left the state for more distant
locales such as Chicago and Los Angeles. Initial leads to former
residents, including white overseers, came from Magnolia owners Betty
Hertzog and her cousin Ambrose Hertzog. B.A. Cohen provided additional
leads. Researchers Susan Dollar, who had previously worked with Pete
Gregory and Ann Malone, and Dayna Bowker Lee, who also worked with Pete
Gregory, drew on contacts among Creoles of color in the heritage area
and added others.

We conducted interviews of from one to three hours each with a total of
39 individuals: 16 black, 14 French Creole and other whites, 8 Creoles
of color, and 1 Clifton Choctaw person. Many interviews were audio taped
as well. The locales for these interviews varied. Some were conducted in
the city, others in Derry and Cat Island, and a few at Magnolia,
Cloutierville, and Alexandria. More casual discussions lasting from
about 20 minutes to an hour were held with nine more individuals, four
white, three black, one Creole, and one American Indian (Apalachee). A
few briefer telephone interviews were conducted with white individuals
who lived in Shreveport, a black resident of Derry who we were unable to
meet personally, and a black former Magnolia resident now living in
Houston.

Group interviews were conducted as well, resulting in contact with
another 14 people. Four groups of Creoles of color met in Derry, Isle
Brevelle or Cat Island; two groups had three people each and one had
five participants. One group of three black people from St. Andrews
Baptist Church met in Derry. Taken together, considering only extended
individual and group interviews, we contacted and formally interviewed
53 people: 19 black, 19 Creole of color, 14 French Creole or other
white, and one American Indian. Several individuals were interviewed a
few times. To orient interviewees to the NPS, before park brochures had
been prepared, we distributed copies of the National Park Service Map
and Guide showing the location of Cane River Creole NHP and examples of
brochures from other plantation parks and parks celebrating African
Americans.

Crespi focused on French Creole and other white people and on black
people directly associated with Magnolia. White people included the
Hertzog family at Magnolia and kin in Alexandria, and former residents
of neighboring Lakeview Plantation. In urban Natchitoches she
interviewed former overseers or supervisors and their family, and
several businessmen and preservationists. Crespi interviewed black
former Magnolia tenant laborers, one black sharecropper family working
on "halves," and one Creole of color sharecropper working as a "renter,"
or on "a fourth," some now living in urban Natchitoches or Alexandria.
Most interviewees were also asked to indicate places of importance on a
schematic map of Magnolia. On several occasions she also walked the
quarters area with former residents who had been born and raised there.
She visited the Kisatchie Hills to meet with a representative of the
state-recognized Clifton Choctaw Tribe and incorporated her findings
here.

Dayna Bowker Lee worked in tandem with Susan Dollar to identify and
interview individuals and groups, primarily in the National Heritage
Area from Cat Island in Derry, Isle Brevelle, and Cloutierville. This
represents part of Magnolia's larger social context. Creoles of color
were especially important, but they also interviewed white people and
black people. They asked interviewees to identify the locales of
particularly important religious and educational facilities, ferry
landings, and recreational sites, especially bars, race tracks and
baseball fields in the heritage area, and schematically mapped them (see
Figure 3). Dollar also worked in the Cammie G. Henry Research Center at
the University where she reviewed, photocopied, and annotated relevant
archival materials. They met once briefly with Crespi in early September
and briefly with Crespi and Peña later that month. All four communicated
through occasional telephone calls and e-mail. Lee and Dollar sent
Crespi a brief summary of their interviews and, starting in November,
draft transcriptions of interviews. By early 1997, draft transcriptions
of all audio tapes were completed and sent to Crespi for use in
preparing the subsequent draft planning report. In 1999, Crespi
submitted a draft to the planners at the Denver Service Center, to the
park and to others (NPS 1999b). This report refines and slightly expands
the draft.

## COMMUNITY REVIEW

In February 2001, Crespi sent interviewees copies of the final draft
report for their last review and comments. Visiting Natchitoches from
February 23 to March 2, she reviewed the draft on-site with several
black families, the Hertzogs and other white families, and a few
individual Creoles of color. The reviewers suggested additional nuances
that were not clearly evident before, shared new insights and
recollections, and corrected some names, maps, and dates. They also
supported the impressions and conclusions conveyed by the draft. During
another brief trip in July 2001, Crespi toured the Magnolia Big House
and revisited the quarters with several former residents, further
enriching her understandings. She greatly appreciated the interest and
support shown by the Magnolia community and, in common with her
anthropological peers, reaffirms the importance of working in tandem
with the people who generously share their lives with the cultural
researchers who come into their midst and leave, changed, in many ways,
for the better.

## CHAPTER 3: MAGNOLIA'S ETHNIC CONTEXT

Understanding the social universe people construct and participate in
requires us to consider several kinds of information. One involves the
way people organize themselves into social units such as family,
friends, ethnic or heritage and racial groups, and class. Another kind
is the terms or labels people use for the ethnic, racial, and other
social categories they create. These categories and labels often have
dynamic pasts and problematic presents, especially in multicultural
societies where power relationships among various groups help shape the
social universe. This section considers the ways people deal with
ethnicity, ancestry, and race. Background information came from several
sources, including publications and recent census data. More information
came from listening to and analyzing peoples' comments about themselves
and their interactions with neighboring individuals and communities.
Ideally, systematic field observations of interactions among diverse
peoples would have yielded important insights, but limited time in the
field eliminated this possibility.

## BACKGROUND ON ETHNIC DIVERSITY 

As the Europeans colonized the Americas, the region they came to call
the "New World," they devised, assigned, and manipulated numerous social
categories and terms for the people they met and later helped propagate.
The early French, like the Spanish and Portuguese, developed at least
two bases for categorizing people. One, "blood line" or supposed racial
ancestry, was believed to be reflected in a person's physical appearance
and socioeconomic circumstances, as Wagley's (1968) classic article
notes and Dominguez (1986) elaborates on. Nationality or birthplace was
a second basis.

Considering "blood" or supposed racial ancestry first, it is likely that
the earliest arriving Europeans and Africans were visibly and readily
distinguishable from each other and from American Indians. This soon
changed as people mated across social lines and women bore offspring
whose appearances differed from their parents. The European response to
these developments was to create a system for categorizing each kind of
offspring into named categories that supposedly represented the
individual's degree of white, black, and Indian "blood" or racial
ancestry. Throughout Latin America the Spaniards called offspring of an
indigenous and Spanish person a mestizo; the French in Canada called
their offspring with indigenous people the metis. In Brazil the
Portuguese called offspring of unions with indigenous people the
mamelucos, and of unions with Africans, the mulatto. Dominguez (1986:24)
notes that 18^th^ century New Orleans residents also called the
offspring of African slaves and French, or other European, unions
mulatre(sse) or mulattos. Because they usually gained their freedom, the
Louisiana "mulattos" were nearly synonymous with "Gens de couleur libre"
or "free people of color." American Indians probably contributed as well
to the complex mulatto ancestry (Dorman 1995:167).

Europeans continued to label new generations of people of mixed
parentage by their imputed degree of European, African, and Indian
"blood," necessarily inventing dozens of categories to describe the
increasingly complex population. Quadroon, or person supposedly of 1/4
black ancestry and 3/4 white, and octoroon, or person supposedly of 1/8
black ancestry, for example, became familiar terms in Louisiana. Around
19^th^ century Natchitoches, "redbone" was also heard to describe the
offspring of American Indian, African, and European unions (Shugg
1939:49). Certain physical features, such as skin color, hair texture
and color, finger-nail color and so on, were considered visible clues to
an individual's ancestry that enabled even casual observers to identify
a person's supposed racial ancestry.

The new European-dominated societies accorded the greatest esteem to
persons who seemed to be white, that is, looked European, and seemed to
carry "pure blood." The whiter a person appeared, the greater their
opportunities for advancement, and the higher they were in the social
hierarchy. Certain occupations and political or social rank, as well as
dress and speech patterns, came to be associated with each of the ethnic
or ancestry categories. Endogamy, or marriage within the group, helped
consolidate wealth and power among people of the same category.
Louisiana's Civil Codes supported the social distinctions by attempting
to define ancestry and, during some periods, prohibiting interracial
marriages and even miscegenation or sexual relations between persons of
different ancestry. Sumptuary rules also prohibited some groups from
using certain features of dress while requiring them to wear others.
Dominguez (1986:25) notes, for example, Louisiana's 18^th^ century code
requiring free women of color to wear kerchiefs (tignons) to distinguish
them, at first glance, from "pure-blooded" whites. Persons of mixed
ancestry fell between the hierarchical extremes of white and black on
the basis of power and prestige. Educated, skilled, and sometimes
encouraged by their white progenitors, persons of mixed descent might
have ran middle-sized farms and specialized businesses and practiced
crafts either rejected by whites or inaccessible to enslaved black
people. In some instances, as Mills (1977) describes for Isle Brevelle
in Cane River, free people of color were quite successful. Affluent
tradesmen and landowners with extensive plantations, manor houses, and
slave laborers, they were business associates of local white planters.
Less regarded were enslaved black people whose knowledge and skills made
them a desirable but vulnerable work force.

Attempts to biologically categorize and segregate people in different
social levels, sometimes called "castas," eventually collapsed of its
own weight. Despite legal restrictions, sexual relations across social
boundaries continued in successive generations, resulting in offspring
whose appearances challenged the stereotypic distinctions and visual
clues to ancestry. Identifying peoples' supposed racial ancestry on the
basis of "blood" or physical appearance became unworkable, except
perhaps at the extremes of "white" or "black" skin color. Eventually,
the many unwieldy categories that had proliferated for people of mixed
ancestry merged into a single labeled group. "Mulatto" survived in this
country, while mestizo and metis were common elsewhere. Other racial
terms also continued in use, along with legal definitions of ancestry
(Dominguez 1986). Informally, the social characteristics associated with
the different "races" gained importance in identifying supposed
ancestry. Physical characteristics, such as skin color or hair texture,
were not completely ignored but were interpreted in different ways
depending on their configuration and the social context. Wherever this
system prevailed, persons might change their "race" and social label by
strategically modifying their social and economic circumstances (cf.
Crespi 1975).

The process of "race change" usually involved the acquisition of new
occupations, dress, and speech styles characteristic of higher
socioeconomic classes. People might also take surnames that had
traditionally signaled a socially elevated "race." People who choose to
"pass" or transform their ethnicity, for example, from mulatto to white,
known in Louisiana as "passablanc," must, however, deny their parentage
or leave their community of birth for places where their parentage and
ancestry are unknown (cf. Dominguez 1986:161). Public ignorance of one's
parentage was crucial to successful, acceptable passing. The
transformation involves modifying the outward signs of social status and
the acquisition of a new racial or ethnic label, but the individual's
genetic and physical features remain unchanged. This use of racial
labels to describe a person's or group's social characteristics, coupled
with the potential for shifting one's ethnic identity from one labeled
category to another, led Wagley (1968) to suggest the concept of "social
race." The idea is that social categories with racial labels actually
reflect social or class considerations more than, or as much as, any
aspect of biological ancestry.

National origin or birthplace became a second basis for categorizing
people, as Dominguez' (1986) analysis of the history and use of "Creole"
shows. Briefly, creole in French, criollo to Spanish speakers, and
crioulo to Portuguese described the first generation of people born in
the New World. A politically loaded term, it highlighted distinctions
between the people who were native-born and their parents, citizens of
Spain or France. Under colonial conditions, Spanish or French nationals
often enjoyed greater power than their offspring. The Caribbean and
other New World offspring of African-born people were also called
Creole, Midlo Hall (1992:157-158) notes, to distinguish them as a
"seasoned" group from their African-born parents or newly arrived
slaves. Starting, then, with the French occupation of Louisiana,
"creole" meant local or native origin, that is, nationality rather than
biological race (cf. Brasseaux, Fontenot, and Oubre 1994). Successive
generations of American-born offspring who traced their ancestry to
Europe or Africa also came to be called "Creole." Dominguez
(1986:100-103) notes that political and demographic changes evident
during the Spanish occupation of Louisiana (1768-1803) and following the
American purchase of Louisiana in 1803 later added new ethnic groups to
the population mix. Local terminology changed accordingly. In southern
Louisiana it expanded to include Acadians from Canada, later called
Cajuns, Spanish-speakers or Islenos from the Canary Islands, and Haitian
Creoles. "Anglo-American" came to describe other newcomers, especially
from the eastern U.S. About the same time, U.S. stewardship over
Louisiana and changing attitudes towards race began prompting a decline
in the relatively high status Louisiana's free people of color had
enjoyed. The three-tiered society of white, mulatto, and black gave way
in many respects to a two-tiered one of colored (black and mulatto) and
white.

The Creole category, like the racial categories, took on cultural and
social features. In time, birthplace or nationality was no longer its
single identifying feature. The French and Spanish language and
Catholicism, for example, became more closely or self-consciously
associated with Creole identity in contrast to Anglo-American
characteristics such as Protestantism and English speech. Later in the
mid-19^th^ century "Creole" began to imply two distinct social groups
rather than the more general "born in the New World." Free people of
color, that is, people of mixed ancestry, began considering themselves a
distinct ethnic community of Creoles of color (Mills 1977; Dormon
1996:xi). Meanwhile, partly to distinguish themselves from the in-coming
Anglo-Americans who were new competitors for power, white
French-speakers began describing themselves as the ancienne population
or original settlers (Dominguez 1986:113). Following the Civil War and
Reconstruction, white French or Spanish descendents began vigorously
pursuing, what I would call, the "whitening" of "Creole." In an attempt
to take ownership of the term, they hoped to redefine "creole" so that
it applied exclusively to them (cf. Dominguez 1986:146). What had
started as a generic term for all people born in the New World began to
assume new meanings.

The reinterpretation process has been incomplete, as will be shown. In
some regions of Louisiana, and the Natchitoches area seems to be one,
racially or ethnically mixed people who assert their claim to "Creole"
identity, albeit Creole of color in preference to the term "mulatto,"
might find themselves challenged by those who call themselves French
Creole. The earlier competition over the right to use "Creole" persists
among some white Louisianans who perceive the term as exclusively and
legitimately describing their own racial ancestry and unique culture.

### Ethnicity in the Natchitoches Census 

In Natchitoches, the 1990 census (see Figure 2) tends to obscure ethnic
diversity. The data put the Natchitoches Parish population at 37,377,
with 40% calling itself Black and 57% White. Most of the remaining 3%
includes White Hispanics, followed by American Indian, Eskimo, and
Aleut. American Indian is the largest of these three. The urban parish
seat of Natchitoches has a population of 16,609, almost equally divided
between Black (49%) and White (48%), with the remaining 3% divided among
Black Hispanics, White Hispanics, and American Indian, Eskimo, Aleut,
and others. These figures are misleading for the purposes of
understanding the local ethnic context because an important group, which
defines itself as Creoles of color, is not separately enumerated. The
1990 census gave people limited ethnic/racial choices. People defining
themselves as Creoles of color were forced to choose between assigning
themselves to the white category, or the black, although they would have
preferred a category describing their mixed genetic ancestry and
cultural heritage. No estimate of their number is attempted here, but
they should be acknowledged as representing an important segment of
urban Natchitoches and the Parish population in general.

The census does not suggest the minor scale ethnic diversity that
influenced the population in the mid-to-late 19^th^ and early 20^th^
century when people of Jewish heritage and those of Chinese heritage
contributed to the local genetic and cultural make-up. Evidence suggests
that although individuals might represent these categories and be aware
of their ethnic heritage, they do not presently constitute
self-conscious visible ethnic entities. Dr. Lucy Cohen, who studied the
Chinese in Natchitoches Parish (1984), suggested (personal communication
1996) that intermarriage and acculturation of the small number of
Chinese men precluded formation of a persistent group. The Jewish
community, once large and prosperous enough to have constructed a major
synagogue in urban Natchitoches, now has little public visibility. Most
members had relocated or intermarried and, in some cases, assimilated
into Christian groups. The remaining practicing members might attend
synagogue in nearby cities, such as Alexandria or Shreveport. In some
cases, the continued use of recognizably Jewish surnames is more
indicative of family history than present religious affiliation. Still,
the locked Jewish cemetery on 5^th^ Street continues to be groomed,
indicating the presence of caring individuals or families, if not an
identifiable social group. Occasionally, people also mentioned
"Americans," "Anglos," or "Yankees" as an ethnic category that became
important after the Louisiana Purchase and more so after the Civil War
when northerners and Protestants arrived in some number.

FIGURE 1: 1990 U.S. CENSUS: ETHNICITY

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### Hill Residents and Cane River Residents

Cane River people seemed to sort local populations into two major
geographical categories, people of the hills or the Kisatchie National
Forest and people of lower-lying Cane River areas. Geography and
ecology, resources uses, occupations, speech, character, and ethnic
heritages were bundled together to mark "hill" occupants as a single
identifiable group, separate from Cane River people. The hilly uplands
are home to the state-recognized Clifton Choctaw Tribe, to Creoles of
color, and to whites, some of them descended from the French, and others
with Indian, French, Creole of color, and African American ancestry.
People also came into the area with the sawmills and timber companies
that penetrated the pineries before the 1930 establishment of Kisatchie
National Forest. Some newcomers had remained after the "cut out and get
out" timbering ideology resulted in first stripping the forests, then
shutting down the sawmills with their associated company towns. Several
towns had been close to, or in, the Cane River area, along the railroad
line: Derry, which adjoined Magnolia to the west, Montrose in Red Dirt,
at Old River, and Cypress (Burns 1994).

Various activities and interests linked the hill and plantation area.
For example, one Hertzog family member recalls a white family of
basket-makers who came from the hills each spring to Magnolia, and
probably other plantations, to assess the likely market and take orders
for their wares. They returned in the summer with the basket order
filled in time for use in the harvest. For the most part, from the Cane
River perspective, hill occupants are woodsmen and craftsmen with
behaviors, incomes, and homes that lack the evidence of wealth and
gentility believed to characterize lowland people. Reciprocally, hill
residents perceived differences between themselves and people of the
bottom lands (cf. Dunn 1940).

## AMERICAN INDIANS 

Interviewees generally acknowledged American Indians as a special group,
thanks partly to local American Indian efforts to raise awareness
through school programs and annual powwows at Fort St. Jean Baptiste.
American Indians have a long history in the parish and in the Cane River
and Red River areas, although not necessarily at Magnolia Plantation
itself. Keel (NPS 1999a:43) found some sherds there but presently
available evidence does not suggest an intensive or significant early
American Indian occupation. Historically, for the most part, American
Indian people had vacated the parish voluntarily, or sometimes forcibly,
as French, Spanish, and English colonists manipulated tribes and each
other in the attempt to gain control over Louisiana and adjoining
territories. In the process, numerous tribes, including Choctaw and
Apalachee, moved, or were removed, closer to the Caddo areas above
Natchitoches in northwest Louisiana (Gregory 1983). With the start of
the American period in 1803 and the subsequent expansion of plantation
economies, due partly to new technology, especially the cotton gin, the
various remaining tribes relinquished the arable river valley lands.
They moved to the wooded hills and were joined about the same time by
displaced Mississippi Choctaw in the area that later became the
Kisatchie National Forest. Although the later opening of "Indian
territory" in Oklahoma siphoned off many Choctaw, others remained in the
Kisatchie hills to hunt, cultivate small plots, and seek wage labor.

At the close of the 19^th^ century, an expanding timber industry
introduced new opportunities and settlements into the general area.
Lumber camps and lumber towns flourished along the railroad line until
the hills were logged out a few decades later (Gregory 1983).
Depopulation of the company towns, such as Magnolia's neighbor Derry,
accompanied the departure of most timber companies. Many Choctaw
remained in the hills around Clifton, however, where, today, they
cultivate small gardens and farms, ranch, and work in the pulpwood
industry. Relatively recently, the Clifton Choctaw gained formal state
recognition from Louisiana as an American Indian tribe. One of the new
tribal ventures is an experimental tree nursery.

Cane River residents recognize varying degrees of family relationships
to Choctaw and other American Indians. Creoles of color living near
Magnolia mentioned a history of family associations with American
Indians, starting with a pattern of intermarriage that probably began in
the 18^th^ century when Indians could marry other free persons of color
(Mills 1977:85). Some Creole people could identify particular family
members, including grandparents or great-grandparents, who traced their
Indian heritage to marriage with Apalachee or Clifton Choctaw or Choctaw
from the Lake Cotile area and Rapides Parish in general. A few Creoles
cited more immediate family members who recently married into Clifton
Indian families and moved to Clifton. Although the hill and valley
connections seem to have been primarily between Creole of color and
Clifton Choctaw, several black people and whites mentioned black workers
at Magnolia who were believed to have had Indian ancestry. One Clifton
Choctaw tribal member confirmed that family ties existed between the
hill residents and Cane River Creoles of color.

## FRENCH CREOLES AND OTHER WHITE PEOPLE

People who call themselves "white" include those with ancestors from
Natchitoches and elsewhere in Louisiana, from adjoining states and this
country's eastern seaboard, and from France and other European nations.
Their occupations run the gamut from planters to businesspeople,
attorneys or other professionals to public employees. Many are
Protestant, and some are Catholic. Although they might qualify as
Creoles in the oldest sense of the term meaning people born in the New
World, few of this generic white population would call themselves, or be
called, Creole. Generally, whites who assert French, or perhaps Spanish,
ancestry tend to restrict the use of "Creole" to people like themselves.

Natchitoches white Creoles trace their ancestry directly, and almost
exclusively, to old line white French or Spanish families with
identifiably European roots. Catholic and descended from prominent
landowners and planters contemporary French Creole might pursue their
forebears' interests in large-scale agriculture on ancestral lands or
enter the law and other professional and business ranks while also
maintaining an interest in agriculture. They often remain the owners of
architecturally important and elegantly furnished historic town houses
and rural plantation houses or "Big Houses," but do not necessarily
occupy them. In several cases, the considerable costs of maintaining
large historic structures or rehabilitating them with modern plumbing,
electrical lines, and the like have prompted their owners to seek new
uses for these homes in the hope of making them economically
self-sustaining. Some houses have been adapted as Bed and Breakfasts
where guests can drink their morning coffee from cups of exquisite
19^th^ century china. Although potential visitors might find it
unnerving to vacation in former slave quarters, some Creole homeowners
in town have also upgraded and converted these into guest quarters.

In Natchitoches parish, whites of French European ancestry and cultural
heritage, who categorize themselves alone as Creole, use the term
mulatto for the offspring of a black and white union and their
descendants. In the white view, and in Louisiana law as well from the
19^th^ century until 1983, mulattos were considered Negroes if they were
1/32 Negro. Whites might also call them "colored," a generic category
that included blacks. Local whites, who recalled helping people they
called mulatto or colored to complete official school or other forms,
remembered instructing them to check the "black" option when the form
required a racial choice between white and black.

People of color take offense when whites or blacks call them mulatto. As
one Creole of color noted, "maybe back then, you know, after the first
10 children were born, they could be called mulatto, you know, half
black and half white, half one kind and half the other. But we have
French and Spanish, Indian and black now; all kinds of blood." The
speaker preferred to be called Creole of color, or just Creole. As the
people who whites once called "mulatto" increasingly called themselves
Creoles, and as political, economic, and social changes affected local
communities and the tenor of ethnic interrelations, French Creoles
began, perhaps reluctantly, to surrender their exclusive public claim to
"Creole" and French ancestry. Privately they might mourn having to
relinquish their unique claim to an ethnic heritage and status that had
long defined them as special, might even feel under siege from people
who seemed to deprive them of their ethnicity, and might still call
themselves French Creole. Otherwise, in public, they were simply
"white."

## CREOLES OF COLOR

Opinions vary about a preferred designation even among people who reject
being called "mulatto." Many prefer being called Creoles of color, but
some experienced discomfort with, and uncertainty about, that
designation. This is evident in one person's comment that "I ain't never
knew nothing about Creoles until here lately...We always did know that
we were French." Another added, "that's what Mama always told me. The
first time I saw a Creole to recognize one, I didn't know nothing about
it. All I knew was French." She recalled that the first time she heard
the word Creole used to describe people like her, "I walked out of
church. There was a lady that got up there and was talking about the
Creoles...She was from New Orleans somewhere. I was so mad, I got out of
church. I said, I'm not Creole. That was the first time I ever heard
that." Older people explained that "French" is what they were accustomed
to calling themselves and being called by ethnic peers and black people,
although not by whites. Another person offered his more formal
definition of a Cane River Creole as "...a person who has ancestors who
were here when Louisiana was a colony and in French control...their
offspring were Creole." He added, they are "...primarily French and
African whose parents were born here prior to 1803." People felt
strongly about keeping their French heritage visible even in ethnic
labels. They recalled their parents speaking French at home, especially
to disguise certain adult topics of conversation from curious children,
and noted their own failed attempts to understand the language except
for key words. Kinship terms in French remain in use. "We always knew
that we were French," said several who preferred that term over
"Creole," although some would accept "French Creole." Ambiguity about
the label's implications was also evident in at least one Creole comment
about preferring to identify herself as black or Black Creole to avoid
giving the impression of denying the black aspect of their heritage.

Regardless of the particular term they prefer, Creoles of color, or
French, forcefully argue their status as a different race altogether,
not black but not white either. Rather, they perceive themselves as a
race apart, a new and special group that resents being forced to choose
between being called or calling themselves white or black. Several noted
that they have lived elsewhere and might have passed as white, Spanish
or other group, if they wished, but "decided to be what we are." The
sense of a racial or ethnic community, of being a unique group that
differs from whites and blacks, is evident in discussions of marriage
preferences. People noted their parents' strong preference for marriage
into another "French" family as a way to maintain the uniqueness of the
line. Nevertheless, marriage occasionally occurs between Creoles of
color and blacks, sometimes initially creating tension between both
families. Lineage pride also operates among Creoles of color, many of
whom assert their "true" Metoyer ancestry, referring to the 18^th^
century progenitors of the Creole of color line. Some claim direct
descent from the offspring of the French white Creole Claude Thomas
Pierre Metoyer and his long-time companion, the black woman, Marie
Thereze Coincoin (cf. Mills 1977). Their children, especially the eldest
son, Augustin Metoyer, who founded St Augustine Catholic Church in Isle
Brevelle in 1803, are revered. Even if they might be unable to trace
descent directly to the first Augustin Metoyer, some people thought it
important to distinguish their white ancestors from other whites.
Comments about early white ancestors who were planters, not just any
"poor white," with whom "even the slaves would have no relations..."
suggested the value seen in having had landed forebears. Pride in the
Creole identity and strong attachment to place also marked discussions
of returning home to Cane River after a period of absence. Regardless of
where you live or were born, if your parents and their parents are from
Cane River, people said, "you are always from Cane River" and feel
compelled to return.

Although Creoles of color consider themselves a separate "race" or
ethnic and social group, the diverse genetic contributions of different
ancestors necessarily get reshuffled in each birth and generation. This
is often expressed visually in the great color range and other
variations in physical appearance found even within the same family.
Some individuals may be described as "bright" or quite light-skinned,
while their siblings may be dark. Some may have curly hair while their
siblings have dark straight hair; some have blue eyes while their
siblings are hazel or brown-eyed. Individual appearances defy existing
racial stereotypes for both white and black. As one white neighbor of
the Hertzogs said, speaking of a Cloutierville baseball player, "he was
white, no, he was mulatto. Well, sometimes it was hard to tell the
difference." This ambiguity has enabled some people to redefine their
ethnic identities in other locales, distant from Natchitoches, where
their ancestry was unknown or unsuspected and their appearances seemed
to generally satisfy the stereotypic "white" images. Creole interviewees
noted that such cases of "passing" or of redefining one's ancestry as
"white" represented a useful pre-integration strategy to gain access to
otherwise unobtainable opportunities for oneself and one's children.
Within the Natchitoches area, however, especially in Cane River
communities, shifting to another ethnicity or race by denying one's
ancestry was difficult if not impossible because people's genealogy and
parentage tended to be common knowledge and readily verifiable. Locally,
actual or imputed family lines are treated as the most powerful
identifying factors. Even skin color can be irrelevant in determining
status as a Creole in situations where individuals have no choice about
identifying themselves as black, white, or Creole of color. If you were
known to be from a Creole family, as one person said, "then nobody paid
much attention to your color, you were Creole."

"Creole" also carries a class connotation. While recognizing "blood" or
ancestry as a basis for being Creole of color, Creole comments about
lifestyle and land ownership also imply their perception of the Creole
category as a stable middle socioeconomic class with some internal
variations. Despite sharing the Creole designation, the group is not
homogeneous. Creoles recognize social differences, as already noted, for
example, between "true" Metoyer descendents and others. Additional
differences are drawn between Creoles of Upper Cane River, that is,
Bermuda, Cat Island, and Isle Brevelle, and those of Lower Cane River
around, for example, Cloutierville, with a general but fuzzy dividing
line around the dam near the Lakeview/Magnolia line. Interviewees,
primarily people defining themselves as Upper Cane River Creoles,
suggested that economic differences and, more generally, a different
atmosphere existed between the two areas. They thought Upper Cane River
Creoles had become landowners, sometimes important landowners, before
Lower Cane River people had achieved that status. Although some Upper
Cane River people had lost their farms following the Civil War, they
were seen as working the land for other Catholics and running it as if
it was theirs. In contrast, Cloutierville Creoles worked for Protestant
whites who purchased small lots after the Civil War and let Creoles farm
them. Upper Cane River Creoles attended St. Augustine Catholic Church
with a primarily Creole of color congregation and its school, which had
a primarily Creole student body. Other Creoles attended St. John the
Baptist Catholic Church in Cloutierville, which had also had black
members and a large white French Creole congregation. Some Upper Cane
River Creole considered themselves better educated and college educated,
although they also recognized a decline in this difference in recent
years.

Being Creole of color is also seen as a cultural feature reflected in
speech, dress, behavior, religion, festivals, occupation, and so on.
Blacks, whites, and Creoles of color agree that, as a group, Creoles
differ culturally from blacks by religious preference and language
background. Creoles of color are Catholic, but black people usually
belong to Protestant denominations. Linguistically, Creoles of color,
especially older people, speak French and younger ones use or can
respond to key French words, such as kinship terms. A particular cluster
of surnames of French derivation tends to be another indicator of Creole
heritage and a basis for tracing individual and family genealogies.
White French Creole likewise have French surnames but tend to use a
different array. Creoles of color also see themselves distinguished as a
group by their unique local history. Materially, it is reflected in
places, such as the all-Creole community of Isle Brevelle and the mostly
Creole St. Augustine Catholic Church and cemetery. Social practices,
such as in-group marriages, or endogamy, to protect group boundaries and
organizations and activities devoted to the continuation of the Creole
cultural heritage, enhance Creole cultural continuity and visibility.
Additionally, Creoles tend to see their comparatively greater wealth,
entrepreneurial skills, and education as distinguishing them from black
people.

In some respects, Creoles of color and blacks were alike, particularly
in terms of the effects of segregation. As several Creoles ruefully
recalled, "we weren't allowed into Northwestern when we graduated from
high school in the 60s, and we couldn't go into restaurants unless we
sat with the blacks in the back, in the kitchen," the area reserved for
Coloreds.

## BLACK PEOPLE 

The divisiveness of plantation society reverberates in the social
distance that customarily marked relationships between blacks and whites
and blacks and Creoles of color. Possibly the greatest distance
separated blacks and whites, geographically, politically, economically,
and socially. Although boys from the Big House, the overseer's house,
and the quarters sometimes played together and all people might use the
same recreational space at horse races or baseball games, adulthood
widened the social gap between them. One symbol of these gaps is the way
people used, or withheld, titles of respect. Relative standing in the
hierarchy could be surmised, for example, by hearing black people refer
to Magnolia's white owners as "Mr. Matt," "Ms. Sally" or "Ms. Betty,"
but the use of first names or nicknames when white people referred to
and addressed blacks. Exceptions might be made for older trusted help,
such as the black cook or other longtime domestic staff, who whites
might call by a kinship term, "Uncle," for example, or "Aunt," as in
Aunt Martha, the Hertzogs' longtime cook, to indicate familiarity and
respect.

Black people and Creoles of color usually avoided each other's dance
halls and juke joints or bars unless they were prepared to physically
defend their right to be present. They might interact at outdoor events,
however, such as horseraces and baseball games, which were "open" to
everyone. Each also tended to live in different areas when they had the
option. Cat Island and Isle Brevelle were Creole strongholds. At
Magnolia, the quarters were exclusively black, except for one
intermarried couple. Magnolia's sharecropper area north of the Big House
was primarily Creole but included several black families. Informal
visits to each other's homes were rare. Creoles who had attended St.
Matthew public school noted, "you might be friendly with blacks, but you
didn't mix" even if you all came from the same plantation, such as
Magnolia. Each group preferred to sit and play apart to avoid
unpleasantness. As previously noted, Creoles and blacks both disapproved
of intermarriage, partly on religious grounds, although several had
occurred locally. One intermarried couple commented on the keen distress
and disapproval their families expressed when first learning of their
relationship and in the years immediately following their wedding.

Black people, who ordinarily referred to Creoles of color as mulattos or
French, usually are distinguished by membership in Protestant churches,
especially Baptist and Methodist, although membership in Catholic
Churches occasionally occurred. Anglo, more than French surnames, tended
to distinguish them. Several black people, commenting on their peoples'
continuing struggles, expressed pain and anger about being treated by
both whites and Creoles as less than equal. One former Magnolia resident
wondered aloud about the sort of God who could have let that situation
happen. "Why," she asked rhetorically, "did black men hang from the
trees? Why? Because someone thought they were looking at a white woman.
Then they were hung\... When we went to the doctor, we would wait there
from 7 in the morning until 4 in the afternoon because she took all the
white people first, even if they came in last. And its still going on.
Look at David Duke\..."

To their satisfaction, several black people from Magnolia also perceived
a reduction in distinctions between themselves and Creoles of color in
the years since desegregation. School was one reason, they suggested.
Greater mobility for blacks due to more equitable access to educational
and professional opportunities was seen as closing the economic distance
from successful Creoles. Black people were becoming university
professors, successful businessmen, and other professionals. The spatial
separations that had often also characterized housing arrangements on
plantations and in the rural settlements in general have been
diminishing somewhat since the rural exodus and the relocation of blacks
and Creoles, sometimes to the same neighborhood in urban Natchitoches.

## ETHNIC TERMS

In the language of ethnicity, "black," "French Creole" and other
"whites," and "Creoles of color" were considered respectful terms by
each of the three named groups, but alternatives were also heard. Black
people, primarily older people, preferred the term black over
"African-American," whose use is associated with "outsiders" to the
region. One person explained that his color, black, not his African
background, was the basis of his self-definition. Younger people
generally seemed to find "African American" or "black" equally
acceptable for use by themselves and others. Other terms are best
described as "insider" terms that this group reserved for its own use as
symbols of intimacy, shared histories, and camaraderie. Ethnic peers
could use the terms for themselves without apology or discomfort, but
gave others no license to use them. The term "nigger" is a case in
point. Although some black people found the term insulting regardless of
whether the speaker was white or black, others referred to themselves
jokingly, cynically, or self-deprecatingly as "nigger." Occasionally it
was used with irony to emphasize a point in the struggle for greater
equity. Ethnic outsiders who use that term for black people necessarily
changed its quality from one of intimacy to, as blacks saw it, insult.
More often, white people used "black." Sometimes the generic "colored"
was used to describe both black and Creole, a term black people might
find offensive.

The respect term "white" was nearly the only term heard for this
population. Even when the interviewer asked about alternatives, none
were offered except for "honky" and the occupational term "boss."
Conceivably, the rules of inter-ethnic etiquette made blacks and Creoles
of color reluctant to share, with outsiders, their disrespect terms for
relatively powerful local people, if such terms existed at all.

Whites of French ancestry described themselves as French Creole.
"Antique Creole," reminiscent of the 19^th^ century term "ancienne"
population, was occasionally heard to emphasize French ancestry yet
distinguish themselves from racially mixed Creole. Still, most whites
called themselves white.

Creoles of color might use that term, or just "Creole," for themselves,
although older people tended to refer to themselves as "French."
Sometimes we heard the term "bright," and one person mentioned "Black
Creole." The term "Creoles of color" seemed to raise the hackles of some
whites, but "mulatto" or "mulatto Creole" or "colored," which whites
used, offends people who call themselves Creoles of color. Black people
referred to Creoles of color as "French," sometimes "Mulatto" or
"bright," but only rarely as "Creole."

# CHAPTER 4: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC VIEW OF LANDSCAPES

This chapter notes the landscape features that people believe give
meaning to local geography. In the National Park Service, we call these
features "ethnographic resources" because people's comments and
interactions have demonstrated that certain sites, structures, and
natural features are considered heritage resources with traditional
importance in their ethnic histories and identities (1997 Directors
Order #28:10). People may attach meaning, for example, to birthplaces
and communities where they grew up or "came up," and to the places they
worked, played, and worshipped. These tend to be storied places,
associated with and explained by tales about the people and events that
made them special. Acknowledging the diversity of socially complex
societies, the National Park Service also recognizes that "factors such
as people's class, ethnicity and gender may result in the assignment of
diverse meanings to a landscape and its component places" (NPS 1998a).
Not every landscape feature is valued in the same way by different
people.

Magnolia's past and present residents regard the park as a slice of an
extensive landscape sculpted by the different places associated with
their lives. Some places fall within the NPS area, and others are beyond
park limits but still on the plantation grounds. Additional places are
in the general vicinity of the plantation. Taken together, they
represent a core area within which people spent most of their days. This
core is nested within a more inclusive landscape that extends to further
reaches of the heritage area and parish, or even beyond, to places that
Magnolia residents had shared with members of neighboring towns and
plantations.

## EXTENDED LANDSCAPE: URBAN NATCHITOCHES, ALEXANDRIA, AND BEYOND

Management found several locales beyond the parish landscape important.
New Orleans was significant for conducting plantation business and had
been the residence of Dr. Ambrose Hertzog, Mr. Matt's brother, who
practiced medicine there. Family ties and business interests, such as
auctioning plantation herds in the 1950s, also linked Magnolia
management to Alexandria, a city some 32.5 miles to the southeast. It
was not until the rural exodus of the 1940s, 50s, and 60s that
Alexandria gained greater importance to black people as one of the
destinations for outward-bound country people from Magnolia and
environs.

Magnolia residents attached importance to urban Natchitoches. A local
commercial center, plantation managers banked there and, in a lighter
vein, competed for the annual prizes banks awarded to planters who
ginned the first bale of cotton. Magnolia managers re-stocked the
plantation commissary, purchased equipment, and had it serviced at the
Front Street facilities. They also relied on black Natchitoches
entrepreneurs to recruit black seasonal laborers and transport them to
and from Magnolia for the cotton harvest. Early in the 20^th^ century,
Baptist and AME ministers came from Natchitoches to serve the black
Magnolia congregations. Some black Magnolia residents moved temporarily
to Natchitoches for domestic work, but not until the 1940s and 1950s
when cars and trucks facilitated transportation between the city and the
country did Magnolia residents travel there more frequently to shop,
visit, and attend church.

Ecologically, Magnolia is part of an ecosystem that includes the low
valley, created by the rich alluvium deposits of the Cane and Red
Rivers, and, on the western periphery of Natchitoches Parish, the hilly
uplands of Kisatchie National Forest with its abundant pine and oak.
Social and economic links brought the valley and hills together. Blacks
and Creoles of color not only had kin living in the hill towns, they
also depended economically on the hills for sassafras leaves for teas
and gumbo seasoning and thickening. People collected the leaves
themselves or acquired them from kin and other middlemen. Earlier in the
20^th^ century, the household economies of white hill families and the
commercial plantation economies were linked through the plantation needs
for basketry containers and the hill families' production and sale of
baskets. The plantation also met its firewood needs in the upland
pineries when Magnolia wood lots became too reduced to provide adequate
supplies. Kisatchie occasionally provided a refuge for plantation cattle
during Cane River's high water periods. Management and a former cowhand
recall that when the 1945 floods made Magnolia pastures unusable, the
cowhands drove the herd to Red Dirt in the Kisatchie hills, where men
and animals stayed until the waters receded. At another time, even when
cattle could remain at Magnolia during the high water, they grazed in
the hills because the high waters made the lowland grasses inedible,
scaled, and rotten.

## THE CORE AREA 

### Derry, Cloutierville, and Vicinity

Dozens of meaningful places pepper the core area south of urban
Natchitoches from Cane River to the Kisatchie Ranger District. They
include smallholder settlements, ferry landings, schools, Catholic
churches, Protestant churches with their baptismal sites on the banks of
Cane River, former mill towns, and commercial centers (see Figure 1).
Derry, the township within which Magnolia is located, was important for
Magnolia management as well as labor. Management cooperated with the
Derry lumber company in various ways. For example, around 1910, some
people suggested, Magnolia donated land to the Derry Lumber Co. to build
a dam across Cane River and a swimming place complete with a diving
board. In return, the company developed a small island near the dam for
the Hertzogs' use as a campsite for family and guests. The camp, which
replaced a smaller site on the riverbanks, is still in use, although now
as a rental property.

The lumber company also spawned the Derry mill town, just west of
Magnolia. A segregated company town on the railroad line, like other
Louisiana sawmill towns, its resident laborers and specialists depended
on the mill for their homes and livelihood. Derry had the accoutrements
of its trade, such as a kiln to cure timber and a sawmill. It also had
the amenities needed to maintain a stable work force: grist mill,
commissary, school, medical services, boarding houses, and recreational
facilities. Black people from Magnolia's quarters occasionally found
wage work in Derry, where, for example, one of the longtime cooks in the
Magnolia Big House briefly worked. Montrose and other neighboring mill
towns also offered temporary jobs. Management and others also recall a
Catholic chapel located in a grove of Chinaberry trees near the Derry
Bridge, within walking distance of Magnolia's quarters, and constructed
on land, the Hertzogs noted, donated by Fannie Hertzog Chopin, great
aunt of Magnolia's present owners. The land reverted to the Chopin
estate when the chapel was taken down several decades ago.

Whites, including visitors to Magnolia, recalled Derry as "a lively
little town" with recreational facilities they could use, such as a
dance hall, the ubiquitous baseball field, and race track. A popular
outdoor movie theatre, available to everyone, was located behind the
Derry Mercantile restaurant on Highway 1. It ran movies until the 1950s,
recalled Ms. Ruby, who had cooked for the restaurant, a popular lunch
stop, and local landmark. Today, relocated to a nearby site, the
restaurant and the adjoining Metoyer's Arts and Crafts shop are among
the few visible signs of commerce remaining in Derry since the defunct
timber industry and farm mechanization prompted the mid-20^th^ century
exodus.

**Figure 3 is a PDF that can be downloaded at**
<http://www.cr.nps.gov/aad/pubs/studies/pdf/study04fig03.pdf>

Churches and schools in this core area also attracted residents from
various settlements and plantations. For example, black people recall
St. Andrew Missionary Baptist Church (see Figure 4) in Derry and,
opposite it on the Magnolia side of Cane River, the plantation's
formerly standing St. James African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), as
principal religious and social centers as well as partners in community
events. In the early 1940s, a public school was established near St.
Andrew Church for black children. Both churches drew members from
neighboring plantations into the mid-1960s, and St. Andrew continues to
operate today.

![](media/image2.jpeg){width="4.6in" height="2.6104166666666666in"}

Just south of Derry and Magnolia was the town of Cloutierville. Some
people know it as the place where Kate Chopin lived and worked in the
late 1800s on her then-controversial novel, *The Awakening*. Her
residence now houses the Bayou Folk Museum. But most Magnolia and other
rural residents probably know Cloutierville best as the source of
services not available at the plantations. Highway 491 functioned as
Cloutierville's main street. It supported a string of services, mostly
white-owned banks, medical services, barbers, a cotton gin, and several
ample general stores. The LaCaze family owned one and, in 1910, the
Cohens built a large store, which they later sold to the Carnahans. Not
to be outdone by the plantations, or Derry, the town had a racetrack
too. In addition, a multi-purpose "Opera House" that held plays, movies,
and dances had been established with support from the legendary Father
Becker of St. John the Baptist Catholic Church. From 1921 to 1952, this
multifaceted man served not only as the priest but also as a
businessman, entrepreneur, and a State Fire Marshal (Miller 1994).

During its most commercially successful period, from around the start of
the 20^th^ century to the 1950s, Cloutierville catered to the logging
work force, agricultural workers, and managers. The largest merchants
competed briskly for available business, sending school busses, wagons,
or their own trucks around the plantations on Fridays and Saturdays to
collect potential customers. One major store owner gleefully recalled
shoving handbills into open car windows, handing them out, and showering
the Cloutierville exit at Highway 1 with advertisements of his own
weekly specials. Stores were "wide open," or non-discriminatory,
recruiting customers of any ethnicity, and extending credit to trusted
clients and sometimes others, preferring perhaps, to risk losing cash
but gaining loyal new customers. One merchant recalled that Fridays were
days people would seek credit and would get it if they were known, that
is, from his own or a neighboring plantation. Others paid cash, if they
were strangers or people with unknown, unknowable, or unreliable credit
histories. High-risk shoppers lacked established ties to the merchant or
his peers and were not vulnerable to wage garnishing for nonpayment of
debts. In any case, shopping on Saturdays, which often were plantation
paydays, were "cash days" only.

Until segregation gradually ended in the 1960s, blacks, whites, and
Creoles of color necessarily differed in their uses of most
Cloutierville facilities. Bars, for example, unlike stores, tended to be
race-conscious. Blacks were likely to use facilities run by their ethnic
peers and Creoles of color tended to favor bars run by their peers. The
public Cloutierville High School served the white students and, until it
burned, the Springhill High School served the blacks. Two separate
Catholic schools served white children and black children. Church
structures themselves might serve a mixed population to some degree as
did Cloutierville's St. John the Baptist Catholic Church. Consistent
with the architecture of segregation that previously held sway, however,
each group entered St. John's through separate doors and each sat in
separate areas until its remodeling in the 1960s. White Catholics sat in
the center pews, the black Catholics used pews to one side of them, and
Creoles of color occupied the opposite side of the building, each
clustered together in their own group. The Church cemetery was somewhat
more ecumenical earlier in the 20^th^ century, judging from a headstone
that clearly bears the Star of David. On the other hand, St. Davis
Missionary Baptist Church, located on Highway 495 in Cloutierville,
catered to a primarily black congregation that included some Magnolia
laborers.

Several developments in the early-to-mid-20^th^ century converged to
reduce Cloutierville's status as a local economic center and all but
eliminate mill towns such as Derry and Montrose. Large-scale logging
ceased soon after Kisatchie became a National Forest in 1930. This
coupled with the later transformation of plantation economies from
labor-intensive to mechanized production and the increasing focus on
cattle ranching with its reduced labor demands eventually took their
toll. First, the changing resource uses and labor needs pushed rural
workers from the timber industry and led to the close of sawmill towns.
Then, changing agricultural technology with its associated replacement
of men with machines prompted further depopulation of the rural area.
These and other factors curtailed the local need for services and
fostered Cloutierville's commercial decline. The number of Cloutierville
residents declined as well. Although Kate Chopin's home is now the Bayou
Folk Museum, part of the National Heritage Area and a local attraction,
main street is largely marked by structurally and ethnographically
interesting places, including the shells of the bank and general stores,
all sorely in need of repair. Meanwhile, commerce and real estate in
urban Natchitoches benefited from the relocation of rural residents.

Family ties or social and economic interests created social networks
that crossed town and plantation boundaries. Magnolia's cotton was
ginned at the Cohen's place, Lakeview plantation, and Magnolia residents
sometimes bought clothes and supplies at the Cohen's plantation store.
Recreational facilities, such as juke joints, race tracks and baseball
fields, work, and ties of kinship brought Magnolia tenants in contact
with their neighbors and neighboring places, such as Lakeview and
Melrose plantations. Marriage, for example, linked Magnolia laborers to
others from the Cohen's place, and pecan harvests at nearby Melrose
plantation attracted laborers from Magnolia as well as other plantation
communities. Old family ties closely linked the Hertzogs of Magnolia to
the Prud'hommes of Oakland plantation. Schools drew teachers together
from different communities. For example, Ms. Dee Hertzog, wife of
Magnolia's owner-manager, known as "Mr. Matt," taught at Cloutierville
High School and sometimes invited her co-teachers home for dinner.
Communication throughout the area was also facilitated by the principal
waterway, Cane River, which was dotted with ferry crossings and foot
bridges that facilitated transportation during most seasons to churches,
schools, plantations, and towns along the same or opposite river banks.

North of Magnolia and the neighboring Lakeview plantations is the
Melrose area. An area heavily populated by Creoles of color, Melrose
plantation is the legendary holding of French Creole Thomas Pierre
Metoyer and his companion, the black Marie Thereze Coincoin. Nearby on
Highway 484 is St. Augustine Catholic Church. Started by their eldest
son, St. Augustine tends to serve the Upper Cane River communities as
well as urban Natchitoches, especially, but not exclusively, Creoles of
color. The Creole of color community perceives this Church, along with
Cloutierville's St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, as principal
spiritual, educational and community centers. Recreational facilities
also line Highway 119 around Melrose where numerous clubs are located.

Until closing in the late-1980s, a public high school adjoining St.
Matthew Baptist Church, north of Melrose, drew Creoles of color and
blacks from the surrounding countryside**.** Some Creole children
attended parochial school at St. Augustine or in Cloutierville, Baton
Rouge, Shreveport, or New Orleans.

### Magnolia

Magnolia plantation stretches over 2000 acres and had included another
nearly 19 acres now in parklands (see Figure 3). Together, the area is
mostly fertile bottomlands that support agriculture, especially cotton,
and pastures, and had supported orchards and considerable timberlands at
an earlier period. Culturally important places punctuate the entire
area. Many are aligned with the riverfront with ready access to numerous
ferry crossings and Highway 119, fronting the work area, or to Highway
1, located just to the west. The landscape is described here in terms of
three locales, the parklands themselves, off-park plantation lands with
places that were integral to the plantation community, and places that
served the community but were found off the park and the plantation.

Black people and whites generally agreed on the importance of several
landscape features. Former residents of the quarters, as well as the
Hertzog family and neighbors, for example, commented on the Hertzog
campsite and the dam and noted the plantation store. They all also
mentioned activities associated with the former stiles, the ascending
and descending steps that had been built over fences dividing the corral
from the quarters, and the road from the farm buildings, so that people
and small animals could cross them. Everyone agreed on the importance of
the Big House, farm structures, and the quarters. Other resources were
readily named or recalled by the people most closely associated with
them. Black people, for example, spoke enthusiastically of the AME
church, the site of former deacon's home, the flowering trees and
bushes, and the gardens that once grew near their homes in the quarters.
They identified their own and their neighbors' homes in the quarters.
Residents of the Big House commented on the Catholic chapel in the rear
gallery of the Big House and the Derry chapel.

#### Parklands 

A tree-lined alley separates the Big House and the main plantation from
the parklands. There on the parklands are the pigeonnier and the work
area holding most of the outbuildings, such as the commissary or
plantation store, blacksmith shop, stable, the gin, and other features
of the farm operational and labor community. The large multi-room
cottage of bousillage construction that served as the slave hospital in
1858 is there too (see Figure 5). It became the landowner's temporary
home while the Big House, burned-out in the Civil War, was later
reconstructed. In the 20^th^ century it was the overseer's house. Rising
above nearby structures, it represented the owners' authority and a
permanent white presence in an otherwise black occupied area. Nearby, in
another section, are the quarters, the black community site built to
house enslaved workers, later occupied by day laborers, and now
consisting of two adjacent rows of four red brick cabins each.

![](media/image3.jpeg){width="3.8986111111111112in"
height="2.6055555555555556in"}

> **Figure 5.** SLAVE HOSPITAL, LATER OVERSEER'S HOUSE. Photo: D.
> Fricker.

Natural features recalled on parklands include:

-   Chinaberry or China ball trees (bot. *Melia azedarach*) produced
    small brown cherry-sized balls. People in the quarters used them to
    prepare medicinal teas to de-worm children and for adults with
    fevers. Children also used the fruit balls recreationally as shot in
    their popguns. The trees were found at the northern and southern
    parts of the quarters and in the work area behind the plantation
    store.

-   Juju or jujube trees, sometimes also called zizis trees, (bot.
    *ziziphus jujube*) bear round date-like fruit that became edible
    once they ripened and turned reddish. People in the quarters used
    them to prepare jelly and wine. The trees were found near the
    quarters and farm buildings.

-   Sassafras bush (bot. *Sassafras albidum*) had leaves that were dried
    and universally used for teas and as a thickening agent and
    seasoning for gumbo. They were found in the fields behind the
    quarters.

-   Blackberry (bot**.** *Rubus*) bushes produced berries that people in
    the quarters used in preparing table wine. Some bushes were found
    behind the blacksmith shop.

-   Peach (bot. *Prunus persica*) and plum (bot**.** *Prunus* ) trees
    were behind the quarters. Fruits were picked and jarred.

-   Pecan trees (bot. *Carya illinoensis*) in the quarters and farm
    operational center provided nuts collected by residents of the
    quarters primarily for their own consumption in pies and candies.

Community features on parklands include:

-   the plantation bell, now stored for protection, was rung at the
    store to signal the start and end of the work day, and critical
    events;

-   the quarters with their gardens and rain barrels;

-   the stiles (no longer standing) that bridged the fences in the
    quarters and farm work area;

-   the overseer's house; and,

-   ![](media/image4.jpeg){width="2.0104166666666665in"
    height="3.25in"}the plantation store.

Farm structures on parklands include:

-   the cotton gin;

-   the barn; and,

-   the blacksmith's workshop and adjacent grist mill.

#### Off-Park Plantation Lands

Dominating the horizon is the main house or the Big House, the
plantation control and command center as well as home to its
owner-managers (Figure 6). Surrounded by a lush flower garden and facing
an avenue of cooling live oak and magnolia trees, the Big House is a
gracious galleried structure built in 1896 or 1899 to replace the one
burned by Union soldiers (NPS 1998b). It is a stately reminder of the
care and costs invested by generations of Hertzog family owners and the
work of generations of laborers. Nearby, is the contemporary-style home
Dr. Hertzog built in 1976, which is presently occupied by his widow and
son.

North of the Big House and along Highway 119 are additional physical
remains of the larger Magnolia community (see Figure 9). Barely standing
walls, almost hidden with foliage, rubble heaps, still-flowering crepe
myrtle trees and plants, and majestic live oaks, mark the house sites of
former occupational specialists, just north of the Big House, along
Highway 119. The site of the former St. James AME Church along with its
kitchen outbuilding, baptismal site, and rutted parking lot follows at
the bend in the road (Figure 7). Then come the sharecropper house sites,
some occupied into the 1960s by black people and more by Creoles of
color. These places all offer evidence of the once viable settlement
that made its way around the bend towards Melrose. Although few visible
traces of the earlier ![](media/image5.jpeg){width="2.6375in"
height="3.9in"}viable in the present.

Certain features of this core landscape were also so closely connected
that they were perceived and used as a coupled unit, despite their
location in different communities. Prominent in this respect is the St.
James AME Church in Magnolia and, directly opposite it on the Derry side
of Cane River, the St. Andrew Missionary Baptist Church. As described
later, the two structures and the river between them formed part of a
single continuous religious landscape.

Off-park plantation religious sites, structures, and objects include:

-   A small statue of the Catholic Saint Isadore, patron saint of
    farmers. Mr. Matt had it set on a horizontal beam between two
    telephone poles as the gateway to the main field north of the
    plantation house. It was later removed because of threatened
    vandalism, possibly by people not from Cane River.

-   Unmarked baptismal sites recalled on the river bank near the
    formerly standing St. James AME.

-   St. James AME with its two locations. The first Church, no longer
    standing, was on the riverbank opposite St. Andrew Missionary
    Baptist Church; its back was towards Cane River. The second site,
    mentioned as a place marker, was nearby at the bend, fronting on
    Highway 119 in the sharecropper area. Termite-ridden and
    destabilized by a car crash, it was leveled in the mid-1970s. The
    Church had an adjacent kitchen at each site (see Figure 4).

-   Catholic Chapel on the back gallery of the Big House, which serves
    the Hertzog family.

Off-park plantation engineering features include:

-   A spillway or dam below the Lakewood-Magnolia boundary, seen by some
    as marking the difference between upper and lower Cane River.

-   The "bend" in the road near the St. James AME and the line of
    sharecropper homes where the river turns away from Highway 119.

-   "Up the road," towards Melrose and the sharecropper homes along
    Highway 119, north of the Big House before, at, and after the "bend"
    (Figure 8).

![](media/image6.jpeg){width="3.09375in" height="2.125in"}

Off-park plantation community features include:

-   the Big House;

-   Ms. Lizzie's place near the "bend" in the sharecropper area (not
    standing);

-   fruit trees and others, including crepe myrtle and flowering plants,
    found in the fields where they marked abandoned sharecropper house
    sites;

-   Cliff Lemell's house near St. James AME (not standing);

-   John Vercher's house (not standing);

-   the Hertzog camp;

-   the thoroughbred stables and nearby gravesite of the Flying
    Dutchman, a prizewinning horse;

-   the cook's house; and,

-   Ms. Betty's new house.

Off-park plantation natural place markers include:

-   the live oak near the bend, AME Church, and start of the
    sharecropper area;

-   the pecan tree (near Ms. Betty's house) that marks a former
    sharecropper's cabin; and,

-   the Upper/Lower Cane River.

Off-plantation religious places:

-   St. Andrew Missionary Baptist Church and cemetery, near Cane River
    in Derry, attended by Magnolia's black residents who also buried
    their dead in its cemetery. Held events in tandem with the AME
    Church opposite it on the Magnolia side of the river.

-   St. Matthew Baptist Church and cemetery, north of Melrose, attended
    by some Magnolia black people who also buried their deceased there.
    Numerous Magnolia youth also attended the public high school
    adjacent to the Church.

-   St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, and cemetery, in Cloutierville
    on Highway 491, attended by whites, Creoles of color, and blacks.

-   St. Augustine Catholic Church and cemetery, Highway 484, a religious
    and community center for Creoles of color and other Catholics.

-   St. Davis Baptist Church and cemetery in Cloutierville where several
    deceased Magnolia tenants are buried.

-   Derry Catholic Chapel (no longer standing) on Chopin lands, near
    Magnolia, attended by Creoles of color, blacks, and Derry whites.

**Figure 9 is a PDF that can be downloaded at**
<http://www.cr.nps.gov/aad/pubs/studies/pdf/study04fig09.pdf>

## CHAPTER 5: PLANTATION ECONOMY

As a traditional plantation, Magnolia had shared some characteristics
with the historic old-world manorial system (cf. Hilton 1973). Both were
shaped by the production and political goals of large-scale powerful
landowners with limited cash but access to subordinate landless
laborers. With meager or, in the case of the slave plantation, no
options, the labor force confronted few reasonable alternatives to
meeting some of their own subsistence needs outside the traditional
arrangements. Magnolia's subsequent transformation from a slave driven
plantation to one using landless laborers and sharecroppers---rural
proletarians---and, in the past century, to a mechanized enterprise, was
accompanied by a gradual shift to an exclusive cash economy.

Actually, the 20^th^ century and earlier "plantation economy" included
several related economies. One is the commercial plantation system,
which emphasized cotton, corn, soybeans, and cattle. The other is the
tenant economy of sharecroppers and day laborers. The commercial and
tenant farm economies obviously contrasted in terms of scale, land
tenure, marketing, income, and other factors, but some commonalties
existed too. They shared certain agricultural risks, such as bad weather
and infestations, that could ruin everyone's crops. The commercial
losses resulting from natural disasters might force management to seek
fiscal support from banks, neighbors, and associates to keep their
holdings intact and tide them over until the next season. Without
equivalent economic cushions so vital to survival and recovery, however,
the contrasts between the economies became glaring as disasters
threatened to permanently undermine small-scale sharecroppers. For day
laborers, threats to commercial crops could devastate workers by
reducing the plantation's need for them. Everyone also shared the
problem of being cash-poor most of the year, making the immediate
exchange of cash for labor or commodities rare until the annual harvests
brought a "settling up" time. Although conserving scarce cash was
problematic for all, the problem was most acute for day laborers and
tenant farmers.

## PLANTATION ACCOMMODATIONS TO SCARCE CASH 

### "Croppers": Half-Hands, or Sharecroppers; Fourth-Hands, or Renters

Magnolia had tractors in use by 1938, yet mules and farm hands continued
to work nearby them (The Progress 1938) until mechanization became the
dominant and then exclusive mode. Meanwhile, Magnolia necessarily
depended on diverse arrangements to meet its labor needs. Classified by
management either in terms of their physical input, that is as "hands,"
or their take of the harvest, plantation tenants might be half-hands, or
sharecroppers. Others were fourth-hands, also called "renters" by some.
Still others were the landless day hands or day laborers who earned
wages. Some workers also provided specialized services, such as domestic
help or chauffeuring. All received housing. The tenancy arrangements
gave management access to agricultural labor without requiring major
cash outlays because Magnolia used available land to attract otherwise
landless farmers to put its fields into production in exchange for
various in-kind payments and potential cash incomes. The houses of
numerous families who "worked on the half" or "on the fourth" once
dotted the landscape on both sides of Highway 119 from the Big House
north to Lakeview, the Cohen's place.

Magnolia provided tenant farmers with fields, a house, and garden area
and advanced them certain agricultural inputs and other items from the
plantation store. Tenants varied somewhat in the extent and type of
investments they made in producing the crop and, concomitantly, in the
size of their split with the plantation. Tenants who worked as
half-hands provided labor throughout the life cycle of the crop; used
Magnolia's mule team; and purchased seed, insecticide, and other inputs
on credit. The plantation managed the sale of the crop and split the
income 50-50 with the sharecropper or "cropper" as some called
themselves. People recalled that the costs of purchases made on credit
and against anticipated income were later deducted from the tenants'
portion of the harvest sale. Some remembered earning just enough to pay
the year's debts, starting the new year no further ahead than the old.
In the worst scenario, sharecroppers ended the year with such major
outstanding debts that they started the new cycle under a cloud. Some
might have quietly moved away. In the best case, successful
sharecroppers might eventually obtain their own mules and become
renters, as one former resident recalled.

People working on a fourth-hand, or renters, were usually Creoles of
color. They too provided labor throughout the life cycle of the crop and
might purchase seed and other items at the plantation store. Like the
half-hands who split 50-50, renters shared the crop and settled up after
the harvest. But unlike them, the fourth-hands evidently exercised
greater control over their time, labor, and resources, such as mule
teams. Tenants who farmed on the fourth differed importantly from the
others by owning their own mule team. As owners, they could and did rent
their mules and their own and their children's labor to neighboring
independent farmers during planting and harvesting seasons, thus
enhancing their incomes beyond the returns of the plantation harvest
they shared. They also managed the sale of their crop, rather than have
the plantation do it, and distributed the returns in a 25-75 split, with
25% or 1/4^th^ going to the plantation. Although all tenants shared the
risks of pests, weather conditions, and the like, families working on a
fourth-hand could anticipate potentially greater benefits.

### Day Hands and Seasonal Laborers

Partly because the design of plantation fields had not been fully
adapted to tractors and other new technology, Magnolia depended on day
and seasonal laborers to work the fields along with machines and mules.
For example, mechanized pickers did not harvest the ends of the
turn-rows because the machines missed them in making wide swings around
the ends of the cultivated rows. In the late 1950s, people were still
picking the end of the turn-rows, helping to plant, and chopping cotton.
As Magnolia's 1957 Work Book list of laborers and their hours noted, the
cotton harvest---a peak employment season---drew day workers from the
few black families still living in the quarters. They paid no rent but
were available as needed for short-term or long-term help and for work
as domestic specialists in the Big House. Other occasional field hands
came from families of black and Creole tenant farmers living up the
road. Workers put in long days, from "sun up to sun down" during the
peak labor seasons (Magnolia Plantation Papers 1957). One worker
recalled, "you would be going to the fields when the sunrise, and you
didn't quit until, maybe, five minutes to the time to go home. You'd be
so tired, and you might have a mile or two to walk...I have come across
that field, cutting off every which a way myself."

The additional laborers needed to cultivate or chop the cotton plants in
order to thin the fields and pick cotton came primarily from
Natchitoches. Presumably underemployed or unemployed people responded to
the call of a major labor recruiter, Reverend Turner. He was a respected
black preacher and entrepreneur who had left the countryside for
residence in the city. He spoke with pride of the many years his school
bus periodically did double-duty. It carried children to school during
the school year and, when school was suspended during the harvests,
hauled black men, women, and children hoe-hands to chop or pick cotton
at Magnolia and other Cane River plantations.

### Special Workers

Some tenant laborers and sharecroppers might also do more specialized
permanent or temporary work. Supervised by the overseer, who managed the
day-to-day field operations, their roles included:

-   Yard-man: usually came from the quarters, maintained the area around
    the main house, tended the garden and sheep and other barnyard
    animals. He might also use the buggy to pick up mail in Derry.

-   Lot-man: came from the quarters, tended the horses and mules, fed,
    and watered them in the afternoon and evenings.

-   Blacksmith: sharpened plowpoints, fixed axles, shoed mules and
    horses, did some carpentry, and ran the grist mill. The longtime
    blacksmith, Cliff Lemell, was also the collector at the store and a
    deacon of St. James AME

-   Cowboys: cattle were herded by several workers, including some from
    the quarters, and others, Creoles of color, from nearby areas.

-   Tractor drivers: some came from the quarters; others came from near
    Melrose. They earned more than others and received bonuses for
    working overtime during harvest.

-   Stable hands: tended the thoroughbreds and other stock.

Managing the Big House required considerable domestic help, including:

-   Laundry help: washed, ironed, and sewed for the Big House. In the
    summers, in anticipation of harvest needs, someone from the quarters
    used an old sewing machine on the back porch to repair sacks for
    holding cotton.

-   House servants: included men and women from the quarters.

-   Nurse maids: included women from the quarters who helped care for
    children.

-   Cooks: including the well-known and respected "Aunt Martha" and her
    daughter, Rosa, who lived in the cook's house, and Mary Jane
    Cheatham from the quarters.

-   Chauffeurs: several lived in the quarters, including Mr. Matt's
    driver who also repaired tractors. The drivers sometimes also worked
    in the Big House.

Other specialists, people from urban Natchitoches and adjacent areas,
were overseers, store managers, and accountants. Usually they were
white.

### Animal Husbandry

Diversifying its economic base probably gave Magnolia insurance against
pests, such as the crop-specific boll weevil, poor weather, and other
natural threats. The plantation maintained a small flock of sheep. Like
other resources they served multiple purposes, which, in this case,
included browsing on the Big House lawn to keep the grasses down and
providing yearlings for the Hertzog family dinner table. Pigeons
provided squab for the Big House dinner table and some recreational
benefits. Geese, briefly, helped clean the lawn. Plantation cattle were
a principal commercial investment raised for sale. Perhaps twice yearly,
auctioneers would come from Alexandria, sometimes from a firm called
Dominique, or from Hodges, to take the calves back for auction. Cattle
also provided food sources for the Big House and for laborers on festive
occasions such as June 19^th^ and Thanksgiving when Mr. Matt donated
cattle for the community feast. In the 1960s, management recalls,
Magnolia ran about 1,600 head of cattle. Skilled handlers were required.
Although ranching was less labor intensive than agriculture, management
commented on the difficulty of finding skilled cowboys to tend the herd
at Magnolia or, as occasionally needed, drive it to the Kisatchie hills
when necessitated by floods and rotting grasses.

Unlike its present stock of mostly work horses, Magnolia once had an
active breeding program. Its stables raised prizewinning thoroughbreds,
saddle-gates, and single-foot horses, as well as ponies, called
"creole," and mules, some of which were exported to Texas and elsewhere.
Magnolia's fine horses were a matter of pride to the Hertzogs as well as
to former workers. Among the more memorable ones, management noted, were
prize-winners, such as Magnolia Mary, the pony Black Giant, the
showhorse Major Mosley, Charley, Blackbird, Gray Mack, and Frank, Mr.
Matt's horse. Charley Williams from the quarters was the jockey when
Frank won one of the more competitive regional races. But the best known
and rewarded might have been the Flying Dutchman who won the Stakes in
the early 1850s at the Metarie course in New Orleans. A visible symbol
of his achievement is the heavy sterling silver service the Hertzogs
received to mark their win, now proudly displayed in the dining room of
the Big House. When the Flying Dutchman died at age five, the family
buried him near the thoroughbred stables.

### ![](media/image7.jpeg){width="4.0in" height="2.6743055555555557in"}Plantation Store

A public space, the store served as an economic and social magnet for
men, women and children of all ethnicities (Figure 10). Working men
might have been the primary users, making purchases, as well as lounging
on the porch and its bench and at the nearby stiles where they exchanged
news and gossip, played dominos, or sometimes shot craps. Gas and diesel
fuel were pumped here. Magnolia's tractor drivers would start lining up
to fuel their equipment by 7am and make another stop around noon when
they returned for lunch. As a market, the store's almost exclusive
clients were cash-poor residents who needed foodstuffs, including wheat
flour, condiments, such as sugar and salt, and other necessities, and
occasionally supplemented produce from their gardens or barnyard animals
with canned foods. The store also sold unparched green coffee beans.
Residents of the Big House still pleasurably recall the early morning
aroma of parched beans being ground and roasted at home and wafting up
from the quarters. Medicines, candles, kerosene, some clothing, and
small tools were available too and later ice cream and frozen foods
after Mr. Matt purchased a freezer in the 1950s. Agricultural needs for
seed, fertilizer, insecticide, and other inputs were met here. This is
also where residents paid, in kind, for having the plantation grist mill
grind their corn and where people came to be paid and "settle-up."

Day workers and tenant farmers were paid in plantation-specific paper
scrip or brass tokens for many years until new banking laws in the 1930s
prohibited this form of payment. Not legal tender, scrip substituted for
the limited cash available to the plantation management. It represented
payment for past services or for future labor, that is, an advance that
day workers drew against expected earnings or tenant farmers drew
against the anticipated income earned from future harvests. Each
plantation had its own characteristic scrip, which could be redeemed
only at that plantation store or in Magnolia's case either there or, for
a brief time, by arrangement with Cohen's neighboring Lakeview Store.
Scrip gave the plantation the option to use its limited available cash
to meet other demands while also ensuring its store of a supply of
steady customers. Workers received convenient access to needed goods
but, unless they had some ready cash, no opportunity to purchase
provisions at competing stores. Plantation stores were unlikely to
extend credit to strangers with unknown or unknowable credentials whose
bills could not be easily settled.

"Settling up," as residents called it, occurred for both management and
tenants once the harvest was sold. Management sold its own crop and the
sharecropper yields, paid its own debts to suppliers and banks, and
settled with residents. Settling had management paying day laborers
their wages and sharecroppers their share of the harvest sales and also
deducting the outstanding debts accumulated at the commissary against
the earned wages or sales. One former sharecropper recalled the habit of
charging everything at the store-shoes, clothing, anything. "They had
all that at the store. But now, when you come to settle, they would take
what you bought out of your half. So you see how far that left you
behind." Debtors considered themselves fortunate if the year brought a
small surplus after the "settling up" or saw them just clearing the debt
burden without carrying it all over into the next year.

The store was an entertainment center too where local musicians staged
popular performances. Residents from the Big House and the quarters
recalled gathering around the porch Christmas Eve to enjoy hearing and
seeing the LaCour brothers perform. The Creole family, Youk, Duma, and
Sheck LaCour (another brother, Eveck, might join them elsewhere), had
formed what might have been the most popular local band. Mr. Matt would
bring the three LaCour brothers to the plantation at Christmas and other
occasions to play for the community before moving on to family
festivities at the Big House. The store was also where Mr. Matt's
brother, Dr. Hertzog, would treat rapt audiences to viewings of the
movies or photos he had shot on previous trips to Magnolia. Many of Dr.
Hertzog's photographs of special events and people, baseball games, and
horse races permanently decorated the store walls, reflecting the faces
of the community back to the shoppers. As his photos and films show, Dr.
Hertzog and his family regularly returned to his Magnolia birthplace for
holidays, family celebrations, and vacations. A center for trophies and
memorabilia, the store also displayed the ribbons and trophies
management's well-bred walking horses and mules won, thanks partly to
the care lavished on them by workers and owners alike. Walls were also
adorned with musical instruments, such as a guitar and fiddle. Children
found reasons to be at the store too, sometimes accompanying their
parents and sometimes, as recalled by a former overseer's wife who
worked there, stopping for a piece of candy, and to practice reading,
writing, or reciting their alphabets.

The store closed after Mr. Matt's death in 1973. Even before then the
store was losing its economic edge for the plantation as well as the
community, as one Hertzog family member observed. Keeping it stocked
with merchandise required trips to Natchitoches or Alexandria, entailing
small investments of time, labor, and gas. Wholesale prices had also
been rising beyond the level that could be covered by a mark-up that was
affordable to the purchaser yet yielded the store a reasonable profit.
In addition, for some time the store had been open only part-time
because most residents had already relocated and others had access to
transportation or could obtain provisions for cash elsewhere. It seemed
more expedient and economically satisfying to everyone to use the
supermarkets that had come to urban Natchitoches.

## CHAPTER 6: THE MAGNOLIA COMMUNITY: MORE THAN 19 ACRES

The park is an incomplete segment of what once was a community of
interacting, socially differentiated families. From the residents' view,
the landscape called the "Hertzogs'" extends to Magnolia's boundaries.
In addition to the quarters, overseer's home, and farm complex in the
park, the community included the Big House and the area around the bend
with the sharecropper houses and the St. James AME Church. Until the
1960s, the plantation showed lingering evidence of its complex
organization as a residential community as well as an agricultural
enterprise. A rural "company town" in these respects and a form of
"total institution" that met many lifelong needs (Gordon and Williams
1977), the right to live in this essentially private domain depended on
the landholder's continuing concurrence.

## AUTHORITY

Mr. Matt gave the work orders, paid the workers, and sometimes
personally counted the coins and bills he slapped into their hands. Mr.
Matt told people where they could live on the plantation or at least
approved of their choices. Mr. Matt gave the gifts, brought the band on
festive occasions, and declared the holidays. Mr. Matt decided who would
work. In the residents' view, the primary responsibility for guiding
Magnolia through its economic trials and successes and for major
decision-making belonged to Mr. Matt. Overseers were responsible for
implementing the owner's decisions in the fields and in the quarters and
tenant farms as well, but authority rested with Mr. Matt.

Typical of company towns, authority, influence, and power followed class
lines, giving the landowner the right to be the general peacekeeper as
well as rule-maker. Earlier in Magnolia's history, real or alleged
infractions would probably have been handled locally at the landowner's
discretion. Evidence of local solutions to problems comes from the
antique leg irons and stocks people recalled seeing stored in the cellar
of the former two-story house near the St. James AME. Perhaps this
structure served as a jail in the past century. The Hertzogs noted that
the rusted stocks were since moved to the main house for storage. In
recent times and until the late 1960s, the landowners' considerable
weight with law enforcement agents might be used to the workers'
advantage or disadvantage. As interviewees said, plantation managers
could use personal influence to intervene on a workers behalf to avoid
their incarceration for some minor infraction or gain their early
release from jail. As one former worker observed, "Mr. Matt used to have
a say-so in who got arrested and who got out of jail, but that changed
in the late 1960's" when local officials began exercising greater
authority.

Former residents usually remembered their roles as, in a sense, "tenuous
guests" of the Hertzogs, living at Magnolia with Mr. Matt's permission
and fully dependent on his agreement for continued access to a house
site. Laborers lived rent-free in the quarters even when work was
occasionally unavailable. They paid for their own electricity, installed
in the 1940s, about 10 years after the Big House was electrified. But
tenure in the quarters and elsewhere at Magnolia was precarious, subject
to the landowner's discretion and the residents' evident compliance with
his norms. One story tells of the manager's displeasure at learning that
two young black men from two different families in the quarters had
enjoyed themselves at a recently desegregated cafe in urban
Natchitoches. Having broken the traditional social rules against
inter-racial fraternizing in bars and elsewhere, management penalized
the young men by evicting them and their families from the plantation.
They found alternative residence at Melrose but were permitted to return
several weeks later once tempers subsided.

## FACILITIES AND SERVICES 

Plantation facilities and services often met multiple purposes, serving
both community and commercial plantation needs. For example, the
blacksmith not only repaired axles, filed tools, and shoed the
plantation horses. He also fixed broken hoes or plows for laborers and
tenant farmers. He ran the grist mill located near the blacksmith shop
and, in that capacity, ground corn for the community. Although some
families had their own mills, others kept him especially busy on
Fridays, recalled as being "cornbread days" when they prepared this
special fare. Some corn came from their own small gardens, while some
might be gleaned or "scrap picked" from the leftovers in harvested
plantation fields that machines failed to pick. One resident recalled
occasionally receiving gifts of corn from Mr. Matt from the plantation
crop. Residents used the plantation pump to get water from the river to
wash clothes and bathe. A cistern near the gin house was recalled as the
source of cooking and drinking water at one time. Residents in the
quarters also had cisterns in their yards and they as well as
sharecropper families kept barrels near their cabins to catch rainwater
for drinking and cooking purposes.

Residents took several alternative approaches to health care. Although
some problems occasioned trips to medical specialists in urban
Natchitoches or Cloutierville, solutions were usually sought locally.
Ms. Betty Hertzog recalls Public Health Service physicians periodically
coming from Natchitoches or Cloutierville to set up temporary clinics on
the back porch of the Big House. They treated community members there
for general ailments and annually gave children their required typhoid
shots and other basic inoculations. Temporary Public Health Service
clinics might also be found dispersed in the countryside. Mothers-to-be
in the quarters found the assistance needed during childbirth from a
midwife who lived nearby, sharing the cook's house at one time. Magnolia
women also called on other local midwives from nearby towns such as
Cypress. On a day-to-day basis, residents relied on their own folk
knowledge and remedies, using herbs from their gardens and fruits or
leaves from nearby trees and bushes to prepare healing teas, poultices,
and salves.

## SCHOOLING

Magnolia had no public school facilities. One former resident recalled
classes being held at the quarters, taught perhaps by the wife of the
second St. Andrew's preacher. That would have been around 1922 (Baptiste
n.d.), a decade or so before the construction of "colored" public
schools. Classes were also occasionally held after services at St. James
AME. It was not uncommon for churches to house public schools until
separate buildings were constructed on donated church land or nearby.
The Natchitoches Parish School Board records show that several churches
and private landowners had cooperated with the Parish by donating or
selling land at a nominal fee for public schools. For example, although
Magnolia children might have first attended public school classes held
in the church itself, the Parish School records show that the Parish
purchased private holdings in 1941 to construct a public school for "the
colored" in Derry near St. Andrew Missionary Baptist Church. The school
would also be called St. Andrew. Children from the quarters attended it,
crossing the Cane River by boat whenever possible, taking the
footbridge, hiking up their trouser legs and wading across when the
river was very low, or walking the long way around on Highway 119 and
Highway 1. When the Parish sold the land in 1954 and the building was
moved elsewhere, children transferred to St. Matthew School near
Melrose, likewise established as a "colored" public school for blacks
and Creoles of color.

St. Matthew public school had also started within the church building
itself. Former teachers recalled the unique challenges teaching in
church occasionally posed in the late 1930s, such as having to escort
children from the building for a while whenever funerals were held.
Later, in 1939, according to the Natchitoches Parish School Board
Records, St. Matthew Baptist Church donated land so that the Parish
could construct a public school, also known as St. Matthew Public
School. The Natchitoches Parish School Board Records document its
expansion in size and scope from a three-room schoolhouse in 1939 to a
senior high school in 1947. Located near Melrose, the school came to
draw Creoles of color as well as black students. By the time black
children from Magnolia went there, it served all age groups. Children of
Magnolia attended segregated public schools throughout their stay in the
countryside. Only after the 1964 Civil Rights Act and subsequent
court-ordered school integration in 1968 did schools in the parish very
gradually integrate.

The educational system responded to phases of the agricultural cycle and
labor as well as laborer needs. One result was an abbreviated school
year and high absenteeism in the "colored" schools prompted by
participation in the cotton harvest. To accommodate the landowners'
labor needs and family financial needs to have children work the
plantation fields, colored schools used a "split session." Classes were
held for 3 months, closed for the cotton harvest season between
September and October, and then resumed in November. Children's earnings
either supplemented family incomes and helped purchase household
necessities or paid for school clothes, books, baseball uniforms or
equipment, and school organizations. Teachers might pick cotton as well
during this period when their wages were suspended. Sometimes, families
pooled their money to pay the teachers to continue giving classes during
the harvest. Children and teachers returned to school afterwards and
stayed until summer, without leaving for the planting season in March or
April.

Adults recalled that as children they worked hard at school, but they
also played. Aside from marbles and other schoolyard games, children
also duplicated adult activities in the form of games. In the kind of
"dressing up" play that mimicked adult life and anticipated their own
future, children often played during recess at baptizing and preaching.
Although their parents might have disapproved, people recalled that
"playing" baptism meant being held by other kids as they were bent
backwards, "like they were dipping you in the river, and you had to
shout loud." Some youngsters, conceivably Catholic Creole children, did
not always like that game and would sometimes excuse themselves by
claiming illness.

## LONGEVITY AND RESIDENTIAL MOBILITY WITHIN THE COMMUNITY 

![](media/image8.jpeg){width="2.2263888888888888in"
height="3.3715277777777777in"}Several families had maintained a presence
at Magnolia for generations. With a history dating back to the 18^th^
century, the Hertzogs might have had the greatest longevity. Although
families of tenant laborers and sharecroppers might not have duplicated
the Hertzogs' residence history, Keel (NPS 1999a:20) notes that some
freed laborers had remained at Magnolia following abolition, working as
freed contract laborers. Conceivably, tenants who lived in the quarters
or were sharecroppers could trace their ancestry to enslaved workers.
Interviews taught us that members of several extended families,
including Ms. Lizzie's, which stayed at Magnolia until the 1960s, traced
their maternal kin back to a grandmother who might have been born into
slavery. Perhaps this grandmother lived at what is now the adjoining
plantation, a part of the greater Hertzog holding until 1903 but now
owned by the estate of Ms. Fanny Hertzog Chopin. Ms. Lizzie was born in
1900 (see Figure 11). If her mother was born in the mid-1880s, it is
possible that her grandmother had been born into slavery. Several women
in this particularly long line of workers had husbands who married into
the community from neighboring areas, for example from black
Cloutierville families and black families working at the Cohen's.
Members of this same family and surviving spouses were also the last
residents to leave Magnolia. Our limited data on Creole tenant farmers
suggests that at least two generations of some families had lived and
farmed at Magnolia.

Although families maintained a stable residence in Magnolia for
generations, residence in the quarters and up the road was quite fluid
between the 1930s-60s as residents shifted their domiciles between these
two locales, and new residents moved in from other communities (see
Table 1). One laborer listed in the plantation Work Book for 1957, for
example, came to the quarters from Little River and another came with
his family from Powhatan, a town located between Shreveport and urban
Natchitoches. Black families might move to the quarters from the
sharecropper area, evidence of declining fortunes and a sign that the
risks of sharecropping did not always balance the returns at
"settling-up" time. In these cases, families had the option of moving to
the quarters and assuming the status of day laborers. Other black day
hands listed in 1957 were members of sharecropper families, one of whom
formerly had been day laborers living in the quarters. The reverse
movement was unlikely to occur; that is, Creole sharecroppers rarely, if
ever, moved to the quarters regardless of downward turns in their luck.
On the other hand, Creole sharecroppers who worked "on the half" might
become fourth-hands, or renters, if they acquired the important team and
further ratcheted up their economic potential. Tenant farmers might also
cycle through Magnolia and other Cane River plantations as sharecroppers
before purchasing their own land or moving to urban Natchitoches and
elsewhere.

Residence within the quarters also shifted in response to the available
housing stock and social changes in the residents' life and family
cycles. Changing occupational and marital status and changes in family
size with the birth of children and death or departure of adult children
might precipitate relocation to another cabin. Small families were known
to move from larger quarters to smaller ones if in-coming families
needed additional space. Marriage, sometimes between individuals within
the quarters, and establishment of a new family stimulated another
series of moves. These several types of moves meant that, within a
decade, an individual or a family might have occupied several different
cabins in the quarters. A similar process involving the redistribution
of individuals into new households and families into changing house
sites was occurring in the sharecropper area.

An example of changing social identities and shifting house sites comes
from one family history. Ms. Lizzie and her husband -- he had come from
Lakeview plantation -- moved from the quarters to a sharecropper's cabin
while their adult daughter moved with her husband to Keithville, another
Louisiana community. Ms. Lizzie's daughter returned in 1944 to bear her
own daughter in Ms. Lizzie's house assisted by a midwife from Cypress, a
rural settlement closer to Oakland. For a time, the three generations
lived together**.** Ms. Lizzie's daughter left again with her child but
later returned for a while. The next time she left Magnolia, her
daughter, Ms. Lizzie's granddaughter, remained to keep Ms. Lizzie
company, eventually sharing domestic and field tasks and attending St.
Matthew's public school. Later, in the mid-1960s, Ms. Lizzie's
granddaughter married a Magnolia man and moved to the quarters with him.
Meanwhile, Ms. Lizzie's daughter had returned again and moved into a
cabin in the quarters with her subsequent husband, also a Magnolia man.

TABLE 1: ESTIMATES OF MAGNOLIA POPULATION

+--------------+-------------------------------------------------------+
| 1938         | Approximately 7 families in the quarters (The         |
|              | Progress 1938). Approximately 30-40 sharecropper      |
|              | families, according to B. Hertzog and about 43        |
|              | according to The Progress.                            |
|              |                                                       |
|              | Hertzogs occupy the Big House.                        |
+==============+=======================================================+
| 1958         | Approximately 6 families in the quarters and 20       |
|              | sharecropper families (1958 Work Book and estimated   |
|              | by E.V and G. L).                                     |
|              |                                                       |
|              | Hertzogs occupy the Big House.                        |
+--------------+-------------------------------------------------------+
| 1960s        | Approximately 7 families in the quarters.             |
|              |                                                       |
|              | 2 sharecropper families (L.J., D.W.).                 |
|              |                                                       |
|              | Hertzogs occupy the Big House.                        |
+--------------+-------------------------------------------------------+
| 1969         | Approximately 1 family in the quarters (E.V.).        |
|              |                                                       |
|              | Hertzogs occupy the Big House and, in the 1970s, Dr.  |
|              | Hertzog's house.                                      |
+--------------+-------------------------------------------------------+
| 1996         | 1 trailer near the bend occupied by daughter of       |
|              | former cook.                                          |
|              |                                                       |
|              | Hertzogs occupy the Big House and Dr. Hertzog's       |
|              | house.                                                |
+--------------+-------------------------------------------------------+

## STRATIFICATION AND RESIDENCE

The two and one-half story Big House was reconstructed in the late 1890s
using the foundation and brick walls and pillars remaining from the
original house burned by retreating Union troops in 1864. One of the
long-lived tales about the Union troops was their killing of the
caretaker, whose ghost is said to linger under the staircase where he
was killed. The more than 20 rooms, including a wide central hall on the
main floor that runs the width of the structure, are elegantly
furnished, primarily with antiques, many of them family heirlooms. Like
its predecessor, the house has a front and back gallery. Part of the
rear gallery once served as a sleeping porch (The Natchitoches Times
1978) and it still has the small Catholic Chapel built in 1910 for the
family's use. This was primarily the domain of the plantation owners,
members of their extended family, friends, and business associates.
Unless they were part of the domestic staff who maintained the family
and ample house, black residents rarely entered the area. Work areas on
the back porch and behind the house, as Vlach (1993) observes for most
plantation mansions, were the domain of black specialists who did the
laundry, sewing, slaughtering, and other chores. At Magnolia, it was
also where tenants received medical attention from visiting doctors.

Beyond the tree-lined avenue that separated the Big House from the
several outbuildings or farm structures and quarters is what is now
called the overseer's home. The mid-19^th^ century use of this
hip-roofed cottage was as a slave hospital. Painted white with dark
trim, the house dominated the landscape in the farm operational center
and nearby quarters. The white occupants represented the plantation
management and added a local middle-class presence to the area. At least
one overseer remained in the Magnolia community for decades, with his
sons assuming various roles there, such as running the store. One
eventually replaced his aging father as the overseer, following the
pattern, not unusual around Cane River, of passing a position down to an
offspring. Like the laborers, the overseer's family maintained barnyard
animals and cultivated a garden with the array of crops characteristic
of the area.

Social life for members of the overseer's family varied with a person's
age and gender. Young children might play with other children from the
Big House and sometimes the quarters as well. Adult interactions were
generally more restricted to social and ethnic peers unless work was the
context. In doing their jobs, overseers maintained close communication
with the Hertzogs, especially Mr. Matt, and with the day laborers and
sharecroppers, conveying information or work orders down from management
to workers and the quality of responses from workers up to management.
In this sense, the overseer's position was an intervening or brokering
position between the two extremes of the occupational hierarchy.
Overseers themselves might lunch with Mr. Matt to brief him on field
conditions and discuss general operations. Overseers' wives interacted
in a work context with the women from the quarters who provided domestic
help. At least one former overseer's wife worked in the store where she
had contact with workers and children, some of whom she helped with
schoolwork. For the most part, however, with few, if any, social peers
at Magnolia, the overseers' social lives necessarily depended on kin,
friends, and activities outside the plantation.

## QUARTERS

The quarters were the domain of the day laborers, an almost exclusively
black neighborhood or community within the larger community. With few
exceptions, Creoles of color claim never to have gone there even to
visit. Facilities such as the store were at hand and, unlike the
sharecropped houses north of the Big House towards Melrose, immediate
neighbors lived in cabins within earshot of each other. Sharing ideas,
activities, and information was easier among people living in the
adjacent red brick cabins. Built in the 19^th^ century to harbor two
enslaved families each, the eight intact cabins with central chimneys
continued to house black families, now day laborers, well into the
20^th^ century. They stand four in each row, the remains of a once
larger set of about 24. Seven of the cabins have two rooms separated by
a common or party wall with a central chimney and a fireplace in each
room. Floors are of wood. Each room has its own entry door. The eighth
structure is a half-cabin, said to have lost its other half during the
1939 tornado. The original wood shingle roofing on each cabin had been
replaced by tin. Photographs dating from 1939, before the now-legendary
tornado devastated the area, show front porches, picket fences, flowers
in pots and in the garden (Cammie G. Henry Archives), and yards with
hard-packed soil that people would sweep clean. Flowering bushes and
trees once enlivened the quarters, former tenants recall.

![](media/image9.jpeg){width="2.4479166666666665in"
height="2.6041666666666665in"}

The cabins were the birthplace for some laborers and home to more. The
two front doors to each cabin, leading to the two rooms with a fireplace
in each, are present-day reminders that two families once lived in each
house (see Figures 12 and 13). The two-unit arrangement changed when the
population, Ms. Lizzie noted, became "thinned," earlier in the 20^th^
century. As residents vacated the quarters for lack of work or to become
sharecroppers and competition for housing was reduced, the interior
housing space for each of the remaining families was enlarged. Mr. Matt
allowed the conversion of the two-family houses into one-family units by
breaking through the party wall originally separating the two rooms.
Modifications were also made to the rear of several cabins where Mr.
Matt allowed the construction of an additional room, called "plank
rooms" by former residents. The room might serve a widowed mother or
mother-in-law or an increasing number of children, or be used as a
kitchen. Each cabin also had a small front yard, where firewood was
stockpiled, and gardens. Outhouses were in the rear. Electricity had
been installed in the 1940s as part of the rural electrification
program, about 10 years after the Big House was electrified, as the
Hertzogs recalled. Although almost bare of foliage now, former residents
recall the flowering fruit trees and bushes that once shaded and lent
color to the area. The general or common area in front of the cabins
became an informal playground for the quarters' children as well as for
young white children visiting the main house, white children of overseer
families, and black children who played together with their age-mates.

The quarters represented a space that landless black people could treat
as theirs, albeit on a limited basis. Personalizing the cabin interiors
by adding their own furnishings, arranging their gardens, and selecting
food crops and flowering plants as they wished helped convert the two
small rooms into their own place. Former residents recalled wallpapering
the cabin's interior with magazine pages. Using paste made by mixing
flour and water, they covered the paper and stuck it to the walls,
tacking the tops and bottoms where they would remain unless children
pulled at them. Pride in their modest homes, along with Mr. Matt's
interest in making the plantation look more festive, led people to
whitewash the exterior at Christmas when Mr. Matt provided the
whitewash. Interiors might be whitewashed too, once the magazine
wallpaper had been removed.

Residents were not only co-workers and neighbors; several families were
kinsmen too. Marriage linked many neighbors. Some neighbors were
siblings and, in other cases, several generations of the same maternal
and paternal lines occupied adjacent cabins. The institution of
god-parenthood might add another bond to the ties between children and
adults, and between parents and godparents. Residents occasionally
cooperated in childcare, exchanged surplus foods, and reciprocated small
favors. They courted here, married, and raised families. They
participated in the same church activities and celebrated the same
holidays together. Weekend fun might find young and old playing "roll
the barrels" in the area in front of the cabins, trying to remain
upright on the barrels as they pushed them along with their feet. Snacks
purchased at the nearby store quenched their thirst and hunger.
Residents had common job and money problems, but driving poverty did not
dominate peoples' recollections, nor, it seemed, their lives. On a visit
to the quarters, one woman reminisced that "we did not have as much as
some other people, but we all had enough food and clothing. And everyone
took care of everyone else. Everyone watched out for the children. You
could chastise kids who were doing wrong things even if they weren't
yours." Others expressed similar sentiments. As they saw it, the
quarters was their neighborhood, a community defined both as a physical
and socially meaningful place where residents had a sense of worth,
created a rewarding life, and evolved a culture that reflected both
complementary and shared interests and activities.

![](media/image10.jpeg){width="4.395138888888889in"
height="2.582638888888889in"}

# 

# 

## LABORER ACCOMMODATIONS TO SCARCE CASH

Day laborers earned barely enough to sustain themselves and their
families, but they creatively combined additional activities in order to
supplement their plantation wages with cash or incomes in kind. For the
most part, these activities were labor intensive, using time, energy,
and skill, but required little or no capital investments.

### Kitchen Gardens and Barnyard Animals

Residents relied as much as possible on foods from their kitchen gardens
and barnyard animals, rather than on any store or market. In fact,
undoubtedly realizing that wages were below subsistence level, the
plantation management expected residents to meet a considerable part of
their food needs from their own gardens and animals, including dairy
cows, pigs, and chickens. Considering perhaps the limited buying power
of plantation wages and reluctant to extend more credit than could be
repaid, Mr. Matt remarked that "as a matter of both tradition and sound
economics, the tenants and day laborers are given not only their homes
but a garden plot as well and are required to own a cow and a mule and
to raise a crop of vegetables to supply their own tables" (The Progress
1938). Each tenant family might actually have had a cow and a mule in
the 1940s, but the former residents were uncertain if the practice
continued into the 1950s and 1960s.

Typically, residents managed the small areas in front of or alongside
each cabin as spaces to manipulate almost as they wished, reaching their
own decisions about whether or not to plant, and then, having decided to
"make their crops," as most did, determining what and how much to plant.
Most tenants raised diverse vegetables and ornamental flowers and
expected to share and exchange their produce with neighbors who likewise
gardened but not always with identical crops or equal success.
Reciprocity was the community norm although perhaps practiced most often
among related families. Other tenants who might have joined the
community too late in the year to put in a reasonable crop, whose
gardens failed through no fault of their own, or who were short-term
residents with no interest in gardening might expect some neighborly
assistance.

The varied inventory of crops residents planted mirrors the kitchen
gardens cultivated elsewhere in the Cane River area and includes:

-   beans, including snap beans, later canned;

-   corn, including popcorn;

-   cucumbers, later pickled;

-   ornamental flowers;

-   garlic, dried and strung for storage;

-   greens, including mustard greens;

-   Irish potatoes (thrived better than sweet potatoes), piled into a
    bank and covered for storage;

-   okra, conserved in jars;

-   sweet peas, later canned;

-   onions;

-   peanuts;

-   pumpkins, later jarred;

-   red peppers, later dried and strung, or dried, pounded and bottled;

-   sweet potatoes;

-   tomatoes, later canned;

-   turnips, later canned;

-   peaches, from nearby trees, picked and jarred, and made into jellies
    and wine; and,

-   pears, from nearby trees, picked and jarred, and made into jellies
    and wine.

Some families also raised sugar cane, and people recalled their delight
at munching on a piece of sweet young cane. But the better part of the
crop was brought to one of the mills run by Magnolia sharecroppers to be
ground and made into cane syrup.

Tenants might adopt and adapt successful plantation agricultural
practices for use in their own gardens. One widespread plantation
practice was the use of Paris Green, a poisonous powder that combined
sodium arsenite with copper sulphate and acetic acid. Used to kill
caterpillars and boll weevils well into the 1950s, people recall loading
the mixture into buckets or bags that horses carried on a yoke suspended
across their shoulders and then tipping the buckets to spread the
mixture over Magnolia's cotton fields. Aware of its toxicity and trying
to avoid having people and animals inhale it, workers covered their
faces with handkerchiefs and their horses' snouts with socks. In a form
of internal "technology transfer," workers also applied Paris Green to
their gardens, diluting the compound by mixing it with flour. DDT later
replaced it.

Barnyard animals, such as chickens, geese, ducks, and hogs, represented
important food sources and exchange commodities too. One family, Ms.
Lizzie's, recalls having an enormous sow with remarkable reproductive
powers. "People would bring their hogs there, and everyone (who owned a
hog) that sow fooled with would get one of the litter." Other piglets
might be sold. To protect this mobile animal "bank account," which paid
interest in piglets, lard, and food, the hog pens were kept close by the
house. Christmas was a time for families to butcher and barbecue a hog.
Ms. Lizzie recalled killing an enormous hog that filled as many as
20-gallon cans of lard. They would make cracklings and smoke the meat in
the smokehouse, grind the meat and make sausages, and fry the backbone
meat and jar it. Families, such as Ms. Lizzie's, raised their own feed
corn and stored it in the crib behind the house. Chickens had the run of
the yard most of the year but were brought indoors in the winter to be
kept warm by a lamp. Goats, horses, and milk cows were tethered in
nearby pastures.

### Conserving Food

Residents lacked electricity and refrigeration during most of their stay
in the quarters although a few had purchased ice boxes. In any case, no
one could afford to have food spoil. Fifty-pound blocks of ice were
purchased to keep produce fresh, especially milk. In the summers, people
wrapped the ice block in a burlap and cotton sack for storage in the
back of the fireplace. Fresh cow's milk could be put in a jar and kept
with the ice. For the two or three days the ice lasted, it kept the milk
cool. Sometimes a wrapped ice block was put in a bucket along with a jar
of milk and lowered down a cistern where it remained usable for days. In
addition, residents provided for their future needs by processing the
garden yields in various ways, by canning or pickling some crops, and by
drying or pounding others into powders. Peaches, plums, berries, and
figs were picked and preserved. Wine might be made from fruits and
berries, and pralines from pecans.

### Fishing

Fishing the Cane River and the plantation pond behind the Big House were
not only recreational, they also enriched the diet with protein. Men
were especially busy at the river when fried fish was on the menu for
family and community celebrations. The Hertzog pond yielded crawfish and
the lake offered catfish, gar, buffalo, and grinner, among others. Trout
might be found near the Hertzogs' camp. Men as well as women and
children fished, sometimes fashioning poles from the wild cane growing
along the riverbank near the quarters. Bait might consist of small
crawfish or a piece of chicken fat, liver, or salt meat attached to the
line. "Barrel fishing" was a seining technique some used when the waters
were low. Fishermen would attach a wire net or burlap sack, a "grass
sack," to a barrel hoop or even a deep open can and drag it through the
water. As Dunn reported (1940), the technique was used to catch shrimp,
crawfish, and minnows. One former resident also recalled how delighted
she and her young friends were to find and collect crawfish even in the
gardens after a prolonged heavy rain, which not only filled their water
barrels but soaked their gardens and created small ponds that made it
look as if "it just rained crawfish."

### Supplemental Cash Income

Limited resources might be stretched by seizing opportunities for cash
work that occasionally came along within as well as outside the
plantation. Men might work part-time in Cloutierville, as one man did in
the evenings at a black club. Women in the quarters could take wage work
if they found employment nearby, in Derry, for example, and work the
plantation fields when childcare was available. One elderly former
resident recalled being able to manage children and a job because she
worked as a cook in the overseer's house in the early 1930s. In addition
to earning cash, she learned to make some special foods, such as
preserves. She also could observe the lifestyles of other families and,
what proved most advantageous, could keep her children nearby. Several
women recalled working in the Big House, enjoying the status of trusted
domestic help. One recalled with pleasure apprenticing with her mother
in the kitchen, learning to cook when she was just 9 years old, and
becoming so adept at baking coconut lemon pies that Mr. Matt would tease
her about keeping the tasty pies coming each week. Work in fields at
some distance from the quarters was less compatible with childcare, but
made easier by helpful neighbors and kin who cared for children so that
adults were released for uninterrupted field work.

Men, women, and children looked forward to earning Christmas cash at
nearby Melrose and other local plantations during the pecan season when
they picked, actually picked-up, the commercial pecan crop that was
shaken loose from the heavily laden trees. Pecan picking at Magnolia was
an unimportant source of income for the tenants and the plantation as
well because, unlike the grafted trees at Melrose, Magnolia's native
pecan trees yielded small-sized nuts. Not interested in exploiting the
crop, Mr. Matt let residents collect the nuts for themselves.
Occasionally he might purchase small quantities from them for use in the
Big House, but otherwise he let them harvest the pecans for their own
domestic use.

### In-Kind Supplements

Sometimes gleaning rights were extended to laborers who were allowed to
pick the remaining crops inadvertently left standing after harvesting
the corn fields in September. This was a useful way to augment corn for
their pigs and perhaps their own food supply as well. Plantation sugar
cane and sweet potato fields might be "scrap picked" or gleaned, too.
"Scrapping" might also provide new varieties of seed for later planting
in one's own garden or fields. Suspecting that workers might
occasionally employ the strategy of deliberately leaving substantial
scraps behind for later collection, causing some crop losses for the
plantation, overseers and mounted supervisors maintained surveillance
over the hoe-hands to ensure all the cotton was chopped and picked. In
the 1950s, one overseer recalled, vigorous protests from field hands
about being treated like slaves resulted in halting the practice.

## MOBILITY: BECOMING SHARECROPPERS

Birth in the quarters did not always mean spending a lifetime there as a
day laborer. Movement into other occupational statuses and to other
Magnolia areas was possible, if not frequent. For example, Ms. Lizzie
and her two brothers grew up in the Magnolia quarters, but she left
briefly at 12 or 13 years old to attend school in Natchitoches. For
about a year she lived with her mother's sister, who worked in the city,
but then returned to Magnolia and began contributing to the family
income by chopping cotton and picking corn. Soon after, at 16, she met
and married her husband, best known by his nickname, Shine; nicknames
were so important, they were often the only ones by which people were
known. Born on the neighboring Cohen's plantation, Lakeview, where his
father worked, Shine was 12 years when his father died and he assumed
his father's tasks. Later, around 1916, after his marriage to Ms.
Lizzie, he moved to Magnolia. His mother eventually moved there too.

![](media/image11.jpeg){width="2.526388888888889in" height="3.8in"}The
couple stayed in the quarters for just over two decades. During that
time Ms. Lizzie bore two children, a son in 1916 and a daughter in 1919
(see Figure 14), with help in the birthing process by the Magnolia
midwife. She found domestic work in the overseer's house and sometimes
in the Big House too. Meanwhile, Shine worked in the plantation fields.
He also helped train Mr. Matt's horses, a task that required
considerable skill to avoid being struck and hurt by unruly horses.
Shine was not totally averse to helping at home too and would brush and
sweep the yard and feed their hogs and chickens. With their own mill and
smokehouse in the rear of their cabin, the couple could process their
own foods. They also earned additional cash by selling gumbo and other
foods during baseball games at Magnolia. Eventually, the couple became
sharecroppers on a small lot near the AME Church. They continued living
in the quarters for several years, however, working their shared plot
and doing day labor on the plantation fields too. A neighbor often cared
for Ms. Lizzie's young children while she cultivated their shared field.
But the walk to the shared field was long, perhaps a mile or so. When it
rained, as it frequently did in the spring, Ms. Lizzie said, "you just
was in it. I came from the field a heap of days wet."

They were able to buy a used car soon after they started sharecropping,
first a Dodge, then a Ford, and then a Chevrolet, her daughter recalled.
This acquisition suggests that, in addition to frugal living and
small-scale entrepreneurship, the family occasionally met with some
financial success after they "settled up." That is, in good years, they
might have a small surplus after receiving their fifty percent of the
sale of the harvest and paying off their accumulated debts for seed,
insecticide, fertilizer, the use of the mule team and other agricultural
inputs, and for any provisions purchased at the store.

Even better than the car, in Ms. Lizzie's view, was their move to the
sharecropper area near the shared fields. They had to move after the
1939 tornado tore the roof off their cabin and destroyed several others
in the quarters. About the same time, a sharecropper vacated his cabin
near the AME Church, and Mr. Matt made it available to the couple. Their
daughter, who had started her own family by then, remained in her own
cabin in the quarters for a while but then relocated with her first
husband to work in Keithville, a distant Louisiana town.

The sharecropper location proved more efficient in terms of the demands
made on Ms. Lizzie's time. Like other sharecropper wives, she cultivated
the shared crops as well as their own kitchen garden. Sometimes she
worked as a day hand in the plantation fields too. At the same time, her
husband Shine earned cash or credit towards it by working as a day
laborer for Magnolia, cultivating plantation fields as well as caring
for the prized plantation horses, especially Light-Gray. Shine's work
days were very long during critical periods of field preparation,
planting, and harvesting because he, like other sharecroppers, rose
early to plow and seed their own fields before leaving for day work on
plantation fields. During the harvest season, men, along with women and
children, brought in their own crop as well as worked for Magnolia as
day laborers. Under these circumstances, having several children and
access to members of the extended family gave sharecroppers the benefit
of a larger labor pool.

Moving to the sharecropper area did not necessarily mean establishing
new and close ties to their Creole neighbors or abandoning their ties to
the quarters. Although not necessarily communicating daily with their
former neighbors, Shine and sometimes Ms. Lizzie would meet them while
working the plantation fields to supplement their income. Family ties to
the quarters remained close, reflecting work relationships, continued
participation in special events there, participation in Church
activities, and their daughter's and granddaughter's (see Figure 15)
eventual move back there.

![](media/image12.png)

## CHAPTER 7: RECREATION AND HOLIDAYS

Periodically throughout the year, the divisiveness of ethnic and
occupational differences was somewhat bridged by open participation in
community celebrations, such as Christmas, and recreational events, such
as baseball and horse races. Public and personal holidays also
interrupted the routine round of agricultural and domestic tasks. Some
activities and holiday events were public and likely to be held outdoors
where they were open, "wide open," to everyone's participation. Others
were considered private, held at least partly indoors, and, in practice,
ordinarily restricted to members of certain families or ethnic groups.

## OUTDOOR SPORTS: BASEBALL AND HORSERACING

Both baseball and horseracing seriously competed for people's
discretionary time, especially, but not exclusively, men's. An exception
was one woman who proudly recalled her youthful success as a pitcher on
the quarters' softball team. Color and class lines, if not always
gendered, tended to relax for outdoor public events, such as ballgames
and horseraces, when blacks and Creoles of color might play on the same
or opposing ball teams or ride in the same races. As Dr. Hertzog's
photographs show, blacks, Creoles of color, and whites might also sit
nearby in the same bleachers or observe the events standing in the same
general area.

Baseball was a major pastime from the 1930s to the 50s and 60s and
played the length of Cane River at most plantations and towns, including
Derry and Cloutierville. Temporary ballparks dotted the area,
interspersed with a very few more permanent ones. The Tigers' home park,
for example, at neighboring Lakeview was complete with bleachers, and
one of the Creole night clubs, the "Friendly Place," had a relatively
sophisticated field with a cane fence at one end. Otherwise, most fields
were ad hoc temporary "brush" fields or simply pastures with dirt sacks
to mark the bases. Some recalled Magnolia's field as located between the
tree-lined driveway and the blacksmith's shop; others say it was nearer
the overseer's house, in the area that doubled as a riding ring. Still
others recalled a site in the pasture behind the quarters. Baseball
fields were temporary sites in any case and probably located in
different places at different periods.

Mr. Matt, credited with starting the first Cane River team, is
considered a major fan who encouraged the weekly ball games. Reputed to
be an excellent pitcher too, he would often team just with Father
Becker, the Cloutierville priest and a practiced catcher and hitter.
Former residents remembered baseball enthusiasts streaming down Highway
119 Sunday afternoons, sometimes still eating the ice cream and cake the
commissary sold at the games. They recalled the watermelons Mr. Matt
kept on ice in the store to award the winning team at special games.
Winners were expected to share the prize with everyone. Sometimes Mr.
Matt would turn on the lights in the evenings when people in the
quarters wanted to play softball themselves. Whether it was day or
evening, the game was an economic, sports, and social event. Assembled
spectators and, after the game, players too, might purchase the gumbo
Ms. Lizzie had prepared and sold or the ice cream her husband, Shine,
had purchased from Mr. Matt for resale to the crowd.

So many black people around Cane River were talented players that the
Negro League, which sponsored games in urban Natchitoches, perhaps at
Highland Park, recruited several local men. People are proud of one man,
Pat Listach, who went to the major leagues, moving from the Milwaukee
Brewers to his present infielder position with the New York Yankees.

Team names usually signaled their origin. The Magnolia teams started by
Mr. Matt were the Magnolia Giants and, at another time, the Black
Magnolias.

Some local baseball teams included:

-   Cane River Dodgers;

-   Magnolia Giants and Black Magnolias;

-   Cloutierville team, the Brown Derby;

-   Derry team, sometimes called the Coutees, because many team members
    shared that family surname;

-   Melrose Pecans; and,

-   Lakeview Tigers.

Racing, like baseball, was a passion that found a home at nearly every
plantation, saw mill town, small town, and local bar. A seasonal
pastime, temporary "brush" tracks or exercise tracks were created in the
late fall, sometimes, as at Magnolia, in the turn-rows of harvested
cotton fields. Some plantations would convert harvested fields to tracks
by plowing under 5 or 6 rows and leveling them with a disc. In the late
spring, the short-lived tracks were returned to their agricultural work
and plowed in preparation for planting the new cotton crop. One Magnolia
riding ring in the 1960s was near the overseer's house in an area that
might double as a baseball diamond, the Hertzogs recalled, and another
between the Hertzog and Cohen place. Like baseball, racing was an
after-church event held in the late afternoons or early evenings. Dr.
Hertzog's films show white people, blacks, and perhaps Creoles of color,
including women, animatedly talking and milling around Magnolia's track
still dressed in their Sunday finery.

Most events were scrub races that ran horses without special pedigrees
but with the spirit or speed that might make them run well. Some of
Magnolia's better horses might participate too, depending on the
worthiness of their competitors. More often, however, they ran on
year-round tracks in Alexandria, at the Metarie course in New Orleans,
or elsewhere. The Hertzog family was known for their horses and their
horsemanship and several people noted that Ms. Betty Hertzog and her
cousin Ms. Mary Gunn Johnston were skilled and caring horsewomen.

## INDOOR ACTIVITIES: BOXING, CLUBS AND JUKE JOINTS

Unlike outdoor events, class or race distinctions influenced
participation at indoor activities, such as nightclubbing and boxing,
which occurred at the several bars or juke joints that punctuated
Highway 119. Some people recalled a bousillage and log structure located
near the bend at Magnolia. It might have been a juke joint and gambling
place that also held boxing matches. Mr. Matt is said to have closed it
after a stabbing there. Others recall it as a family house, a movie
house, and a delivery point for ice. The structure might have served
each of these functions at different times in its history.

People from the quarters recalled boxing and drinking at the Green Derby
near the Lakeview-Magnolia border, or going to one of Cloutierville's
black bars and gambling spots. Numerous Creole clubs, such as Bubba's
place, were located closer to Melrose. These clubs were reluctant to
admit dark-skinned people until the early 1960s, Creoles say, unless
they were known to be Creoles of color. In fact, dark-skinned people
from other areas would have had difficulty being admitted unless someone
local vouched for their Creoleness.

## BIRTHDAYS 

Former residents of the quarters recall enjoying birthday celebrations
when kin and friends congregated to share festive foods and sometimes
hear live music. People fortunate enough to have spare cash might hire
entertainment from one of the local bands, such as the Creole LaCour
brothers. These might be the times for fish fries and barbecues. More
lively celebrations could be assured by the corn whiskey that was
purchased locally from entrepreneurs who ran their own illegal stills.
One still operated near the Magnolia pond behind the Big House until its
owner was caught.

## WOMEN 

Only the most adventuresome woman interviewed recalled going to the
clubs where, others argued, they might put their reputations at risk.
For the most part, women's recreation tended to be more house-centered
than men's, more associated with the private domain. House-parties in
the quarters to celebrate personal events, such as birthdays, the
church-sponsored social events, and house-dances at nearby plantation
communities, were important times to be with friends and relatives.
These also were opportunities to meet new people, including potential
mates, in a relatively protected or closed context. Women in the
quarters could occasionally combine child-care with fun by playing card
games at home. A favorite one was pitty pat. The goal here is to pair
off each of your cards with those of another player and get yours paired
off first; shovelbutt was another game. Young girls also entertained
themselves playing ball, often tossing one made out of rags.

## CHILDREN

Ethnic and class lines were briefly suspended for outdoor play among
some children. Friendships existed among young black children from the
quarters and white children from the Big House, who spent their summers
at Magnolia until old enough to go to camp, and white children from the
overseer's house. Children of the Vercher family in the quarters, the
Gallien overseer family, and young Ambrose Hertzog Jr. visiting from New
Orleans, for example, played together around the yard, fished from the
river banks, went swimming, and sometimes rode horseback throughout the
plantation. They recalled Mr. Matt treating them to surrey rides around
Magnolia from time-to-time.

## JUNE 19, EMANCIPATION/FREEDOM DAY, AND JULY 4, INDEPENDENCE DAY

June 19^th^ marks a major event in the black community and, for
different reasons, in the white community as well. President Lincoln had
signed the Emancipation Proclamation in September 1862, making it
effective January 1, 1863. Word did not reach slaves in several states
for many months and sometimes was not fully accepted by slaveholders or
even believed by slaves. Sometimes it required federal authorities,
particularly Union troops, to bring the word to the countryside once Lee
surrendered at Appomatox in April 1865 (cf. Litwack 1979). Not until
June 19^th^, many people argue, did enslaved people learn of their
freedom in Louisiana, Texas, parts of Oklahoma, and perhaps elsewhere.
June 19^th^ came to be the day freedom was celebrated. It also marked
the end of an era for whites.

As one black elder saw it, June 19^th^ is Emancipation Proclamation Day.

That was our July 4^th^. Yes'm, the whites would take July 4^th^, but we
had our day. Mr. Hertzog gave us a beef and bread and a keg of beer.
There were house parties and people would come to eat and drink and play
baseball. All the kids played in a field near the overseer's house, on
the north side of the quarters. The mulattos didn't want to celebrate
with us niggers. They thought they were more than we were; they thought
they were white. Mr. Hertzog said they had to celebrate June 19^th^ or
celebrate nothing, so they celebrated every year until Mr. Matt died,
and then that was the last time.

Other people doubt that Creoles of color celebrated the day. But there
was no disagreement about June 19^th^ as joyous "celebrations of
freedom" and a black peoples' holiday. The blacksmith and deacon cooked
the beef Mr. Matt had culled from the plantation herd and the quarters
hummed with people busily preparing for the event. They needed to catch
abundant fish for the fish frys, clean chickens for barbecuing, and
sometimes fix goat soup too for the family and friends who came together
at home and for the church celebrations held at St. Andrew and St.
James. There might be baseball games, too, in the quarters during this
"black" holiday.

The June 19^th^ celebration began to wane with emigration from the
plantation and the dispersion of worker families from the quarters to
Natchitoches, Alexandria, Houston, and elsewhere. The rural social
structure and plantation relationships between white and black people
that had supported the celebration were weakened and eventually almost
fully transformed. Nevertheless, the celebration lingered on in some
fashion for a while. Some former residents noted that their family still
celebrates it in a very attenuated fashion by taking time from work and
holding weekend barbecues for friends and families. In the past few
years, evidence of a renaissance has been appearing in urban
Natchitoches, Shreveport, and several other locations. Spearheaded in
Natchitoches by civic-minded black leaders and supported by public
agencies and civic organizations, public celebrations are being
organized to mark June 19^th^ and its historic redefinition of black
status and black-white relations. In its present-day iteration, for
example, the planned weekend events in Shreveport now include picnics at
principal local parks, locally prominent political guest speakers, and
musical and other stage performances by renowned musicians, white and
black. Special programs in the Natchitoches schools bring the events
closer to youngsters. Television and newspaper coverage make it evident
that present-day celebrants come from diverse ethnic groups and that the
resurgence of interest marks continued changes in inter-ethnic
relations.

July 4^th^ was celebrated plantation-wide with time off from work and
more family parties, food, drink, and music. Mr. Matt brought Youk and
his Creole band to play at the store to the enjoyment of the assembled
tenant workers and farmers, and he distributed gifts of watermelons
community-wide. Yet, the relationships between June 19^th^ and July
4^th^, or the differences between them, were not clear to some black
participants. Decades later, these remain unclear. Interviewees
recognized the celebration of freedom as a connecting concept between
the two events. In some people's view, "July 4^th^ is the day we are
supposed to celebrate; it's when they signed the Declaration of
Independence and that's the day we were freed." Others thought enslaved
people had learned about their freedom on June 19^th^, but freedom
actually had occurred on July 4^th^. No one expressed Frederick
Douglass' 1852 sentiments about the absurdity of black people
celebrating Independence Day before slaves were emancipated (Blassingame
1982), but his sentiments seem to resonate in peoples' continuing
uncertainty about, or discomfort with, the notion that different groups
of people could become free at different times.

## CHRISTMAS AND THANKSGIVING

Christmas was another event that brought families together in each of
the community's three residence areas, the sharecropper, the quarters,
and the Big House. In the quarters, it was recalled with pleasure for
the break it brought from the routine work week and for the
opportunities to celebrate with family and friends. The holiday meant
another chance to hear the band and enjoy special gifts. Black children
especially appreciated small food gifts -- precious apples, oranges, and
candies -- too costly for parents to splurge on during the year. Dr.
Ambrose, who came with his family from New Orleans for the event, also
treated the plantation children to the sought-after fruits, especially
apples and oranges. Thanksgiving was another festive time when Mr. Matt
had the blacksmith roast one of the cattle for the celebrating
community.

## THE HERTZOGS' CHRISTMAS AND RECREATION

Dr. Ambrose Hertzog and his family from New Orleans, along with kin from
Alexandria and elsewhere, joined customary residents of the Big House to
celebrate the Christmas holiday together. On this occasion Mr. Matt
would bring Father Becker to celebrate mass at the small family chapel.
A time as well to ritually recognize the interdependence of the Big
House and the labor community, Mr. Matt distributed food gifts in the
quarters and among the sharecroppers and brought Youk and his band to
play at the store early on Christmas eve. Later, the band moved on to
the main house for the private Hertzog family celebrations. Sometime
during the holiday week, people might also assemble at the store to see
the photographs and movies that Dr. Hertzog had shot the previous summer
during the family vacation at Magnolia. This might have been the time he
distributed copies of photos to community people, photos they and their
families still cherish, depicting them in action, for example, at the
horseraces or in various poses around the yard and store and behind the
Big House.

The Hertzog camp on the small island in Cane River Lake was another
locus of family recreation. In the summer and at holidays, the camp drew
the extended Hertzog family and friends from New Orleans, Alexandria,
and elsewhere to fish for trout, perch, and catfish, among others, and
to swim. Hertzog kin recall eating wonderful meals there, being
well-served with fine food, and treated to entertainment by Youk's band,
sometimes playing on a barge that moved slowly around the island.
Serious pollution in recent decades has been keeping swimmers away.

## PRIZES FOR PLANTERS

![](media/image13.jpeg){width="3.5in" height="2.2305555555555556in"}

## CHAPTER 8: RELIGION

In northwest Louisiana, Catholicism and Protestantism, including
Baptist, Methodist, and African Methodist Episcopal denominations,
co-existed since at least the early 19^th^ century. At that time, a
minister, a "mulatto" according to Sobel (1988:193), established the
first Baptist church about 35 miles south of Alexandria. People of
French heritage, the Hertzogs and families of Creoles of color, and a
number of blacks traditionally have been Catholic at Magnolia. The
plantation became more ideologically diverse by the late 19^th^ century
with the introduction of Baptist and AME churches. Additionally, a
Masonic Lodge might have been established in Derry just before the Civil
War. It would have provided another organizational basis, a fraternal
order, for civic action within the context of spiritual beliefs. It
extended the social support available to black communities by
functioning primarily as a burial society that helped black members
inter their deceased kin. Early this century, the lodge reportedly
relocated to Natchitoches.

## BAPTIST AND METHODIST CHURCHES

Two churches closely identified with Magnolia's black community are St.
Andrew Missionary Baptist Church and St. James AME. Members of St.
Andrew's congregation, especially the deacons, who also served as
traditional church historians, described the 1875 establishment of the
church with encouragement from Natchitoches' First and Second Baptist
Churches (Baptiste n.d.). Originally constructed on Upper Cat Island in
Derry at Hypolite Hertzog's plantation, the first building was leveled
by a storm sometime around 1903. The congregation reconstructed it with
some of the original lumber on newly purchased land at its present Cat
Island site**.** About the same time, at the turn of the century, the
St. James AME congregation was taking shape at Magnolia. One black elder
recalled that services were initially held at the quarters in one of the
two-room cabins temporarily occupied by the visiting pastor and his
wife. The couple would come from Natchitoches and remain for brief
periods, ministering to the black community and sometimes accepting
compensation in the form of foodstuffs. The AME church was built for the
first time, probably around 1910, with land and timber donated by Mr.
Matt near the bend on the banks of Cane River, down an old dirt road.
Later, after Highway 119 was graveled and blacktopped, the congregation
moved the church up from the banks and closer to the road, to another
site donated by the plantation. The new location was still opposite St.
Andrew. Mr. Matt did not provide for a cemetery at either AME site.

People remember that throughout the history of St. Andrew and St. James
as co-existing structures, the two churches were partners in many, if
not most, events. Both were located near the riverbanks almost directly
opposite each other. Using boats or the footbridge in existence until
the 1940s, congregants regularly crossed the easily forded Cane River to
participate in each other's services and special events. Some people
recalled even fording the river on foot when the waters were low. From
weddings, funerals, and river baptisms to church gumbo suppers, box
suppers, fish frys, and June 19^th^ emancipation or freedom
celebrations, the church-sponsored activities drew participants from
both sides of the river. Additionally, without a cemetery, St. James AME
congregants would hold funeral services at their church, then transport
the deceased by barge, over the bridge, or around Highway 119 and
Highway 1 to St. Andrew for the burial in its cemetery. The practice is
reflected in the headstones at St. Andrew's cemetery; about half of them
bear surnames identified with Magnolia. Ritual or ideological
differences between the two churches created "no hard and fast
separations" between the members in life or death.

Members recall church suppers as busy and well-attended cooperative
community events that occurred at least once a month. Dunn's 1940
description of the AME "camp meeting" describes the celebrants
construction of temporary brush arbors or "brush harvests" to shade
themselves and their foods. The arbor was built by driving forked
saplings into the ground and placing poles in the forks in order to form
a roof. Willow branches were tossed over the frame as cover for the
roof. At night, the arbor was ablaze with every available lamp, candle,
lantern, and homemade light. One customary light was made with a wick of
twisted "grass sack" or burlap sack, which was squeezed into a beer
bottle filled with kerosene, or "coal oil." When lit, it cast a light as
bright as a large candle, an observer remarked. Former residents recall
the good times sitting with friends and family on the many benches under
the arbor and busily preparing meals in the small kitchen constructed
alongside St. James. The ruts of the old parking lot adjacent to the AME
church site give clear evidence of a well-trafficked area.

![](media/image14.jpeg){width="2.4277777777777776in" height="3.75in"}The
churches might have frowned on dancing, but members of both churches
adapted to the restrictions by organizing suppers under church auspices,
for the benefit of the church, but at their own homes. Rotating the
event and its associated responsibilities among different homes
throughout the year, people made and sold gumbos, fried fish, popcorn,
meat pies, and other favorites to raise funds. The Creole band that
played at the store and in the Big House sometimes entertained at church
suppers too. The churches were venues for community social services as
well. For example, St. Andrew served as a Relief Center during the
depression, distributing commodities to people working on a Works
Progress Administration (WPA) road crew. St. Andrew, as we noted, also
briefly housed the black public school, and St. James likewise had a
school, although it might have been a Sunday school. One former resident
of the quarters recalls tutoring children with their alphabets at St.
James.

Residents in the quarters also relied on several other churches for
access to religious support systems and cemeteries. Some joined St.
Matthew Baptist Church north of Melrose. Another Baptist church located
at a considerable distance from Cloutierville's center, St. Davis Lane,
where the kin of former Magnolia residents are buried, occasionally drew
members from Magnolia and the surrounding countryside. Burials of
deceased former Magnolia residents still occur at these two churches if
parents or a parent had been buried there. Burying the deceased in the
cemetery with their mother's grave has meant separating longtime
partners at death, if parents are buried in two different cemeteries.
However, this practice asserts the lineal relationship to a parent.

More than places of worship and sources of spiritual and social support,
or as a dimension of them, churches offered Magnolia's black residents
opportunities to develop and demonstrate political leadership and
responsibility beyond the boundaries of their own families. Earlier,
this might have been the only public context within which men and women
community members could aspire to visible roles, such as deacons,
mothers of the church, or members in women's support groups, roles that
gave them responsibility for decisions or influence within the black
community or congregation as a whole. In this sense, the church was not
only the principal vehicle for otherwise unavailable opportunities for
advancement in the community but, as we know from other situations, a
training ground too for effectively mobilizing public sentiment and
performing civic roles.

## CATHOLIC CHURCHES

The Magnolia plantation had no Catholic church within its borders, but
Catholic events and practices were well represented in the Big House and
at a nearby chapel and church. In 1910, the Hertzog family built a small
private chapel in the back gallery of the Big House to accommodate Mr.
Matt's ailing mother. Christmas and other holidays brought Father Becker
of St. John's Catholic Church, in Cloutierville, to give mass there, and
the Hertzogs still use it for special family celebrations. A religious
physical presence was also evident in the fields in the statue of St.
Isadore, known as the farmers' patron saint, that Mr. Matt had suspended
on a pole across a field "gate" near the Big House. Annually, before
planting started and rains were needed, Father Becker would come to
bless the plantation and its fields. Compensating for the absence of a
plantation church, a small Catholic Chapel had been constructed near the
Derry Bridge, on the Derry, not the Magnolia, side. Public mass was held
for local people from time-to-time, especially when the lumber towns
were thriving. One Magnolia Creole of color recalls going to the Derry
chapel occasionally, although she regarded the Cloutierville Church as
her own. People also recalled Mr. Matt urging them to attend church on
Sundays and even parking his truck at the store, offering congregants
rides to Cloutierville, to St. John's Catholic Church.

Most Magnolia sharecroppers, who were Creoles of color, probably
belonged to St Augustine Catholic Church on Isle Brevelle. First
constructed in 1803 with an adjoining cemetery, then replaced in 1916 by
the present structure, St. Augustine was started by Augustin Metoyer,
son of Marie Thereze Coincoin and a principal progenitor of the Metoyer
line of Creoles of color (Figure 17). A full-length painting of him
hangs in the church entryway. St. Augustine is an active center that
serves the spiritual and community needs of its primarily, but not
exclusively, Creole congregation from Isle Brevelle and the surrounding
area. Residents who had relocated to Natchitoches still regularly return
to St. Augustine.

The Catholic churches drew support from the congregation's donations
after regular services or at special celebrations during the year.
Additional help came with the annual tithe planters paid after the
cotton harvest. Ms. Betty Hertzog recalled that each local planter
contributed enough cotton to make up a bale, which churches would have
ginned and then sold for the upkeep of the buildings and their clergy.

## AFRICAN/CHRISTIAN SYSTEMS

This brief study found no obvious evidence of the syncretic religion
known as vodun or voodoo. A dynamic religious system, vodun had
developed in the New World, the Americas, among people of African
heritage who adapted African beliefs, practices, and paraphernalia to
the new environment and integrated them with Christian features. At
most, we learned that someone in the quarters may have been expert with
"hoodoo," the techniques, such as cutting cards, associated with
soothsaying or fortune-telling, and people mentioned a knowledgeable
Upper Cane River woman who might have ministered to Magnolia people in
the quarters.

## MECHANIZATION, RURAL EXODUS, AND THE CHURCH

One black elder observed that: "\... after they got big cotton pickers,
they didn't need anyone to pick cotton. And those plowers broke up the
land. When my husband and I farmed we had to plow our own land. And we
had to hoe it. But those big machines plowed land and planted it."
Unneeded, the family, like others, vacated Magnolia and found new homes
and places of worship.

Out-migration necessarily diminished the size of the rural congregation,
but even before emigrating, Magnolia residents were becoming dependent
on cars or trucks to reach churches outside the immediate vicinity.
Sometimes, one former resident explained, rural people continued as
members of the AME church but attended one in Natchitoches where they
were served by the same preacher who had periodically ministered at St.
James AME. By the time the Second World War started, St. James might
have been used only once a month, and by the time it ended, the shift to
mechanization and the related exodus had intensified, leaving few rural
church members. The last remaining deacon died in the 1960s. About that
time, vandals began attacking the building and stealing its trappings.
Eventually the congregation abandoned the church. It was still standing
in 1974 when a drunken driver hit it, knocking the weakened structure
off its foundation. Efforts to repair it ended when problems created by
severe termite infestation so complicated other structural problems that
the Magnolia management decided to level the building. St. Andrew drew
some of the previous St. James congregants and St. James became a ghost
on the landscape, serving as a place marker of former activities and
ways of life.

People who relocated to Natchitoches often remained bound to their home
churches and periodically returned to the countryside to participate in
major events. Those events no longer regularly include river baptisms
because, people noted sadly, urbanization in Natchitoches and new
industries have been polluting the waters. Still, rural churches became
mechanisms for linking city and country residents. More than that, the
church also became a venue to celebrate homecomings, when people return
periodically from Texas, Illinois, and elsewhere to renew family ties
and introduce, as well as meet, newcomers to the group. Although small,
the St. Andrew's congregation remains active even today and still meets
in Derry. St. Augustine continues its central role for Creole
communities in the countryside on Isle Brevelle, Cat Island, and in
Natchitoches. Religious study groups, various cultural heritage events
throughout the year, and a flourishing membership help keep St.
Augustine viable.

Relocation did not necessarily terminate all relationships among former
residents of the quarters or between them, sharecropper families, and
the Hertzog family in the Big House. Former residents might continue to
do occasional small jobs for the Hertzogs, see and greet the Hertzogs in
the local bank, or greet the Hertzogs on the streets of Natchitoches.

## CHAPTER 9: LOCAL VOICES SPEAK OF THE MEANING OF MAGNOLIA

Magnolia's black former tenants and its white owners and their kin,
former business associates and neighbors, preservationists, and former
employees were asked what they thought about the meaning or importance
of Magnolia. Different people used somewhat different language and
concepts to describe their views, but overall, their responses showed
few variations across ethnic/class lines. People generally agreed that
Magnolia's past and present importance rests on three major themes:

(1) the plantation as a successful and continuing organization,

(2) the plantation as a self-supporting and family-run agricultural
    venture, and

(3) the plantation as a combined residential and working unit or rural
    company-town where residents were both community members and players
    in the productive unit.

## WHITE VIEWS

White respondents noted the importance of Magnolia's continuity as a
recognizable and extensive physical entity with largely intact standing
structures and still-cultivated fields. Admiration was expressed for the
farming and business acumen required to successfully manage an
agricultural undertaking of its size. Farming skills were seen as
crucial to success but not the single most important factor. Instead,
skills were seen as operating in tandem with the deep and steadfast
emotional investment needed to persevere over the centuries despite
unpredictable natural threats, political disasters, and economic
uncertainties. While acknowledging that Magnolia is privileged by its
location on rich farming lands, respondents recognized that "just
keeping the farm going is an accomplishment" and considered Magnolia one
of the better farmed units in the area. Its designation as a
Bicentennial Farm, one that is still productive, is seen as richly
deserved.

Continuity is also a critical attribute in terms of kinship and
Magnolia's centuries-long unbroken association with a particular local
family line. Magnolia is seen as the only historic family-managed farm
still working on the Lower Cane River in an area and era where ownership
by extended families or family corporations is increasingly rare and
public corporations or agribusinesses managed from impersonal board
rooms and by remote decision-makers are expanding. As such, it is
considered symbolic of a way of life that once characterized much of
rural Louisiana. One older white interviewee noted: "Magnolia is in a
class by itself, representing the best example of plantation life; like
Gone With The Wind, it was the old south." Mr. Matt was called a
Southern gentleman who exhibited the best of the old qualities, like
caring about the welfare of his servants who were seen, reciprocally, as
devoted to him. These long-term ties between the family and the place
and their active involvement in the long history of Magnolia and Cane
River are also viewed as giving current family managers "a feel for
Magnolia." A sense of connectedness to the farm and the workers who made
it run is seen as distinguishing the family management style and
relationships to the farm community from those of other local
agricultural enterprises.

Several whites drew on childhood memories to recall Magnolia as a
wonderful place, "a fun place to visit." There always was something to
entertain youngsters---horseback riding, surrey rides, swimming at the
camp, and the magic tricks Mr. Matt performed for them. "There always
were caring people around."

Some whites perceived Magnolia's black community as a peaceful place
occupied by relatively happy people who were well treated. People in
different households at the quarters were thought to visit frequently
and attend church together, although they sat apart from others if the
church congregation was mixed. White people who had visited Magnolia as
children recalled "good natured blacks" and fishing or horseback riding
around the place with little black, or "colored," boys. They rode to the
hayfields, the blacksmith shop, or where the hoe hands were working.
From the perspective of whites, who primarily viewed blacks in public
rather than private venues, it seem that "no matter where you would go,
when blacks were working they were always laughing and having a good
time, no matter how hot it was or how hard the work was."

White former employees or their offspring, who worked at Magnolia for
several years, also appreciated the plantation as a self-sufficient
unit. But they perceived Magnolia in less personal terms, although
expressing respect and affection for some Magnolia people and pleasure
in recalling some experiences. These few specialists did not experience
a strong attachment to the place. They tended to see their roles
compartmentalized, primarily as work related, but not as irrevocably
linked to a more complex set of social and political plantation roles.
One person explained: "Magnolia was where I worked and where Mr. Matt
taught me about farming and the philosophies needed to make it work. He
was a strategist. For example, he said the crops that fronted the road
had to be as "clean" as possible so that people driving by,
rubbernecking, would be impressed. Crops in the back need not be so
good-looking." He recalled Mr. Matt's delight in having the tractors
repainted in time for Christmas and lining them up near the Big House,
glistening like new, to impress the arriving family visitors and
passers-by. Still, from the overseers' perspectives, working at Magnolia
"...was a job, like going to a plant. Unlike some neighboring
plantations, which are just showplaces, Magnolia was where people
worked. It needed to make money for the family and for the workers."
Planting was a business. As these comments demonstrate, Magnolia was a
place in which management and workers had a complementary concern for
productivity, for "clean," not "dirty," fields. From management's
perspective, "clean" fields indicated effective husbandry, good labor
relations too, and a basis for enhancing the owners' standing in the
community. Whitewashing the quarters at Christmas is a counterpart of
"clean" fields, reflecting good management and another sign of the
Hertzogs' pride in their place. "Clean" meant "cared for" and
well-managed.

## BLACK VIEWS

Black former tenants did not explicitly articulate Magnolia's importance
as a persisting Hertzog family establishment, working farm, and
community. That sentiment was expressed in other terms. Sensitivity to
the strong connections among the Hertzog family, its lands, and the
community was repeatedly implied by personalizing and individualizing
the plantation and its community. As mentioned before, local people
preferred to identify the farm by its owners' family name, the
Hertzogs', or the Hertzogs' place, rather than by its impersonal formal
title, Magnolia. One lived at the Hertzogs', worked for the Hertzogs,
and shopped at the Hertzogs'. So compelling was the link between the
place and the family name that interviewees who had lived in the area
for decades failed to recognize "Magnolia" as a local entity. On the
other hand, they responded immediately and with interest when "the
Hertzogs' place" was mentioned. Like "Ms. Lizzie's place," "the Cohens'
place" and "the Carnahan store" in Cloutierville, families long
associated with particular sites lent their names to the social
geography.

Pride in "the Hertzogs'" and an association with it, as well as pride in
their own contribution to a well-managed place, is implied in criticisms
of the present appearance of the quarters, the store, blacksmith shop,
and some fields. According to one former resident, "When we lived here,
this was a superb place. It was clean then." Other observers
disapprovingly commented on the presently "dirty" place. "Dirty" did not
mean trash-strewn fields or residential areas, or even the exuberant
growth along the riverbanks. "Dirty" implied neglect. It described
overgrown and weedy areas in and around the quarters that formerly were
occupied, or cultivated, weeded, cleared, and otherwise managed for a
traditionally recognizable farming purpose. While they lived and worked
at Magnolia, laborers and sharecroppers, it seemed, considered
themselves responsible for maintaining a worthy place, and took pride in
doing it. Without them, the quarters, the farm center in general, and
the fields had suffered, had shifted from the clean to the dirty status,
from the cared for to the uncared for. The National Park Service was
admonished to clean up the place.

Black tenants, like white respondents, saw Magnolia as a company town
that met their needs from birth to death. However idyllic these
recollections might strike outsiders, Magnolia was seen to have provided
food and shelter, health care, religious ministering, and a limited cash
income. Not that living with meager funds, few material possessions, and
limited options was good, rather, people who remained at Magnolia until
the 1960s fashioned a life in which problems and good times co-existed
as integral parts of a larger complex package. As one person recalled,
"you could make that little money and you were so happy over it and
everything...It was a good life for me and I enjoyed it, because I
didn't know nothing no better than that." A different woman
appreciatively noted the gifts of elegant children's clothes she
received for her own family when children from the Big House outgrew
them. Another elderly woman reminisced: "It was a wonderful place to
grow up. No one ever went hungry. Either everyone had milk cows and
chickens or people shared and exchanged the foods they had." Someone
else recalled, "...we always had good neighbors; it wasn't like it is
now where everyone is for himself." Tasks were shared too. "You weren't
the only one to raise your children. Everyone raised them in these
quarters and if they saw some kid doing something wrong, well, they
would tell the kids about it. Everyone raised the kids in these
quarters\...I loved it (this place) because it did so much for me."

## CHAPTER 10: LOCAL SUGGESTIONS OF INTERPRETIVE EVENTS OR ACTIVITIES

Responses to questions about the information and messages parks should
convey to the visiting public reflected several kinds of experiences.
Residence in the area potentially affected by increased tourism traffic
influenced some views. Probably just as important in framing peoples'
responses was familiarity with national parks or other historic
plantation sites, travel outside the area, and knowledge about or
involvement with heritage conservation programs. Responses from white
Magnolia owners and Creoles of color, for example, suggested familiarity
with plantations and heritage sites elsewhere in the south, and Creoles
of color in the Heritage Area demonstrated their own involvement in
developing local heritage events and programs. Concern about "heritage
resources" and tourism was more recent among the blacks we interviewed,
although it is expected to expand with the recent establishment of the
Black Heritage Society in Natchitoches. Different individual or ethnic
group experiences in the Lower Cane River in general and Magnolia more
specifically sometimes encouraged divergent opinions. Agreement was
evident other times.

## BLACK VIEWS:

-   Clean and repair the quarters, the store, and other farm structures.

-   Encourage events, such as homecomings and community reunions, at
    June 19^th^ and Labor Day weekends. June 19^th^ is important for
    friends and families but the national holiday, July 4^th^, when
    people enjoy a long weekend, brings people back from elsewhere,
    including California, Texas, and Chicago.

-   Teach black work songs.

## WHITE VIEWS:

-   Commercial ventures, such as establishing a souvenir shop for the
    sale of local specialties, including Ms. Lil's dolls (formerly made
    and sold by a Creole of color woman in a shop on Highway 1, at
    Natchez), and a food service where local culinary specialists could
    demonstrate Cane River creole cooking. Hot tamales, meat pies and
    crawfish pies are especially important foods at Christmas time.

-   Make Magnolia a fun place to visit with family-oriented and
    children's activities, including riding horses, taking buggy and
    surrey rides, having someone perform magic tricks for children, and
    providing farm machinery that children could ride.

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-   Tell ghost stories such as the one about the overseer, supposedly
    killed by Yankee troops, who still haunts the Big House.

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-   Swim in Cane River.

-   Initiate environmental education programs.

## BLACKS AND WHITES AGREE:

-   Run the plantation store, stock it as before but also sell small
    items such as post cards and other items representing Magnolia. Both
    groups felt the store should be shown as the hub of local life where
    people traded, played dominos, told stories, paid bills, met, and
    enjoyed Youk and Dumas' band.

-   Reconstruct the stiles where people could sit and talk and see small
    animals cross.

-   Show how people processed their foods, for example, demonstrate
    coffee parching.

-   Demonstrate recreational events, such as running horses on a brush
    track and playing baseball.

-   Run a demonstration farm.

-   Create a photo gallery that displays enlarged copies of Dr.
    Hertzog's photographs. Magnolia people from the quarters would enjoy
    seeing themselves and their families and would like postcards for
    sale to them as well as to visitors. (Former residents have offered
    to lend copies of their photos to NPS. Another potential source is
    B.A. Cohen, daughter of one of the Lakeview Plantation owners and a
    professional photographer.)

## CREOLES OF COLOR IN THE HERITAGE AREA SUGGEST:

-   Host special exhibits that support Creole Heritage Day in January
    and the Creole Fair in October, but schedule NPS events on other
    days to avoid having them compete with Creole-sponsored activities.

-   Involve Creole community members in story-telling, discussions,
    demonstrations of foodways and quilting, and French-language lessons
    and programs.

-   Tell the Creole story through photos and documents.

-   Create an Interpretive Center where Creole community members could
    interpret their own history, tell their own stories, and demonstrate
    their own crafts and foodways. Grandparents and great-grandparents
    could tell stories about years ago.

-   Create a demonstration center where older people or "culturals"
    could demonstrate traditional crafts to today's younger people who
    know nothing about, for example, quilt-making. Cooking
    demonstrations would be useful too, because young people don't know
    how to make meat pies, defined as a "creole" dish.

## BLACKS, WHITES AND CREOLES OF COLOR AGREE:

NPS should:

-   Demonstrate the preparation of local foods, such as tamales and
    meat-pies.

## INTERPRETIVE TOPICS

### Blacks Suggest:

-   Describe the quarters, the dirt floors, and how we used to sweep the
    yards clean.

-   Talk about our gardens and animals.

-   Tell about the history of places in and around Magnolia.

-   Talk about times from this century, our lives here, and the way we
    live now.

-   Tell about family connections, because people who have left this
    area, and then returned, and young people would like to hear about
    their past family relationships.

-   Discuss healing skills and wisdom, and the way we cured sickness.

-   Discuss the music played under the trees and how we had
    old-fashioned picnics there, at the churches.

### Whites Suggest:

-   Interpret different historical periods by using different cabins in
    the quarters to communicate stories of different periods.

-   "The best thing to interpret is the part we remember. The second
    best is to interpret the whole story." This includes stories about
    the major changes brought by mechanization after WWII, when people
    left, and how some people, who had always lived in the country,
    stayed on even though they had no work.

-   Discuss the difficulties of farming and financing it each year.

-   Talk of the importance of Magnolia's survival as a family farming
    unit.

-   Discuss differences between Creoles of color and white Creoles.

-   Tell stories about the different people who made up this
    country---"Creole people and people of color, and blacks---and their
    heritages." Tell these stories in terms of events and developments
    within and beyond Natchitoches.

-   Emphasize self-sufficiency of the rural area, and the self-reliance
    and lifeways of rural people, immersion in work and isolation from
    town. Although town people might say that we're not in the real
    world, this is the real world. It isn't just farming that is
    important, its living close to the earth.

-   Emphasize the sense of connectedness to the rural surroundings, a
    real attachment to place.

-   Play an educational role so that visitors and townspeople can better
    appreciate the area. Educate people about the importance of the
    environment.

-   Talk about Cane River as a cultural island, extending from
    Cloutierville to the commemorative area, with its own way of life
    and philosophy related to plantation society. Tell how French
    Creoles never left this island except to go to other islands like
    it.

-   Tell about the pigeonnier, which supplied squab for the Big House.

-   Relate Magnolia's experiences with those of other plantations. Use
    ledgers to discuss economics.

-   Tell about plantations in history and changes in plantation life,
    and about differences between town and plantation life.

-   Talk about the sheep around the Big House that helped keep the
    grasses down and provided lambs for the table.

-   Talk about the old bell behind the overseer's house that called
    people to work, announced the noon break, and rang for emergencies.

-   Tell about how black residents were not downtrodden on the
    plantations.

### Blacks and Whites Agree:

NPS should:

-   Discuss cowboys and their jobs.

-   Describe all the different types of plantation jobs.

-   Discuss Magnolia's prize-winning horses.

-   Demonstrate life in the quarters.

-   Run the blacksmith shop and other facilities.

-   Discuss Magnolia as a quiet, peaceful, and cooperative community
    without public disputes.

-   Tell how important the store was. Open and stock it, bring the band,
    and make the store a Visitors Center.

-   Talk about the prize-winning horse, the Flying Dutchman, and about
    Ms. Betty and Mary Gunn, who were expert horsewomen; show their
    photos. Talk about Magnolias' horses and people from the quarters
    who were their handlers.

### Creoles of Color in the Heritage Area Suggest:

-   Portray them as a unique group, differing from other local groups.

-   Portray them as multicultural, without denying their black or white
    heritages, and present them as a separate group equal to blacks and
    to whites.

-   Describe St. Augustine Church as the spiritual and cultural center
    of the Creole community.

-   Discuss out-migration as a survival strategy and the initial
    dependence of newcomers on relatives and friends already established
    in the new settlement area.

# CHAPTER 11: LOCAL PEOPLE SPEAK OF SLAVERY

## BLACK AND WHITE VIEWS ON ADDRESSING SLAVERY 

Slavery initially met little support as an interpretive topic, although
individual interest in interpreting it varied somewhat with age and
social features, such as ethnicity and kinship, business, or labor
relationship to the Hertzogs'. Several older blacks -- former Magnolia
tenants -- and whites, appeared uncomfortable even discussing the
possibility of considering slavery. They avoided eye contact with
Crespi, for example, and hesitantly addressed the topic. The two local
interviewers themselves objected to raising the topic. Nearly everyone's
immediate response was that slavery was an unacceptable interpretive
topic. Some whites were concerned with how outsiders, including visitors
from other regions and with other views, would perceive local people and
cultures if slavery was discussed. Some elderly black former tenants,
who found discussions of slavery untenable, commented that managers and
their treatments of the labor community could differ significantly among
plantations. Unlike other places they had heard of, "there was no
brutalizing at the Hertzogs'." They thought this plantation had a high
regard for its labor community. In these public conversations, they
dismissed the possibility of mistreatment by conceptually excising
Magnolia from the mainstream 19^th^ century plantations with the comment
that "it's in a class by itself." White and black people preferred
interpretive programs that would highlight events of the present
century, especially "our times," the times they remembered and often
enthusiastically described. Their reluctance to conceive of slavery as
an acceptable public topic tended to diminish as the conversations
progressed, or during subsequent conversations, when the initially
reluctant black and white respondents modified their initial opposition
to public discussions of this thorny issue.

The initially reticent black people and whites came to agree with those
few who had unambiguously supported an interpretation of slavery that
the topic was legitimate. But, people insisted, it should not be the
major or single focus. Slavery was acceptable only if presented as one
phase in a historical sequence of phases that ran the gamut from
Magnolia's inception through its transformation from a traditional
plantation to the presently mechanized farming operation. The National
Park Service was asked to contextualize the story in terms of political,
demographic, economic, and other conditions so that slavery would not be
presented in isolation as a comment about local morality, or the lack of
it, or a comment about economic decisions alone. Rather, slavery should
be portrayed as a response to diverse regional and national conditions.

The language of slavery also drew some comment. Several whites and black
former residents noted the offensiveness of describing the cabins as
"slave quarters." Just call them "quarters," they argued, because a
succession of different categories of workers occupied them and it is
misleading to depict the cabins as just housing one kind of worker.
Moreover, several black people who had occupied the cabins as day
laborers, explained, "if you say people lived in the slave quarters in
this century, you are implying they are slaves." Former resident
laborers asserted that the park must "make it clear that tenant laborers
were not slaves." One black person who had grown up in Magnolia's
sharecropper area was even offended at the suggestion that she might
have been a tenant in the quarters. On the other hand, because the
cabins were constructed to house enslaved people, some whites argued,
they should be called "slave quarters."

Blacks and whites without direct ties to Magnolia or who were several
generations removed from the resident labor force seemed more
comfortable speaking of slavery. They suggested that "the National Park
Service must talk about slavery because that's what made the plantation
work and we can't make believe it didn't happen." Another noted that
"slavery must be mentioned because it is the background for discussing
how Magnolia evolved from slavery to respect for colored people."

### Blacks Suggest Topics on Slavery and Its Aftermath

-   Resistance to enslavement, including the Underground Railroad.

-   Social, cultural, economic, and political dimensions of the slave
    community.

-   Adapting to freedom: abolition, reconstruction, and their aftermath.

-   Black roles today.

One black respondent from urban Natchitoches, without direct ties to
Magnolia or the countryside, vigorously argued for a generic discussion
of slavery as a despicable "evil institution" that dehumanized people,
depriving them of the skills and education required to effectively
survive after manumission. To convey to visitors the full impact of an
institution that enslaved the mind and the spirit, he observed, the
aftermath of slavery needed explication. "The tragedy of slavery was
that some people didn't know how to deal with life without having
someone there to tell them. Slavery kept people from developing survival
skills." Moreover, he argued, slaves must not be portrayed as passive
victims. They were also people who created strategies to protect
themselves and also planned and implemented insurrections. Draw
attention to the possible presence of the Underground Railroad, he
argued, and to the Lemee house on Jefferson St., which might have been a
station on the Underground Railroad.

A young black person whose grandparents were from the Hertzogs' place
argued that it was imperative to share the plantation history with
younger people. Otherwise, the story would be lost in the future and
young people would not know of the past difficulties. Indeed, several
people prevailed upon the National Park Service to convey "old time
talk" or black history to younger people so they could better appreciate
their elders' experiences as well as their presently improved situation.
One individual was forceful about needing to "preserve the memories of
our people from generation to generation but, when we speak to blacks,
we must talk about slavery with compassion. Whites will be in the
audience too and because hardships were suffered by everyone, black and
white, you must tell the story from white and slave perspectives. Talk
about harsh things too, and good things." He added, as others had, the
National Park Service should "end the story where it comes out now. Even
if things may not be the way everybody wants them, they still progressed
to a degree." Blacks are among the professional people now, and that
should be made clear. Still, said another who found the slavery topic
difficult, "if you must talk about it, then get into it and get out"; do
not dwell on it.

Few black respondents discussed the emotional pain their parents and
grandparents might have experienced at the plantation or Natchitoches
parish in general. One, however, recalled how tearful her father became
when describing what older people said and how difficult it was for him
to talk to her about it. This same woman added that people refused to
discuss the past, whether the topic was slavery, abolition, or Jim Crow
eras, because they were too hurt and angry; they don't want to remember
a past that robbed them of their humanity. "Why did black men hang from
the trees?" she asked rhetorically. And "how could some people tell
other people to go to the back of the bus or not drink from their water
fountain or get off the sidewalk? God wouldn't be a just God if he would
let this still happen." Its difficult to talk about, this individual
recognized, but, if the National Park Service is to discuss those days,
"the Lord will show you how to talk about this in a way that doesn't
offend people, but to speak as necessary; not to hurt people or create
pain, but to make them understand more."

### Whites Suggest Topics on Slavery and its Aftermath

Several suggestions were made about sequential changes that would
express the plantation's evolution and also give visitors a sense of a
dynamic rural scenario. One proposed sequence is:

-   Indigenous occupations;

-   Slavery;

-   Abolition and emancipation;

-   Reconstruction;

-   1910 Boll Weevil infestation;

-   The Great Depression;

-   World War II;

-   Mechanization;

-   Rural depopulation;

-   Out-migration to Natchitoches and elsewhere.

Another suggestion was to organize interpretation around major decision
points, such as:

-   How to cultivate a plantation without mechanization.

-   Why feudal management styles were pursued.

-   Whether to rebuild the plantation house after the Civil War.

-   Strategies for responding to the 1930s economic crisis.

-   How to manage pressures for mechanization and economic
    diversification.

-   Choosing tenancy and sharecropping arrangements.

Whites also suggested discussing occupational diversity among slaves as
a way to describe social as well as economic and political relationships
between enslaved people and their owners. Another potential topic was
the hierarchical relationships within the slave community that were
based partly on the different occupational roles and could lead to
greater advantages for some slaves. Concubinage as an acceptable
relationship between French Creoles and Creoles of color in the 19^th^
century was another suggestion.

Whites also raised the economics of slavery as another possibility. They
thought it would be instructive to show that slaves were defined and
treated like commodities in an economic system in which decisions to use
slaves reflected business considerations and market-based economic
rational choices. Another suggestion was to consider the operation of
the plantation commissary and the forms of debt peonage based on payment
with scrip/coins that perpetuated the system of labor dependency even
after slavery was abolished. It would be important, people suggested, to
show both sides of the system, using ledgers and other historic
documents that tell a story about people and the economics of slavery
over the past few hundred years. The story might also be told by using
different cabins at Magnolia to interpret the historical sequence from
slavery to the end of tenancy.

The potential racial composition of the interpretive staff raised some
interest. One white person wondered about the race of the future park
interpreters and mentioned his own discomfort---a feeling of being
targeted---when he visited colonial Williamsburg and a black interpreter
told the story of plantation slavery. The respondent was not suggesting
limiting the staff to white people but raising the relationship between
ethnicity and interpretive roles as a discussion point.

## CREOLES OF COLOR VIEWS ON SLAVERY

Creole participants in this study came primarily from the heritage area,
not Magnolia. Many were the offspring of planters or landowners
themselves, mostly of modest holdings, and some were offspring of people
who once sharecropped or rented plantation land along Upper Cane River.
They necessarily brought a different personal history and interpretive
grid to the discussion of slavery, partly because some of their
ancestors might have been slaves and others were recalled as landholders
who depended on slaves themselves. At different times in their own
family histories, different ancestors might have played both roles.
Interpreting slavery to the visiting public was not a difficult or
contentious issue to this group. They seemed to agree that slavery
"should be presented like it was a sign of the time, not that anyone
blessed it or thought it was right."

Noting that their Creole ancestors also ran slave-driven plantations,
some people perceived slavery as a rational economic choice that
responded to labor needs prior to the introduction of mechanized farm
equipment. As one person commented, "If you had land, you had to have
some help in the days before John Deere." He added, "If you had any
intention of surviving in business then you use the labor that's
available; in this case it was slaves and it happened that slaves were
darker skinned." It was business, not morality, that prompted planters
to buy and sell slaves, he argued.

Considering slavery as implying a reciprocal economic relationship, one
person remarked that the owner was responsible for people from birth to
death. Slaves, on the other hand, had a job to do and were paid for it
in food, clothing, and shelter. In addition, Magnolia's brick quarters
were cool, making for a more comfortable, healthy, cabin. One person
illustrated his argument about slavery as a rational economic choice by
adding that use of bricks did not reflect the landowners' graciousness
as much as the need to have slaves making bricks for other structures.
Further, he said, it was important to keep slaves occupied throughout
the year, even when agricultural demands had peaked, and brick-making
kept the workers busy. The Creole respondents also perceived their
landed ancestors as having given slaves relative freedom and no
mistreatment in order to avoid encouraging counter-productive,
unsatisfactory job performance or runaways. Compared to South Louisiana
where, they said, cruelty to slaves was common, Cane River planters were
lenient.

A point no others had made about slave history was offered by one Creole
woman who observed that slaves had their own complex history. Slaves
were often "real classy" people when they were in Africa but were
brought here to be treated without dignity. Despite that treatment, she
continued, some blacks were very smart and capable and became mechanics,
carpenters, and preachers.

## EVENTS, ACTIVITIES, AND PERSPECTIVES TO AVOID 

### Black Concerns

These emphasized the need to be treated with dignity and not
stereotyped:

-   Don't refer to us as slaves or to our houses as slave quarters. We
    were free laborers when we lived there at the Hertzogs'.

-   Don't get dressed as old mammies or try speaking the way you think
    slaves must have sounded. In effect, don't mimic or mock them.

-   Don't try to act the way you think slaves did. Again, don't mimic or
    mock them.

### White Concerns: 

-   Discourage heavily capitalized hotel development in historic
    Natchitoches which would create traffic problems, reduce the
    historic qualities of west Natchitoches by choking narrow streets
    and bridges, threaten historic streets with widening, and unfairly
    compete with historic inns.

-   Help preserve the environmental and cultural qualities of the area.
    "Keep it from becoming too civilized," overpopulated, overbuilt, and
    converted to a playground where new water sports, for example, or
    development leads to degeneration of habitat and lifeways.

-   Hire local people as Magnolia storekeepers and park managers or
    people with experience in Natchitoches and Magnolia in order to
    respond to public queries in a knowledgeable manner.

-   Don't portray us as forcing poverty, such as keeping blacks
    barefoot, and powerlessness on black people.

-   Be aware of southern sensitivities by conveying non-judgmental
    portrayals of southern culture and sensitivity to potentially
    adverse effects of tourism and development.

### Creole of Color Concerns: 

-   Direct people and vehicles to a cultural center in Derry to learn
    about Creole culture, and discourage them from going to Upper Cane
    River on Highways 484 and 119. Channel traffic away from side roads.
    Keep Magnolia traffic on Highway 1, straight to Magnolia, and avoid
    roads used by working tractors and trailers. Teach visitors to
    respect privacy of Creole homes and driveways, and avoid creating
    heavy traffic.

-   Avoid bringing people from National Park Service offices in
    Natchitoches or New Mexico or from Cajun areas to interpret Creole
    culture. Interpret it through oral histories or other activity, and
    hire local Creole people.

-   Work with Creole preservationists. Use sensitive local people
    qualified for interpretive work. Don't use people to work as
    National Park Service guides and make them wear aprons and
    antebellum dress.

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-   Cajuns are not wanted here to tell visitors what Creoles do. We
    wouldn't tell visitors what Cajuns do or what they are about.

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```
-   Don't just have people reading something from a book.

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-   Don't do living history (no consensus about this activity).

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```
-   Discourage visitors from taking Creole children's photos (no
    consensus, its acceptable to do so if prior permission is given).

-   Protect and respect Creole privacy by reducing the National Park
    Service presence. Keep the area a quiet community without motels and
    restaurants on the river. Discourage wealthy subdivisions with
    locked gated communities or trailer parks. Keep wealthy people in
    subdivisions from putting retaining walls around the river banks
    because the walls are threatening the integrity of their own banks
    downstream.

-   Avoid having the park become so touristy and commercial that local
    people become "like monkeys in a zoo that tourists drive by to see
    how Creoles look. Photos should not be taken of us. Don't make this
    place like Santa Fe where all those people (Indian vendors in the
    plaza) were selling their wares."

-   Staff at the park tourist center should be informed about all local
    tourist opportunities, be prepared with readable area maps and
    brochures, and learn enough about visitor interests and schedules to
    direct them appropriately. For example, visitors should know that
    Melrose closes at 4 P.M., and that they can use Highway 1 or take
    the river tour. Installing restroom facilities at the center and the
    park is essential.

> CHAPTER 12: IMPLICATIONS:
>
> "CANE RIVER CREOLE NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK"

The park name disturbs some local residents by seeming to disenfranchise
them, insult their ethnicity, and eliminate their past as worthy of note
in the new National Park Service unit. Black people particularly see the
park's name as symbolic of longstanding disregard and disrespect for
them. "Creole" is neither what they call themselves nor are called by
others. On the other hand, the name pleases others whose ways of life
seem to be highlighted and legitimized by the new park. Whites,
including people of French ancestry, think the park is about
architectural and various other expressions of French heritage. Creoles
of color perceive the park as intended to highlight their own special
heritage and status. While this exclusive view is the prevailing one,
there was some discomfort with it and concern that the park name
unfairly ignored the black community and culture. Some Creoles of color
noted that the black community is another participant in the Cane River
heritage, should be considered as such by the park, and interpreted
alongside the Creole culture. As they saw it, it is problematic to talk
of a Creole park and allow the black community to feel it is disowned
from being part of the park or the Cane River story. Black people could
not agree more.

> CHAPTER 13: CONCLUSION

"Cane River Creole NHP" might suggest a park that focuses on French
heritage as expressed in ways of life, language, and architecture. The
park does that, of course, but the Cane River story is considerably more
complex. This brief ethnography, undertaken to meet immediate planning
needs, intended to highlight those complexities by making ordinarily
muted voices more audible and ethnographically sensitive resources more
visible. Research shows that the plantation locally called "the
Hertzogs'" signifies ethnically different peoples: the whites, including
planters of French Creole descent, the labor force of black peoples, and
Creoles of color -- their adaptations to each other and to local,
regional, and national conditions. Ethnic differences found expression
in religious affiliation, celebrations, and language patterns as well as
in jobs, residence, and social status. Each of the three major groups
differed in ways that were complementary and essential to the
plantation's inception, development, and success as a commercial
enterprise and community. Ethnicity and relationship to resources or
occupation stratified the plantation, a rural company town. Earlier, it
was organized along manorial lines under the hereditary stewardship of
the white French Creole Hertzogs, with enslaved black peoples providing
labor. The social pyramid following abolition included sharecroppers,
mostly Creoles of color, and day laborers, mostly black occupants of the
quarters, which formerly housed enslaved workers.

Bitterness about poverty and powerlessness might have dominated black
reminiscences of life at Magnolia, but it did not. Memories were
undoubtedly reconfigured by the passage of time. Peoples' continuing
membership in the local social system also influenced perceptions or
descriptions of the past, and some experiences were not retrieved or
shared with outsiders. Still, although former residents expressed deep
pain about past indignities and their struggles to make ends meet, they
also tended to recall living full and relatively satisfying lives at
Magnolia. They described the times they played as children, met and
married their mates, reared their own children, fed families partly from
their small gardens, and balanced long working days with recreational,
religious, and secular events. The quarters provided full lives with
social, spiritual, educational, and economic support. Black residents
left that behind by the mid-1960s when mechanized agriculture made their
labor surplus, undermining the community, transforming rural aspects of
culture, and prompting emigration to urban Natchitoches and elsewhere.

The June 19^th^ celebrations may be seen as a metaphor of changing
plantation relationships, the severing of traditional power
relationships between enslaved blacks and their white owners, and new
formulations of their interdependence. The Hertzog family continued to
support the event into this century, dispensing largesse by donating
foods and giving workers a holiday. The labor community accepted this
support, reaffirming its own ties to the plantation community.
Mechanization and the associated rural exodus changed, but did not
completely sever the relationships among black families as well as
between them and white landowners. Concomitantly, the former type of
June 19^th^ celebrations, perceived as a "black" event, was waning in
many areas. After a period of regrouping and redefinition, interest in
acknowledging June 19^th^ recently began to re-surface. While the
celebration still marks change in ethnic relationships, in some
communities it is becoming a more inclusive event that is no longer
exclusively identified as a "black" holiday. White participation in the
present celebrations might be an acknowledgement of their own roles in
framing the black political experience. To the extent that the holidays
people chose to celebrate and the forms those celebrations take express
aspects of their social positions, the recent expressions of June 19^th^
reflect continued change, strengthened black voices, and greater equity
in some respects, locally and in American society more generally.

The Magnolia portion of Cane River Creole NHP is a circumscribed area
with clearly defined fixed boundaries, but the ethnographically relevant
landscape is more extensive than the 19-acre park. Places assigned
cultural meaning by former residents were located within the park;
others were dispersed within the larger plantation or located elsewhere
in the Cane River Heritage Area. Some places, such as the AME Church or
Ms. Lizzie's house, no longer supported physical structures, but they
remained named place markers in the conceptual map of former residents.
Importantly, while the structures are ephemeral, their stories have
longevity. Ethnicity influenced peoples' identification of certain
ethnographically important resources. Black people, for example, not
only attached importance to the quarters. They also valued the former
St. James AME Church, sites in the sharecropper area, and certain
Baptist Churches outside the plantation, such as St. Andrew, which
partnered in community life with Magnolia's AME Church. Creoles of color
attached greater importance to St. Augustine Catholic Church and other
physical evidence of their culture. White people, including French
descendents, valued a viable natural environment along with Magnolia's
farm buildings and the larger plantation. Everyone accorded importance
to the Big House and the store. Pride in the Hertzogs' place was also
common, expressed by black people as pride in community and their
contributions to the plantation's success and longevity and by whites as
pride in the continuing family management and the ability to survive
economic and natural hardships. Identification with the Hertzog
community was shared, but faceted by different experiences.

Slavery seemed to be the most troubling topic. Although initially viewed
as a tabu subject by blacks and whites alike, interviewees came to agree
on its legitimacy as an interpretive topic. People were concerned about
potentially insensitive interpretations of southern cultures and the
introduction of biases and misunderstandings by NPS staff from different
backgrounds and regions. Concerns about having the National Park Service
convey a painful and shameful past to the different visiting publics
troubled others. Despite their trepidation, people agreed the park could
cover the topic, provided it was part of a sequence that also addressed
local changes and their contexts since the Civil War. In effect, the
community gave the NPS permission to tell the story of a past that local
people, as well as the nation, finds painful, contentious, and difficult
to address. The NPS is now responsible for conveying a complex past on
behalf of a diverse community that finds the subject too difficult or
sensitive to address itself. In this regard, the community is
challenging and trusting the Service to maneuver a minefield of
sensitive feelings and divergent perspectives so that it projects the
many dimensions of traditional plantation systems in ways that inform
national visitors while respecting the concerns of all Magnolia
families.

In the future, the NPS might consider periodically conducting focus
groups with plantation owners, former tenants, former sharecroppers, and
other interested groups to explore and test potential interpretive
approaches to slavery or other topics. Hosting a workshop on the public
interpretation of slavery in concert with other private and public
plantation parks experienced in addressing the issues could be useful.
Magnolia staff may also keep contact with local groups as well as the
public by making available a section for comments on their web page.

Strong local interest in the park coupled with ethnic diversity would
make it beneficial to develop separate alliances and formal agreements
with Creole of color, white, and black groups. The benefits would
include development of cooperative interpretive or other programs that
incorporate local expertise, give the park regular access to community
views, and enhance interactions with local groups. Alliances might be a
mechanism for disseminating information on employment. Separate
alliances with St. Andrew Missionary Baptist Church and St. Augustine
Catholic Church or St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, the Black
Heritage Society, or the Louisiana Creole Heritage Center at NSU, could
make knowledgeable partners available. Contact with the Hertzogs
presently occurs through activities associated with the National
Heritage Area and Magnolia itself, but the park might find it useful to
expand its networks through a small informal discussion group that
included the Prud'hommes of Oakland and other local plantation owners.

The park might treat June 19^th^ as a time for workshops, storytelling,
or other events generally related to the transformation of agricultural
systems and rural community life from the Civil War through
mechanization. Melrose has its Arts and Crafts festival, Creoles of
color in Upper Cane River have their heritage celebrations, individual
plantations in the Heritage Area participate in special country tours,
and American Indian powwows are held at Fort St. Jean Baptiste. No rural
site is known to mark June 19^th^ as symbolizing the end of slavery and
the start of the long process of transforming the nation and its
peoples.

Informational brochures for visitors, including one on the etiquette of
visiting Cane River and interacting with area residents, might consider
ethnicity as different local groups perceive it. Interactive computer
programs might be developed to raise and answer questions on local
ethnicity, agricultural production, horse racing, and the like. Another
pragmatic step to meet local concerns about tourism impacts, yet not
inappropriately involve the National Park Service in politically
sensitive development issues, might be to co-sponsor workshops on
community‑based preservation and gateway communities, perhaps with
speakers from selected gateway communities.

One useful interpretive approach to demonstrating Magnolia's social
dynamics and acknowledging the essential role of black labor families
would be to portray the lives of selected families whose past is
intimately associated with Magnolia. No doubt the Hertzog family history
will be a prominent part of the Magnolia story; the story of families,
such as Ms. Lizzie's and the Verchers\', should be told alongside it.

Cane River Creole NHP in general and Magnolia in particular help further
traditional National Park Service values of protecting resources and
educating the public about nationally important sites, structures,
natural features, and landscapes. On the other hand, the park also
enjoys uniquely unprecedented opportunities to highlight these resources
in human terms. Identifying the ethnographic dimensions of these
resources by giving visibility to the meanings assigned by Magnolia's
ethnic/class groups will deepen and enrich the Cane River story.
Drafting the content of interpretive programs in collaboration with
French Creole and other whites, black people, and Creoles of color will
demonstrate respect for their perspectives about the pasts and the
messages they wish to convey to visitors to a park that once was, and
for some still is, home.

It is important to recall that the park is embedded in a larger context.
It includes the entire Magnolia plantation with its sharecropper area
and the St. James AME church and its partner, St. Andrew. These places
might not appear in formal Cultural Landscape reports and may be
unmarked by historic plaques, although places such as the former AME
Church deserve official notice. Life in the quarters was not tenable --
nor did it occur -- without relationships with people and at places
beyond its boundaries. Cloutierville, Derry, and other resources in the
National Heritage Area are important parts of the plantation community
and story. A vision of community that is broad enough to include these
places and relationships is imperative to telling the Magnolia, or
better yet, the Cane River story.

Finally, despite its brevity, this ethnographic work had penetrated
certain social boundaries deeply enough to highlight local people,
views, and resources that might have otherwise eluded attention. One
resulting pragmatic lesson is that cultural anthropology or ethnography,
as it is known in NPS, can go where other research strategies do not
and, with community cooperation, bring planners' insights into the
concerns of people whose intimate knowledge of the resources is
unmatchable.

> CHAPTER 14: FUTURE RESEARCH

Skimming the surfaces of this complex and "recalled community" revealed
rich stores of untapped information and deep gaps in existing data on
the Cane River area, its black people, the French Creole, and other
whites. Ideally, the problem would be addressed by a comprehensive
professional and phased area research plan of cultural anthropological
and multidisciplinary work. Research would consider the mosaic of Cane
River people and cultures along with ties between the town and the
countryside and between them and regional and national events. An
expansive view is imperative. Neither the Hertzogs' place nor the
Prud'hommes', the people who lived and worked there, or the larger group
of heritage area resources are comprehensible without reference to each
other and to more inclusive events, circumstances, and people. By
phasing the studies, each would build on the results of earlier work and
produce data that informs the design of subsequent work. Teamwork and
appropriate professionals working collaboratively with local experts and
some continuity in staff would be essential.

Focussing on Magnolia in particular, the National Park Service
interpretive programs as well as future planning would benefit from the
following studies. They would also produce information for use in the
Ethnographic Resource Inventory (ERI). The following are suggested, in
priority order (see Directors Order #28 Cultural Resource Management
Chapter 10):

-   Ethnographic Overview and Assessment: This basic required
    comprehensive study informs management about culturally meaningful
    park resources and the peoples traditionally associated with them.
    Cultural anthropologists would systematically review, annotate, and
    assess the available literature, in addition to ethnographically
    interviewing past and present members of the culturally diverse
    plantation community about ways of life associated with park
    resources. They would conduct site visits with representatives of
    the different ethnic groups and map meaningful and storied places.
    Ethnographic Resource Inventory data, potential National Register
    sites, and particular gaps in the available data would be
    identified.

-   Traditional Use Study: These studies would describe and analyze the
    plantation's transformation from a traditional rural company town to
    an agribusiness. Attention is directed, for example, to changing
    resource uses for large-scale ranching and agriculture,
    sharecropping, gardening and residences, religious places, social
    trails, ferry landings, and so on. The consequences of change for
    the entire resident community, management as well as tenant workers
    and tenant farmers, are addressed. Included would be details of
    decision-making about: allocating space to crops, pastures,
    residence, recreation, and the like; marketing and non-cash
    exchanges of surplus; changes in residence patterns and family
    organization; and changing relationships among plantations and
    Cloutierville, Derry and other nearby settlements.

-   Ethnographic Landscape: This is a detailed study of ethnographic
    landscapes within Magnolia, as well as the heritage area. It
    examines the stories, names, and locales of the cultural and natural
    features perceived as meaningful by people with traditional
    associations to Magnolia. This might be combined with either of the
    above studies or the following one.

-   Ethnohistories and ethnographic oral histories: Cultural
    anthropologists research each ethnic group to reconstruct its past,
    transformations in family and community ways of life, and
    perceptions of inter-ethnic relations. Extended interviews are
    combined with analyses of published and unpublished information on
    particular themes. Another theme is the transformation of black,
    Creole of color, and white communities from the turn of the 20^th^
    century to the present, including the creation of new mechanisms for
    community building or stability. This would include consideration of
    churches as supporting viable and dynamic communities and as forces
    in efforts to gain economic, social, and political parity. This
    might be combined with the above ethnographic study and include the
    evolution of ethnic terms that local groups use for themselves and
    others and the relationships between language changes and changes in
    the political, social, and economic contexts.

-   Social/Cultural Impacts Assessments and baseline studies: Baseline
    data are needed on the present-day heritage area, including
    demography, resource allocations, community and ethnicity, and
    potential for income generation. This multidisciplinary study would
    be used in periodically evaluating the local impacts of Cane River
    Creole NHP, the National Heritage Area, and tourism projects. It
    would also be used to make needed mid-course corrections in land
    use, zoning, and the transportation facilities, particular tours,
    and other features of the anticipated tourism industry.

> ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We are indebted to the Hertzogs, especially the residents and co-owners
of Magnolia Plantation, known locally as "the Hertzogs'" place. Ms.
Elizabeth (Betty) Hertzog, daughter of the now-deceased Mr. Matthew (Mr.
Matt) and Mrs. Dee Hertzog, and her cousin Mr. Ambrose J. Hertzog III
and his mother, Mrs. Irma Hertzog, the widow of Dr. Ambrose Hertzog II,
generously shared their information about events and people, their
memories and insights about plantation history and operations, helped
identify local consultants, and provided access to plantation work
records. The Hunter family of Alexandria spent a long afternoon
recalling their Magnolia experiences (Hunter 1994). Thanks go to Ms.
Dorothy Cohen, her brother Mr. Morris Cohen, and their niece Barbara
Anne Cohen, known as B.A., former owners of Magnolia's neighboring
plantation, Lakeview, for sharing their recollections. BA's concern for
the vitality of Cane River communities and her artist's eye sharpened
the nuances of local landscapes.

![](media/image15.jpeg){width="1.1979166666666667in"
height="1.1041666666666667in"}

Deacons and other members of St. Andrew Missionary Baptist Church,
including Dr. Herbert and Pearline Baptiste, and members of St.
Augustine Catholic Church lent gracious assistance by offering written
and verbal information about Church history and inviting other
congregation members to join group discussions about the area.

Thanks to former overseers or supervisors and families, including Mr.
George Lynn, the Thompsons, and Mr. Don Gallien, and former cowhands
such as Mr. Isaac Dupree, who recalled daily life at Magnolia. Ms. Ruby
Fuller's fine food and conversation at the Derry Mercantile restaurant
further enriched our understandings of local culture and cuisine. We
appreciate the help of several residents of urban Natchitoches,
including Mr. Robert (Bobby) DeBlieux, the L.J. Melders, Mr. Ed Ward,
and the Palmers who shared their experiences and insights into Magnolia,
preservation and tourism, and cotton farming. Mr. John L. Mayer,
archeologist at the United States Forest Service (USFS) Kisatchie
District, offered information and hard-to-find publications.
Additionally, people interviewed for the subsequent study of Oakland
Plantation related their experiences with Magnolia, as did Ms. Theresa
Sarpy of the Clifton Choctaw Tribe, and urban Natchitoches residents,
including Reverend Turner and Mr. Rogers Roque, and Cloutierville
resident Mr. Edward Metoyer.

The owners of Metoyer's Arts and Crafts in Derry, Betty Metoyer and her
husband Tony Metoyer, whose untimely death was mourned near and far,
supported this project by sharing their first-hand knowledge of the
Creole of color community. They also organized group meetings when
Matthew and Elenor Metoyer and Celena Rachel discussed Cane River life.
We are grateful for the sharp memories of Derry and Cloutierville
residents, such as Ms. Lucille Carnahan, who, with Mrs. Myra Friedman,
helped reconstruct the area's past. We were helped by additional group
interviews with participants who included Mr. Mickey Moran, Ms. Judith
Moran, and Ms. Vera Severin. The Jones, Listach, Rachal, Williams,
Cyriaque, Cyiark, Morris, Roque, Sarpy and Metoyer families all
furthered our insights into the Cane River area.

Ms. Mary Linn Wernet, University Archivist assisted the project staff by
identifying information sources and providing access to the rich
collections at the Cammie G. Henry Research Center, Watson Memorial
Library, Northwestern State University. Mr. John Vander Sypen,
Supervisor with the Natchitoches Parish School Board generously tracked
down data on the establishment of several rural schools of importance to
Magnolia children. Both he and Nancy Harrington, former secretary to the
Superintendent of Schools, provided leads to other educators.

Thanks to Ms. Laura Soulliere Gates, the caring superintendent of Cane
River Creole National Historical Park, for comments on a previous draft,
support and enormous patience while this document was being completed. I
appreciated the insightful comments offered by Park Interpreters Ms.
Carla Cowles and her summer sidekick, Ms. Amy Williams. Former staff of
Cane River Creole NHP assisted too, including ranger Mrs. Carolyn
Breedlove who provided copies of critical documents in the park
collections, and Mr. Lee Jordan, program manager, who provided leads to
potential consultants. The humor and patience of former superintendent
Mr. Randy Clement and his introductions to key community members helped
move this project ahead.

A warm abrazo goes to Mrs. Allison Peña, anthropologist from Jean
Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve. She not only articulated
her beliefs that the views of present-day peoples deserved systematic
ethnographic attention but acted on them by supporting this study and
thoughtfully reviewing earlier draft documents. I also appreciate the
careful reviews of earlier drafts made by the Denver Service Center
planners, particularly planner Mrs. Ann Van Huizen and cultural
anthropologist/ethnographer Dr. Larry Van Horn, and the useful comments
of archeologist Dr. Hiram (Pete) Gregory of Northwestern State
University. Thanks to the cultural landscape specialists David Hasty in
the National Park Service Atlanta office and to Lucy Lawliss and Cari
Goetcheus in the Washington office for help in identifying historic
maps. David Hesker expertly modified maps in the General Management Plan
to fit the needs of this report.

Ms. Jane Gray and Mrs. Sherri Lawson Clark, cultural anthropologists
formerly in the Archeology and Ethnography Program in Washington, DC and
graduate Anthropology students, and Ms. Laura Bruce, Cultural
Anthropology intern in the program from Columbia University, get my
endless thanks. They not only offered interested support and comfort
throughout this unfortunately prolonged undertaking but also used their
considerable computer skills to produce the Figures, help format the
document and often save it from inadvertent destruction, lend expert
editorial and technical assistance, and integrate the photos.

I appreciated the help extended by all the project supporters, too
numerous to name, and hope the resulting report meets their
expectations. If not, only I am responsible for its shortcomings.

# 

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> Tallahassee, FL.
>
> 1999b *A Brief Ethnography of Magnolia Plantation: Planning for Cane
> River Creole National Historical Park (Draft)*, by Muriel (Miki)
> Crespi. Denver Service Center.
>
> 2000 *Cane River Creole National Historical Park. Draft General
> Management Plan, Environmental Impact Statement*. Louisiana.

Stokes, George A.

> 1957 "Lumbering and Western Louisiana Cultural Landscapes." *Annals of
> the Association of American Geographers* 47:250-266.

###### The Natchitoches Times

> 1978 "Magnolia Plantation -- A Proud Tradition," 6A-7A. August 6.
> Watson Memorial Library, Northwestern State University of Louisiana,
> Natchitoches, LA Cammie G. Henry Research Center. Cammie G. Henry
> Archives.
>
> 1997 Reprint of Historical Photograph. Wednesday, July 23:2A.
>
> 1997 Reprint of Historical Photograph. Wednesday, July 30:2A.

###### The Progress

> 1938 "Crop Rotation System of Cultivation Maintained at Magnolia for
> 125 Years," 83-85. March 25. Hammond, LA. Northwestern State
> University of Louisiana. Watson Memorial Library. Cammie G. Henry
> Research Center Scrapbook Collection. Louisiana Plantation, 6 of 6.

Sobel, Mechal

> 1988 *Trabelin' On: The Slave Journey to an Afro-Baptist Faith*.
> Abridged Edition. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Shugg, Roger W.

> 1939 *Origins of Class Struggle in Louisiana: A Social History of
> White Farmers and Laborers during Slavery and After, 1840-1875*.
> Louisiana: Louisiana State University Press.

U.S. Congress, House P.L. 103-499

> 1994 *Cane River Creole National Historic Park Legislation*. 103^rd^
> Cong., 2^nd^ ses. Approved November H.R. 1348. Washington, DC.

Vlach, John Michael

> 1993 *Back of the Big House: The Architecture of Plantation Slavery*.
> Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.

Wagley, Charles

> 1968 "The Concept of Social Race in the Americas" (orig. 1959): In
> *The Latin American Tradition*, pp. 155-174. New York: Columbia
> University Press.

Williams, Brett et al.

> 1998 *Civil War Defenses of Washington and Anacostia Park Rapid
> Ethnographic Assessment Procedure*. Washington, DC, Denver Service
> Center, and National Capital Region. National Park Service, United
> States Department of the Interior.

# A SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 

> ON HISTORIC
>
> MAGNOLIA PLANTATION AND ITS ENVIRONS

Susan Dollar

Northwestern State University

Babb, Arthur. *My Sketchbook, 1926-27.* Edited by Neill Cameron.
Natchitoches: Northwestern State University Press, 1996.

> A charming visitor's journal, this source is full of descriptions of
> Natchitoches in the twenties. See, especially, pp. 79-90 (a tour of
> the Cane River area and Melrose with photographs) and pp. 93-101
> (another trip down the river, Isle Brevelle, and Magnolia with
> photographs). This book's photographs and text can be very helpful
> with the interpretation of Magnolia, as well as the greater heritage
> area. This source is a very important one to read.

*Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Northwest Louisiana.* Nashville:
The Southern Publishing Co., 1890. Reproduced in 1976 by Walsworth
Publishing Co.

> This volume provides detailed, though dated, information on the parish
> as a whole. Pre-Civil War information is provided on the largest slave
> holders and landowners in the parish, as well as general information
> on early businesses in the parish, descriptions of early towns, and
> biographical information on early leaders. Strangely, information on
> the Hertzogs is absent. Interesting information on the Henry family of
> Derry and Melrose is provided.

*Cane River Country Louisiana.* Natchitoches: Northwestern State
University Press, 1979.

> This is a coffee-table collection of historical and modern photographs
> of Natchitoches and its environs, along with selected related
> historical documents from the Cammie Henry Research Center. Many of
> these photographs would be helpful in interpretation at Magnolia. See,
> in particular, p. 117, photos of the slave quarters at Magnolia; pp.
> 110-111, photos of tools made and used by slaves at Oakland
> Plantation; p. 90, a photograph of a church on Magnolia Plantation pp.
> 54-55, photos of the days of building the railroad in the vicinity of
> Chopin; pp. 40-41, photos of a baptism on Cane River and of one of the
> early Black churches in the area \[unidentified\]; and p. 30, a photo
> of the steamboat *Scovell* at 24-Mile Landing on the Cohen place. An
> excellent source on scenes of early Natchitoches.

Corley, D.B. *A Visit to Uncle Tom's Cabin*. Chicago: Laird & Lee
Publishers, 1893.

> This small work gives a brief overview of Natchitoches *circa* 1890.
> It gives some background to the legend that the character Simon Legree
> in of Harriet Beecher Stowe's work *Uncle Tom's Cabin* was based on
> Robert McAlpin, the owner of a plantation near Derry in the 1850s.
> Lamy Chopin later bought the McAlpin plantation. There is some
> interesting interview material here, but nothing specifically on
> Magnolia Plantation.

Davis, Edwin A. *Louisiana: A Narrative History.* Baton Rouge: Claitor's
Publishing, 1971.

> This book is a foremost work on the history of the state. It gives a
> good, basic overview of the colonial twists and turns of Louisiana's
> history. Perhaps a bit dated, but still an important work.
>
> DeBlieux Collection. Cammie Henry Research Center. Eugene P. Watson
> Memorial Library. Northwestern State University of Louisiana.
> Natchitoches, LA.
>
> Folder #573 contains a portfolio of Magnolia photographs, along with a
> history of the ownership of the property.

Dollar, Susan E. *The Freedman's Bureau Schools of Natchitoches Parish,
1865-1868*. Master's thesis, Northwestern State University of Louisiana,
1994.

> Although no specific information about Magnolia appears in this work,
> there is some information on Hypolite Hertzog of Melrose Plantation
> and detailed descriptions of the economic situation in Natchitoches
> Parish in the four years immediately following the Civil War. This
> work also gives insight into the contract labor system in the parish
> just after the war, as well as descriptions of freedman life in the
> parish during that time.

Eakin, Sue. *Louisiana Plantations.*

> Focusing on a number of plantations in the state, this small work
> documents buildings and other aspects of the Louisiana plantation
> system through photographs. It appears to me that the section on
> Magnolia relies heavily on the Hertzog family photographs, showing
> workers in the field, loading hay, etc.

Federal Writers Project Collection. Cammie Henry Research Center. Eugene
P. Watson Memorial Library. Northwestern State University of Louisiana.
Natchitoches, LA.

> Although the material in this collection is wide ranging and covers
> much of the state of Louisiana, several specific documents pertain to
> Natchitoches Parish and the plantation system there. Folders #63
> (Magnolia), #123 (Cane River Superstitions), and #126 (Free Mulattos
> on Cane River; Architecture on Red River; Coffee Time) are sources of
> information which may be useful to the interpretation of the area.

Gilley, B.H., ed. *North Louisiana, Volume One: To 1865, Essays on the
Region and Its History.* Ruston, LA: McGinty Trust Fund Publications,
1984.

> This collection of essays is very informative on north Louisiana. Of
> particular interest are the following: "Liberté, Fraternité, and
> Everything But Egalité: Cane River's Citizens de Couleur," by Gary
> Mills, which focuses on the Metoyer descendants of Marie Thérèze
> Coin-Coin; "The Great Raft of the Red River," by Hubert Davis
> Humphreys, which describes in detail the meanderings of the river and
> river travel in the days that the river was blocked by logs near
> Natchitoches; and "Secession and Civil War in North Louisiana," by
> John D. Winters, giving a brief overview of that time in north
> Louisiana. Although the information here is not specifically on
> Magnolia Plantation, it does cover events and situations which
> affected the plantation and life there.

Gregory, H.F., H.K. Curry, and J.L. McCorkle, Jr. *Natchitoches Parish:
Cultural and Historical Resources.* Natchitoches, LA: Natchitoches
Parish Planning Commission, 1979.

> This source summarizes and synthesizes the cultural data for groups in
> the parish. Studies previous to this work are reviewed and significant
> contributors to parish archaeology are cited. Completed for the
> "purpose of evaluation of sites for National Registry Eligibility,"
> this work gives a good overview and description of historical Indian
> communities in the parish with site descriptions of known
> archaeological sites. It also provides an overview of the economic
> development of colonial Natchitoches, describing French/Spanish/Indian
> relations from the beginning. It provides a good overview of the lay
> of the land, goods traded in the area, the great raft on Red River,
> and the beginnings of the plantation system in the area.

Hardin, J. Fair. *Northwestern Louisiana: A History of the Watershed of
the Red River, 1714-1937.* 3 vols. Shreveport: The Historical Record
Association, n.d.

> Volume I is a good source for Natchitoches Parish history with
> information on trails, roads, steam boating, railroads, and the log
> raft on the river. See p. 496 for information on Ambrose Lecomte's
> race track in town. Volume I also includes the diary of William S.
> Toumey, a Natchitoches lawyer from 1836 to 1842, who was a friend and
> contemporary of Matthew Hertzog, ancestor of the Matthew Hertzog of
> the early 1900s. In addition to this diary, it also contains J.W.
> Dorr's observations of the town when he visited Natchitoches in 1860
> by steamboat from Alexandria. Both of these entries provide
> interesting data from the 1800s as to the life of the town itself. In
> Volume III, there is biographical information about Mrs. Ambrose John
> Hertzog, grandmother to the present Ambrose Hertzog, along with a
> basic description of the plantation as it was in the late 1930s.

Kadlecek, Mabell C., and Marion C. Bullard. *Louisiana's Kisatchie
Hills: History, Tradition, Folklore.* Chelsea, MI: Book Crafters, 1994.

> This work provides information on the fringe communities in the hills,
> along with interesting information on the location of stage coach
> routes, old trails into Spanish territory, and roads. It also includes
> information on old sawmills, cotton gins, and the cattle industry, as
> well as local lore on buried treasure, ghosts, and gangs. Mostly Anglo
> history.

Kerr, J.A., et al. *Soil Survey of Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana.*
Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1925.

> This work contains a detailed map of the area of the Heritage Area,
> showing old roads, homesites, and waterways. This is an excellent map
> for reference to the landscape of the past.

*Louisiana's Architectural and Archeological Legacies.* Natchitoches,
LA: Northwestern State University Press, 1982.

> On page 110 of this work, there is a sketch of one of the slave
> quarters and a photograph of the main house at Magnolia Plantation.
> These are accompanied by a brief narrative description of the
> plantation. Nothing new here except the sketch.

Maes, Pierre F. Land Plats of Natchitoches and Its Environs, 1793-1801.
Cammie Henry Research Center. Eugene P. Watson Memorial Library.
Northwestern State University of Louisiana. Natchitoches, LA.

> These maps are some of the earliest of the area. Map #20, dated 1796,
> has Ambroise Leconte's \[*sic*\] land marked; map #22, dated 1794, has
> the land of Francois Leconte \[*sic*\] marked. Other maps also show
> the lands of the LaCour family, which may be the lands which later
> became Ambrose Lecompte's land, eventually to be known as Magnolia.

McCoy Collection. Cammie Henry Research Center. Eugene P. Watson
Memorial Library. Northwestern State University of Louisiana.
Natchitoches, LA.

> This collection contains one photograph of the cotton press at
> Magnolia.

Melrose Collection. Cammie Henry Research Center. Eugene P. Watson
Memorial Library. Northwestern State University of Louisiana.
Natchitoches, LA.

> This is an immense collection, which contains incredible amounts of
> information about innumerable events, places, and people. Here and
> there pieces of information about Magnolia and its environs can be
> found. Scrapbook #71 contains an article (The Natchitoches *Times*,
> May 12, 1933) describing the characters from the Cane River area; Aunt
> Harriet, who was born a slave on Magnolia, describes her memories of
> Mrs. Fanny Hertzog during slavery. Scrapbook #71 also contains
> photographs of the buildings and some of the workers at Magnolia,
> complete with comments made by Cammie Henry. Scrapbook #70 also has
> photographs: see pp. 117-18 for photos of the big house; pp. 119-20
> for photos of the quarters and servant Aunt Agnes; and pp. 102-4 for
> photos of Mr. Matt.

Mignon, François. *Plantation Memo: Plantation Life in Louisiana,
1750-1970 and Other Matter.* Baton Rouge: Claitor's Publishing, 1972.

> This is a collection of Mignon's weekly newspaper columns from over
> thirteen years of writing. Mignon lived at Melrose and took most of
> his observations from life on the Cane River. There are snippets here
> that give insight into daily life along the river -- valuable,
> probably, for interpretation of Magnolia. These observations are
> dated, however, and reveal early, "politically incorrect" attitudes
> towards African Americans.

Mills, Gary B. *The Forgotten People: Cane River's Creoles of Color.*
Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1977.

> This is one of the most complete examinations of the Isle Brevelle
> Creoles as a distinct ethnic group and their founding as a community.
> It is not complete, however, and other works should be consulted. It
> is particularly strong on the early history of the Creole community in
> Natchitoches Parish.

*The Natchitoches Genealogist.* The Natchitoches Genealogical and
Historical Association.

> Various issues of this locally published journal provide details about
> the Lecompte and Hertzog families. See, among others, Vol. V:2 (April
> 1981): 19, which has information on the location of succession papers
> for at least eleven Hertzog family members; "Notes on Early Steamboat
> Navigation on Cane River, Charles Bertrand to Miss Cammie," Vol. VI:2
> (April, 1982): 29-30, which gives an account of the murder of the
> overseer at Magnolia; Vol. VIII:1 (October 1983), which has several
> references to Magnolia and to the Hertzogs ‑ see especially Mrs.
> Lucille Keator Prudhomme's notes on the landholdings of the Prudhommes
> (p. 21 has a reference to Magnolia), and pp. 39-42, "Ferry Boat Bonds
> Issued in Natchitoches Parish," showing Matthew Hertzog's involvement
> with local ferries; and Vol. XVI:1 (April 1991):17-19, "Last Will and
> Testament of Ambrose Lecomte (1807-1883).

Saxon, Lyle. "Cane River." In *Louisiana Stories,* edited by Ben
Forkner, pp. 205-218. Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing Co., 1990.

> Written by an author who lived on Melrose Plantation for many years,
> this short story is about a young black woman who works on a
> plantation in the early 1900s. The story itself is fiction however,
> its view into relationships among workers on a plantation in Louisiana
> is insightful and informative.

‑‑‑‑‑. *Children of Strangers.* Atlanta: Mockingbird Press, 1986.

> First published in 1937, this work is based on Cane River and sheds
> insight into the Creole community there. Although it is fiction, I
> have been told that it is truer than most people think. In fact, it
> appears that many, if not most, of the elements of the story are true.
> This small work gives clear insight into the curiosities of the Creole
> community, their lives on the river, and their relationships with each
> other and with the whites and blacks of the area.

Seebold, Herman de Bachelle. *Old Louisiana Plantation Homes and Family
Trees.* 2 vols. New Orleans: Pelican Press, 1941.

> In volume I of this work, there appears a brief description of
> Magnolia Plantation as it was in the late 1930s.

Seyersted, Per, ed. *The Complete Works of Kate Chopin.* 2 vols. Baton
Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1969.

> This is a collection of the works of Kate Chopin, who lived in
> Cloutierville between 1879 and 1884 and based many of her works on the
> people from the Cane River area. An early regional writer and local
> colorist, Chopin gives detailed descriptions of life on the river, as
> well as of the people from the area. Specific works to examine include
> "In and Out of Old Natchitoches," "For Marse Chouchoute" (description
> of a house party), "Love on the Bon Dieu" (description of Easter egg
> knocking), "Loka" (description of the hanging cradles traditionally
> used in the Cane River area ), "Ma'am Pélagie" (the setting of this
> story sounds strangely like Magnolia), "Mamouche" (takes place between
> the 24-Mile Ferry and Cloutierville), and her first novel, *At Fault*
> (which is set on the Chopin plantation). Although fiction, Chopin's
> work can provide insight which one will not find in a historical
> document or statistical work. These should be consulted for
> information.

Shugg, Roger W. *Origins of Class Struggle in Louisiana: A Social
History of White Farmers and Laborers during Slavery and After,
1840-1875*. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1939.

> This is the most complete statistical study of the Louisiana
> plantation system, both pre- and post-civil war, that I am aware of.
> It provides information on the following: characteristics of the
> classes; social conditions in the Old Regime; free labor and slavery;
> government by gentlemen; secession and war; class and race strife;
> survival of the plantation; rise of the poor whites; and statistics on
> the agrarian pattern, 1860-1880, within the state of Louisiana.
> Natchitoches Parish is represented in these statistical breakdowns.

Stallings, Evelyn Tudor. "Hapless Harlequin: Joseph Mark Leveque,
1868-1911," Master's thesis, Northwestern State University of Louisiana,
1986.

> This master's thesis, although focused on J.M. Leveque, a newspaper
> reporter in New Orleans, gives an interesting description of life on
> the river after the Civil War. Leveque's father was a practicing
> physician who lived at Oakland with his family. The early chapters of
> this work, chapters 1 and 2 especially, give insight into the economy,
> political antagonisms, pastimes, and the coming of the railroad in the
> years after the Civil War along the Cane/Red Rivers.

Walkes, Joseph A., Jr. *Jno. G. Lewis, Jr. ‑ End of an Era: The History
of Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Louisiana, 1842-1979.* 1986.

> This source, although specifically on the African-American Freemasons
> of Louisiana, gives some interesting information on the group which
> founded The Corinthian Lodge and The Dawn of Light Lodge #22 in
> Natchitoches. John G. Lewis, of Natchitoches but originally from
> Canada, was instrumental in the founding of these lodges and served as
> Grandmaster in Louisiana before his death. Many of the tombstones in
> St. Andrew's Cemetery are decorated with Masonic symbols indicating
> the close ties the people of that congregation shared with the lodge
> once located in Derry, LA. The notes to this work provide some telling
> insights into Reconstruction, post-reconstruction, and Jim-Crow
> realities for blacks in Louisiana, relying heavily on *The Plumbline*,
> a black Masonic monthly journal published in Natchitoches from 1910
> into the 1970s.