Secrets of the Mississippi: The Revolt That History Forgot

Scott: 00:00:03

The Mississippi river doesn't usually keep secrets, but for two centuries, it held on to one of the most explosive chapters in American history. It's a story of sugar fire and a desperate gamble for freedom that the history books tried very hard to forget.

ity of a Louisiana January in: 1811

At the Destrehan plantation, the massive iron cauldrons are finally cooling. The white overseers and plantation owners have drifted south to New Orleans, drawn by the early calls of Mardi Gras.

They thought the enslaved were exhausted. They thought the lull was a time for rest. They may have been wrong.

A man named Charles Dalandis, a driver with a bit more mobility than most, had been listening. He'd heard whispers of a place called Haiti where men who looked like him had toppled an empire.

On the night of January 8, under the COVID of cold rain, Dalondis and a small band of rebels struck out. And for two days, the largest slave revolt in American history moved like a fever down the riverbank. The end was brutal.

The rebellion was crushed, and the retribution was designed to be unforgettable. Then, for 200 years, the story went silent.

Because as it turns out, the only thing more dangerous to the status quo than a revolt is the memory of one.

Join us today as we walk through the oaks of the Destrehan plantation, standing where the tribunals were held and uncovering why this massive uprising was almost scrubbed from the history books. Welcome to Talk with History. I'm your host, Scott, here with my wife and historian, Jen.

Jenn: 00:01:52

Hello.

Scott: 00:01:52

On this podcast, we give you insights to our history Inspired World Travels YouTube channel Journey and examine history through deeper conversations with the curious, the explorers, and the history lovers out there. All right, Jen. So we had just wrapped up a crazy couple days of Marty Gro. Yes, I was in recovery mode.

Jenn: 00:02:17

Yes.

Scott: 00:02:17

Because I was completely overstimulated for the past couple days. You were tired, and so we went to this kind of sleepy little kind of suburb outside of Louisiana. Was about 45 minutes. 40 minutes.

Jenn: 00:02:30

You know what's funny? It was about 45 minutes. But really it was right beside the airport there. So we're really not outside of New Orleans. Yeah, it's just a lot of traffic.

Scott: 00:02:38

Yeah, just a lot of traffic from downtown New Orleans. So we drove out there. We kind of ended up in the countryside right along the river. We were right on the river to this plantation where.

And I had not known this because a lot of people had have Heard may have learned about in high school, about. What's the one that we did our initial video on?

Jenn: 00:02:56

Nat Turner.

Scott: 00:02:57

Nat Turner.

to what we Learned about this: 1811

Jenn: 00:03:04

Yeah, I think American history is starting to teach Nat Turner Rebellion because kids will ask, well, did the enslaved ever rebel? And of course, they're always fighting for their freedom. No one's happy in enslavement. No matter what anybody says, they're fighting to be free.

And all they have to do is, is gather and, and. But there's a lot of systems in place to keep them from gathering and educating. And Nat Turner is an example of that.

But now Turner is not the first rebellion and definitely not the biggest. And this is not taught hardly at all. And it kind of is because of the aftermath of it and how they treated the aftermath of it.

That's why it's not taught, because there really isn't a lot of information about it. But people will ask me, well, what is the biggest slave uprising?

Because we get questions like that, why didn't, you know, when the Jews were rounded up during the Holocaust, there was much more of them than the Nazis controlling them. Why couldn't they just rally, fight back? Because they're oppressed and they don't. They can't organize and understand.

ether. And so this happens in: 1811

And that's why this Destrehan plantation, where we went to visit, is the oldest plantation in New Orleans. And it's one of the oldest houses, but the plantation is the oldest.

explore that is part of this: 1811

e refurbished as part of this: 1811

Scott: 00:04:58

Yeah, and I thought it was really interesting once you sat down. So we, we got down there, right? And it's a beautiful area.

I always, like, kind of just don't think about how beautiful some of these spots are down in the Louisiana area, because these Spanish moss, you know, these Spanish oaks with the moss draping and ever, all that stuff, just kind of set this beautiful scene. And it was no different at the Destrehan Plantation.

So we pull up, there's this kind of cute little plantation store that they have, and all the folks that we met, I think the guy up front, his name was Josh or something like that at the front desk.

Jenn: 00:05:29

Patrick. Ye. Um, Josh.

Scott: 00:05:30

It was Josh, yeah. But he, he was super helpful and kind of gave us some kind of tips here and there and helped us out a little bit later.

And we found out there was some movies filmed there. So we'll talk about that, we'll talk about that towards the end. But got out there, it was just a beautiful setting.

So kind of the, the, the video guy in me got excited because I could get out here and kind of take some fun video shots and things like that.

But I thought once you sat down and started telling the story of why it happened, how it happened, and kind of why it happened when it did was really interesting.

Jenn: 00:06:02

So if you're a fan of the channel, you know, we've done sugar plantations before. We've done Oak Alley and that is one of probably the most famous one along the Mississippi River. It's the most photographed one.

And so I've talked about this sugar plantation process and what that looks like.

And this was no different with these big cauldrons and its access to the Mississippi with its little cut out that's along the Mississippi, but the land goes all the way back with all the acres of sugar sugar cane.

And when you harvest sugarcane, it's huge cane and it's filled with juice and you have to, you have to crush the sugarcane within basically 24 hours of harvesting it so the juice doesn't spoil.

And then you take this juice and you boil it and you boil it and you're kind of skimming off the top, getting all the impurities out and you're watching for color change.

And once color changes, you cool it down again and then you boil it again and you watch for color change and then you boil it again and it's, it is a process that becomes more skilled. So the people who do this become very skilled at it. But it's a 24 hour process and it's a long process.

You think of all the sugar cane, they have to process this way and quickly. And then once it gets to a certain color, it's put into jugs and then the jugs are dried out.

And then that's when the sugar kind of crusts along the jugs and they pull the, the tab on the bottom of the jug and the sugar will pour out.

Scott: 00:07:29

So sounds like it's pretty labor intensive.

Jenn: 00:07:31

It's super labor intensive. It's dangerous. People sometimes get their hands crushed. Even when we talk about Mr. Destoran, who owned this plantation, his arm got crushed.

He was part of it. Like these crushing machines that crush these sugar cane, because it's not just crushed with a mallet. It's these big machines.

Sometimes people get complacent. They forget, or they get tired, and pieces of their bodies get stuck inside.

And so it wouldn't be rare to see someone on a sugar plantation without a hand.

Scott: 00:08:00

Yeah. Missing an arm.

Jenn: 00:08:02

And so, yes, it's very labor intensive.

And because it's so hard on the body, and because it's 24 hours for so many months at a time, the life expectancy of an enslaved person wasn't very long. And so when we talk about sugar plantations, Oak alley, Whitney plantation, Destrehan, we want to honor those people who really worked the land.

So it was really amazing to see. At the destrehan plantation, they had a primary source document that listed all the enslaved that they had.

I'm sure there were many more that were there with by their names, and that's rare to see, but it gives them some kind of honor and life to be able to see their name and to say their name. And so that was pretty cool to see.

Scott: 00:08:45

Yeah. So tell the audience a little bit about this Charles dalondis gentleman who was a driver.

And I was kind of surprised that someone like that who is an enslaved kind of was given this position to be able to travel between plantations.

Jenn: 00:09:01

So Charles delaunis is from the delanis plantation. He is enslaved.

He is owned, but given a lot of liberty because his owner is a widow woman, and so she needs, basically a male to do a lot of the logistics of the plantation, which is much more than just running the sugar up and down, loading it onto the ships. It's picking up supplies, people back and forth, running the business, running the business all over the coast. So he becomes what they call a driver.

He's driving the wagon. He's a driver. Right. Like a chauffeur, basically.

But because he's doing this and all the legendary logistics of enslaved working each other's land or people borrowing tools and things along the coast, he gets to have communication with the enslaved along the coast. And that's the biggest hurdle when organizing a kind of resistance is this communication of where do you stand? Where do I stand?

What do we know is available to us? What do we understand about what happens along the way? What's our plan after we revolt? What are we going to do. So.

s Delanis, this is, you know,: 1811

Scott: 00:10:35

So that's how that information about it got out.

Jenn: 00:10:37

Yeah. How we did it, how we did. Did this revolt. And that was actually successful. Lots of people died, but very successful.

But Haiti still pays for it today. It was never successful that they got up to a standard of living, but they got their freedom. And so it gives people ideas. Right. Ideas build.

And Charles had this idea they could do that there. We can do it here.

And he got wind of a plantation north of Destrehan called the Audrey Plantation, also Woodlawn, where they held the guns and ammunition for the local militia.

Scott: 00:11:18

So he started hatching his plan based on what he'd heard about what happened in Haiti with the revolution there. And what he. What he knew, he knew. He had his contacts, and then he knew this spot where there was a collection of weaponry.

Jenn: 00:11:30

Like an armory.

Scott: 00:11:31

Yeah.

Jenn: 00:11:32

And so he thought, well, if we get access to that armory, I can arm the enslaved. We can work our way down to New Orleans. We can get on a ship and we can get our freedom. We can go somewhere. We can go to Haiti.

We can go somewhere and be free. And we can do, you know, we can just work our way down and no one will stop us.

And again, after the sugar harvest season is over, that's the end of December, and most people, it's why we didn't really do the main house at Destrehan. If you watch our video, like, why didn't we do the main house? Because I'm not telling that story. I'm not telling their story.

Scott: 00:12:11

And they also asked us not to film inside there.

Jenn: 00:12:13

Yes. And which is fine to do photographs and stuff. But most people who.

And I wanted to stress this, even in Oak Alley, who are these upper class rich people? They don't really live on the plantation.

Scott: 00:12:27

Yeah. Not. Not year round.

Jenn: 00:12:28

Yeah. They're going to go to the city. They. The big mansions in New Orleans are built by these sugar plantation famil.

They have the money to build the plantations. And who's. Who's throwing Mardi Gras? Right. Who's going to school at Tulane? Like, who's going.

It's these families that have the money to do those things. So they don't want to come out to their hot sugar plantations and be bored and not have, you know, things to do there. They want to be in the city.

And so by. And if you just listen to our Mardi Gras Twelfth night, which is January 6th, which starts Mardi Gras. They're in the city to celebrate Mardi Gras.

So this happens on January 8th.

Scott: 00:13:06

Yeah. And that's what I thought was so interesting to all the pieces that fell into place, right?

It's kind of like when it comes to information spreading and information being more available, it's kind of like the printing press, right? Once the printing press got invented and people started reading more, they started being like, oh, I shouldn't be a pauper in England.

I should be able to do just what that guy does. Because I read this book, right? Same thing here. He heard about what happened in Haiti. He had this plan.

ou know, this. This revolt in: 1811

And then timing wise, right, that makes more sense now, why it's in January because it's after the sugar season. All that stuff is. Dawn is done. All the rich folks are heading down to Mardi Gras to get. Getting ready to party, you know, for about a month.

And that's when he. He says, okay, it's go time.

Jenn: 00:13:56

So he starts at the Andrew Plantation, which is that plantation, the most north plantation from New Orleans.

, even though it's called the: 1811

They had given these land grants to Germans because once the French and Spanish got out there and realized how hot and muggy and mosquito y it was, they didn't want to work the land.

Scott: 00:14:27

I just thought that was so funny that you learned that and you mentioned that in the video, because leave it to someone. Leave it to the people who are leaving the gorgeous countryside of France. You know, coming down to Louisiana, they're like, this is hard.

I don't want that side of the river. Hey, you know, neighbors over in Germany, if you guys want that, you guys go ahead and take it. We'll let you have it. It's fine.

Jenn: 00:14:47

Yeah, so they had to work it for three years. And if you worked it for three years, you got the land grant. It was yours. So that was why that was called the German coast.

And but it starts on the east coast at Audrey Plantation. And Mr. Audrey is there with his son.

And when Charles, when they first attack with the enslaved from that plantation, the militia has taken the ammunition and the guns, they're already out practicing with it, but they just make do with whatever weaponry they can find. So think of makeshift tools, hammers and hoes and things along that nature, like spades.

And so they actually kill Mr. Audrey's son, and they nail his body to the door as kind of a symbol like, this has started. Like, we can't go back from this.

And they hatchet Mr. Audrey, like, three times with a hatchet, and they think he's dead, and they leave him, but he's not. And so he gets into a boat and gets onto the Mississippi again.

All of these plantations have access, direct access to the Mississippi, and starts to get ahead of them and starts to warn plantations along the way, hey, there's a revolt happening. These enslaved are fighting, and they're. They're. They're killing people along the way.

Now, as Charles moves down the plantations, those are the only two people that are killed because most everyone's gone. But they do gather enslaved as they go. They're gathering slaves as part of the revolt. They say as up as many as 500 slaves join this revolt.

This is why this the. The biggest. The largest slave revolt in America. But they don't kill any more people. It's not like Nat Turner rebellion.

They're not attacking people in their homes. Because no one's in their home.

Scott: 00:16:28

Yeah, because that's what happened with Nat Turner. And I'll link our Nat Turner episode. I think we did a podcast on that. I'll link that in the. In the show notes, if you guys want to listen to that.

Jenn: 00:16:35

So two white men are killed total, and one of them was Audrey's son. Right. So he makes it all the way down to New Orleans and gets a militia, gets people together, just like what happened in that Turner.

They rally and they say, we have to squash this revolt. So they make it back up north and meet the slave revolt, and they have a big battle that takes place on January 10th.

And again, no white people are killed, and they end up killing about 45 enslaved right then. And then they capture everybody else. The militia will kill 45 of them and capture another 45. And everyone else scatters and kind of gets back.

So they can't really, like, pinpoint who was a part of it. They probably all went back and went back to their places and, you know, got back in bed and pretended like

Scott: 00:17:23

I was wondering that because you said that 45. Right. The. The information says 45 were captured. But I was like, well, what about the other, you know, five 450. Yeah, nine. 455 folks. Okay.

Jenn: 00:17:35

They scattered.

Scott: 00:17:36

They scattered and ran back and ran back.

Jenn: 00:17:38

So how could you again? Because there's no one on the plantation to say that person left. If they can get back, no one would know.

So of the 45 men they had captured, they hold three tribunals. And two we know. One is the cabildo. We have a video from there. That's.

That's that building right beside the cathedral and at Jackson Square in New Orleans. And the other one is right on the front lawn of Destrehan Plantation.

Scott: 00:18:08

Yeah, like, right where we were standing.

Jenn: 00:18:09

Right where we were standing. And when they find everyone guilty, it's not really a tribunal. Everyone's found guilty, and they go back to their original plantations for execution.

Most of them are executed by firing squad. Some are hanged. All are decapitated. And then their heads are put on spikes.

So this is the graphic part of American history, all the way From New Orleans, 60 miles up the river, as a deterrent for any enslaved thinking about revolting. But what is also done is this isn't written down, it isn't reported, and it isn't talked about.

And they make a conscious effort to do that because they don't want, again, spread ideas, and they don't want this to gain any momentum. And I think that is why it has been overlooked in American history, because it wasn't documented. There wasn't a lot of primary sources about this.

It wasn't really passed down, and so it wasn't really talked about. And so now when the evidence comes out and we tell the story now, it really is an important part of American history, because the idea doesn't die.

Nat Turner will be 20 years after this, and 30 years after that is the Civil War.

And even though these things try to get squashed and information and communication tries to get controlled, Nat Turner, the result will be the uneducation of the enslaved, not teaching them to read or write. It doesn't matter. They. They still find a way. And so I think this is a very important story to tell and important part of American history.

And since we're celebrating America 250, I think it's one of those stories that just deserves remembering. So making it out to that plantation to see it was super cool. And the people there, I mean, they were welcoming. It was great food.

Scott: 00:20:06

Yeah. I ran into the curator, Gabrielle. She's walking around with her newborn. I think her newborn is about six weeks old, a couple months old.

And I was walking around with my camera outside. Jenna walked into One of the buildings and was talking to one of the reenactors.

Jenn: 00:20:20

Interpreters.

Scott: 00:20:21

Interpreters. And Gabrielle just walks up, she says, hey, are you here with a film crew or something? I was like, I don't know. We're walk with history.

And she started chit chatting with me and was super open and welcome. And she's like, yeah, film as much as you can. And so she's the curator there. She's been the curator there for a couple years.

And she was telling me about how much work they put into this place. And it's very well done. The outside, they've done a great job of kind of putting some good money into it. So it's worth a trip out.

And it's nice, especially if you have kids, because you can go outside and they can run around a little bit. But yeah, Gabrielle was great. Josh was great in the entryway there in the little gift shop.

And then the couple folks that they had that you can eat lunch there at this little cafe, they had. I had the most amazing turkey, avocado, and bacon sandwich. It was so good.

I don't know what they put on that thing, man, but it was one of the best sandwiches I had had in a really long time.

Jenn: 00:21:18

Yeah, it's amazing to be like, you're in a spot of a real crossroads of American history. And now they. They want you to come and visit. They want you to have an experience there. And so they cater to that.

They want you to have the tour, they want you to eat some good food there, and they want you to really experience this part of American history, but then what it has become now, and celebrate that they've preserved this home. They need visitors to keep preserving this home and. And to tell the story. And while we were there, I noticed a movie poster.

Scott: 00:21:54

Yeah, we sat down for lunch and we're like, what's that movie poster with signatures all over it?

Jenn: 00:21:57

And it was 12 years a slave, and it had signatures all over it. And I was like, why do you have the 12 Years a Slave movie poster here? And they're like, because they filmed it right down the road at the mule

Scott: 00:22:06

barn just around the corner.

Jenn: 00:22:08

The part of the plantation is a mule barn, and they filmed 12 Years a Slave at that mule barn. And I'm like, oh, that's cool, right? What other movies were filmed here? And of course, they said Interview with a Vampire. And I was like, oh, my God.

Scott: 00:22:21

If you guys are new listeners to this podcast, Jen is a massive Brad Pitt fan.

Jenn: 00:22:26

Yes.

And it's the part of Interview if you, if you know that movie where he's walking the dogs, he's walking the poodles, he hasn't, he's already been turned into a vampire, but he hasn't killed a human yet because he refuses to do that. And so he kills the dog seeds the dogs. And so I love that part because it's so funny.

And, and that, that happened right in the front lawn of Destrehan Plantation. They also used the inside for Louis home, even though they filmed it at Oak Alley as his outside of his house.

The inside they used Destrehan Plantation and they use. Kirsten Dunst's bedroom is the upstairs room in Destrehan Plantation. So I thought that was super neat. Now again, we didn't go in the main house.

the video it was built in the: 1790

And it has a French, even though there was Spanish rule at the time. And it has a French Revival architecture. Two years after the original builder builds it, Destrehan will buy it and that's why it's named for him.

And he becomes one of the first senators of the Louisiana Territory.

Scott: 00:23:32

The. The town is named Destrehan.

Jenn: 00:23:35

Yeah.

Scott: 00:23:35

Right. So the town is Destrehan and this is Destrehan Plantation.

Jenn: 00:23:39

It's his home. He's brother in law to Barry. He's the guy who starts sugar plantations in Louisiana.

Again, he's also connected to Oak Alley, so his brother in law helps cultivate the whole sugar plantation industry. So of course he's going to plant sugar there as well. But that is why it's named after him. It's his home.

And you can go visit inside and see all of that. But we wanted to tell the story of the people who were outside the plantation. So that's why we didn't really go inside.

ted to tell this story of the: 1811

Scott: 00:24:24

in, in like center the central New Orleans in the, in the French Quarter,

Jenn: 00:24:27

they actually hang them at Jackson Square.

Scott: 00:24:29

Oh, really? Oh, wow.

Jenn: 00:24:31

But there was a 113 year old boy that they did spare. He only got 30 lashes, but he got it there in Jackson Square. So that square has seen a lot of history.

So when you're in New Orleans and you're walking around, there's a lot of that in New Orleans as well. But it was really great to go to this place and visit it. I recommend it to everybody. If you make it to New Orleans, go to Destrehan Plantation.

Not only are you on the oldest plantation in New Orleans, but you're at this location of a crossroads of American history, the largest slave revolt to ever take place in America.

Scott: 00:25:11

Yeah, it was. It was beautiful. And if you need a good quiet day to walk around and decompress from Mardi Gras, that's a good spot to go.

The: 1811

It set a precedent of resistance that would echo 20 years later with the Nat Turner Rebellion and eventually find its full voice 50 years later in the Civil War. Next time you find yourself south of New Orleans, look past the Spanish moss and the French Revival columns.

Look for the names on the records at Destrehan, the 17 who stood up and the hundreds who followed because their story is no longer a secret. We'll talk to you next time.

Jenn: 00:25:52

Thank you.

Scott: 00:25:53

This has been a Walk with History production. Talk With History is created and hosted by me, Scott Benny. Episode researched by Jennifer Benny.

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