Saturday, April 26, 2014

Tracing History Part 2

The Natchez Trace Parkway

We're journeying up the Natchez Trace Parkway, starting at Natchez State Park in Natchez, MS. A little background:
The 444-mile Natchez Trace Parkway commemorates an ancient trail that connected southern portions of the Mississippi River to salt licks in todays central Tennessee.
Over the centuries, the Choctaw, Chickasaw and other American Indians left their marks on the Trace. The Natchez Trace experienced its heaviest use from 1785 to 1820 by the Kaintuck boatmen that floated the Ohio and Miss[issippi] rivers to markets in Natchez and New Orleans. They sold their cargo and boats and began the trek back north on foot to Nashville and points beyond.  


Source: http://www.nationalparks.org/explore-parks/natchez-trace-parkway#

The original trail, or trace, now called The Old Trace, started as an animal trail some 8,000 years ago. The mammals that inhabited North America during prehistory, some, quite large like mammoths, bison and giant ground sloths formed the trail as they traveled to the salt licks to get nutrients that their everyday diets didn't provide. The animals instinctively traveled along any high ground or ridges to make it easier to spot predators and stay out of the muddy lowlands. And where there are animals, men will follow to hunt them. 

The original inhabitants of the area, known only as Paleo-Indians, followed the game up and down the trace. After the Paleo-Indians, came the Mississippians. Theirs was a mound building culture, and they began to construct settlements along near this ready source of food and raw materials. To this day, the mounds they built can still be found adjacent to The Old Trace.



Our first stop was at The Emerald Mounds. I'll let this lovely National Park Service sign tell you about the site.



Here you can see the main mound complex. It has multiple levels not unlike a step pyramid.


 Here's a shot from the top of the main mound. You can see one of the secondary mounds.

It doesn't seem real high when you look at it this way ...

















... but when you look down the stairs, you can get a feel of the height and just how steep it is.

There was no active archeology going on at the site, and that was disappointing to me. Having lived most of my life in Illinois, I'm no stranger to Indian mounds. The Dixon mounds in Western Illinois has active excavations that the public can see and learn from. There are several other mound complexes along the Trace, but those are all small and not very impressive. We stopped at the one below, and just drove past the remaining ones.




What do you prefer, Almond Joy or Mounds?

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Tracing History Part 1

Natchez Mississippi - Day One

On leaving Louisiana, we entered Mississippi at the city of Natchez. This is a city rich in history, especially that of the Antebellum Period. This was the Plantation Era prior to the Civil War. A plantation was simply a farm that used slave labor. Plantation owners were, for the most part, wealthy. During the Antebellum Period seventy-five percent of all of the millionaires in the states and territories, lived in Natchez.

Melrose House - U.S. National Park Services


Antebellum was also a way of life. It meant, "I'm filthy stinking rich, and I'm gonna let everybody know it." Men built mansions worthy of aristocracy. 



Typical Antebellum Dress




Although women of this  period were second class citizens, having no power and not being allowed to vote, they were allowed to spend money. Lots of money. Women furnished the mansions with every kind of extravagance. There were household slaves, to handle the domestic duties, including raising the family's children, so the wives had time to "keep up appearances" by shopping for the best fashions, furnishings and hosting social events and balls.


The chandelier, the drapery crowns and the mirror frame are all covered in gold. 
Even the wallpaper has gold in it.

The Dining Room
Click on the picture of the dining room above to enlarge it and notice the details. See the china? The Lady of the House (Lady Antebellum?) bought it while on a visit to Europe. She bought over ONE-THOUSAND PIECES for this one set alone. She came home with three sets.

OK, same picture, new subject. See the brown paddle shaped piece of wood hanging over the  dining table?  That is a Punkah, from India. It's a fan. The Punkah is operated by pulling on the gilded cord you see to the left of the fireplace. In the Antebellum period, the Punkah was operated by a slave. Not just any slave, but a male who has been specifically trained, since he was a toddler, to operate the fan properly. You see, in the summer, it gets really hot in the deep south, and you can't truly be a proper hostess if your guests are uncomfortable, or worse, sweaty. Why it's enough to give a Lady the vapors! So the slave who operated the Punkah had to do it with such finesse, that the guests were cooled, but the food on the table wasn't; that the candles wouldn't be blown out, or even flicker. A proper hostess couldn't let her guest be seen in a bad light!

The Privy

The Kitchen Building



From the rear of the main house stands another building. The first floor houses the kitchen and the dairy. You wanted the kitchen in a separate building for two reasons. First, the main house remains unharmed if the kitchen burns down. Second, you want to keep all the heat the kitchen generates out of the main house. The second floor is the living quarters for the six household slaves. I imagine that living above the kitchen made their quarters pretty hot in the summer. I'm guessing that six people living in such a small place added to the discomfort.


The non-domestic slaves lived in buildings further out back. These would have been the groundskeepers, the stable attendants, maintenance men, carriage drivers, and general laborers. There was no farming done on the house grounds. This was all strictly for show. Farming was done on the plantations far away, sometimes in other states.

A Slave House


Another Slave House















The Stable

















The Carriage House
We really enjoyed our time in Natchez, and we learned a lot. Our guide at the Melrose House was a National Parks Services Ranger named Barney. Barney spent an hour with us just touring the main house. Having two degrees in history, he was able to offer details of not only the house, but the city, the era, and what the day to day lives of the inhabitants was like. 

We also toured the house of William Johnson, known as "The Barber of Natchez". William Johnson began his life as a slave, but was given his freedom. He became a prominent citizen in Free Black society, and owned sixteen slaves. What makes Johnson so special in terms of history, is that, when he bought and opened his barbershop, he began to keep an extremely detailed diary about his life, and the dealings he had with others. As the barbershop was the pub of Free Black society, Williams had his finger on the pulse of Natchez. His diary still exists today. 

There is just too much about Natchez, it's citizens and the Antebellum period to try to write in a blog. My suggestion: Visit Natchez Mississippi.

Friday, April 18, 2014

Laissez les bons temps rouler!


Well hallo der, I'm glad for yoo to see me, I garr-on-tee! In oder words, warm greetings from Arcadiana; Cajun Country. Led's see now, down hee-ya yoo got dem crawfish, dem oysters, dem boudin and andouille, dem shrimps, dat gumbo, and dat jambalaya for starts. Den yoo gots dem fiddles music, yoo add some accordion to dat and yoo got dem Zydeco musics, an bode are good fo dancin'.




We're in Abbeville, Louisiana, in the heart of Arcadiana; down on the Bayou. We gonna eat our fill of the afore mentioned local delicacies while we listen to the local music.















We found a gem of a campground,  Abbeville RV Park. Small, uncrowded, friendly and so quiet it seems like it's out in the middle of nowhere, yet it's close to some well known Cajun eateries, including the place that first served boiled crawfish. 



Abbeville itself has a historical district that we visited on a Sunday afternoon. Since this is part of the nation that our enlightened president likes to look down on because it's all people with "their Bibles and guns", everything was closed, so we had the whole place all but to ourselves. Here's a walkthrough of our expedition: 


Cajuns, for the most, part are Catholic and so this Catholic church and cemetery have a prominent place in the Historic District. While the church itself is a more modern iteration of the one that was originally on this spot, the cemetery is the original.  

The plaque gives the history of the cemetery, and the picture below is the grave of Eufemie Broussard, as noted on the sign. Many of the graves are unmarked, but give the appearance of great age.



Parish Rectory



Folks who aren't native to this part of the country are fascinated by the above-ground graves here. With the water table so close to the surface, and the flooding that occurs frequently, any caskets placed in the ground tend to float to the surface. 








That's if you could dig a grave without it filling with water in the first place.






This is a well known seafood patio, (Cajun for casual joint to eat seafood at,) that's been around since 1869. They sell a LOT of oysters at this place. So many in fact that they fill the potholes in the parking lot with oyster shells instead of gravel. How's that for recycling?





This is the land of of sugar farming. Sugar is grown everywhere where rice isn't planted. Back when plantations ruled the southern agricultural economy, harvesting and processing the sugar cane was extremely labor intensive, and the work was done by slaves.







When the industrial revolution hit the industry, presses like this were used to crush the sugar cane. The cane went in the press via the two rectangular openings on this side,











And the unrefined syrup came out on this side. I couldn't tell from looking at the press, what actually drove the mechanism. 











This was an interesting building. I was initially drawn to it by the erie green glow I spied coming from the inside. Then I saw the plaque. I'll let that speak for itself.



There was an alley between the theater and the building next store, so I thought that if I went down it I might find the source of that green glow.













What I found was the skeletal remains of the theater. The sloped floor and the beams that supported the structure were still there but that was it. Still it was enough to let my imagination travel back to the glory days of the old place...

Then my phone rang. I had butt-dialed 911 and they were calling me back to see if there was an emergency.

Oops...







We walked back towards the town square, past all the recently restored buildings with their ornate architectural details and garish colors that were so popular in the Victorian period.



In the center of the square, there was a walled courtyard with some benches, a fountain and some gigantic Live Oak trees. Live Oaks are members of the same family as the traditional Oaks we all know. In fact they're kind of the Strange Uncle of the family. The acorns are elongated, and when they fall off the tree, the nut falls first and then only later does the cap fall. They grow weird too. New growth sprouts from anywhere on the tree and grows rapidly. This leads to some really long and heavy limbs that eventually droop until they reach the ground. Once this happens, the limb sprouts roots where it touches the ground, and  the limb begins to grow upward towards the light. This weirdness can produce an entire "grove" (for lack of a better term,) of Live Oaks all connected at the main trunk. Where people don't want this kind of invasive growth, they hold the limbs up and off the ground with jacks, as you can see in the picture, or concrete posts, blocks, grave stones or whatever else is handy.




As I mentioned earlier, the Exalted One  in The White House, don't much cotton to those Bible believin' folk down hee-yar, but it's OK, they don't much cotton to him either. There ain't none of that freedom from religion in these parts.











Here's what's right out in plain view by the town square.












We walked around some more and found the old Rexall Drug store. 




Looks like prior to Rexall, it was the Godard Drug Co.




Check out this old safe!




Now THIS place was interesting. I don't know if it's historic, or if it's even old, but it was intriguing.


I could see that behind the iron fence, was some kind of courtyard, or patio...




































What I found was a real whimsical world within.






































By now we were pretty hungry, but again, nothing's open on Sunday, so we hunted around and found a well known seafood patio, a favorite of locals, waaaaay off the beaten path. Before we were done, we had devoured SIX POUNDS of boiled crawfish.







You know what else is near Abbeville? New Iberia. You know what's in New Iberia? Avery Island. Know what's on Avery Island? The Tabasco Plant. That's right, the place where they make that yummiest of all seasonings, Tabasco Sauce.


























We HAD to go and visit. What a cool place.

As they say here in Luziannne, "Laissez les bons temps rouler!" Let the good times roll!