Plantations
This guide describes manuscript collections documenting plantation society and economy in the Louisiana and Lower Mississippi Valley Collections (LLMVC) at LSU. The plantation records and personal papers of planters, factors, merchants, and others whose livelihood came from plantations provide a wealth of documentation supporting research in plantation economy, slavery, and the social history of Southern landholding elites.
The collections described below touch upon all facets of plantation life. They include the papers of tutors, preachers, lawyers, and doctors who provided services to planters. They include the letters of Northerners who visited plantations in the antebellum period and wrote home about them, and those of Union soldiers who marched past plantations and sometimes plundered them. While the majority of collections are from the prewar years, there are substantial holdings on postbellum plantations as well. The sugar and cotton plantation records in LLMVC are among its most noteworthy and famed collections, and among the earliest collections that LSU acquired.
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Keary, Patrick F. Letters, 1848-1855. 19 items. Location: Misc. Planter of Ben Lomand Plantation, Wilkinson County, Mississippi. Letters to Wylie and Egana and Juan Y. de Egana, brokers in New Orleans, concerning business and plantation matters on Keary's cotton plantation, Ben Lomand, and his sugar plantation Catalpa Grove, on Bayou Boeuf, Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana. For further information, see online catalog. Mss. 1053. |
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Keary, Patrick F. Letter, 1850 Jan. 8. 1 letter. Location: Misc. Patrick F. Keary of Catalpa Grove Plantation near Cheneyville, La., writes Juan Y. de Egana, commission merchant of New Orleans, relating the loss of seven slaves to cholera and giving a list of supplies needed at the plantation. Mss. 3913. Referenced in Guides: Plantations, African Americans
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Keller family. Plantation records, 1858-1937 (bulk 1908-1923). 9 items, 17 volumes, 1 microfilm reel. Location: MISC:K, P:16, MSS.MF:K. The Keller family owned Welham Plantation and operated a store in St. James Parish, Louisiana. Collection includes antebellum slave record books (1858-1860), plantation and store ledgers, cashbooks, daybooks, and receipts. Slave record books are on microfilm. For further information, see online catalog. Mss. 3010. |
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Kelly, Lou M. Reminiscences and Letters, [1905], 1925. 3 items. Location: E:4. Lou Kelly lived at Ranson Plantation, St. Charles Parish, La. Kelly's reminiscences and letters pertain to an African American labor riot in St Charles Parish in 1880. Kelly wrote the reminiscences in 1905 for author Helen Pitkin Schertz's fictionalized account of the riot. For further information, see online catalog. Mss. 4796. |
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Kendrick, Benjamin. Papers, 1806-1894 (bulk 1810-1840). 0.7 linear ft. (611 items). Location: U:170. Cotton planter and slaveholder of the Feliciana parishes, Louisiana. In 1823 he moved from St. Francisville (West Feliciana Parish) near Jackson (East Feliciana Parish) and in 1830 he established Asphodel Plantation there. Collection includes legal papers, bills, receipts, and correspondence. Papers document medical care for family members and slaves; and include letters from New Orleans merchants and a letter from a Missouri slave dealer (1836). Some materials relate to David J. Fluker of East Feliciana Parish, Kendrick's son-in-law. Available (with some omissions) on microfilm 5322: University Publications of America Records of Ante-bellum Southern Plantations Series I, Part 2, Reels 11-12. For further information, see online catalog. Mss. 906. Referenced in Guides: Plantations, New Orleans to 1861, New Orleans 1866-, African Americans, Medicine
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