Bolstered by 5,000 pages of documents from the French National Archives and from Laura's Memories, the Guided Tour focuses on the 300 years of living that took place on this plantation.

NATIVE INDIANS
Only 3,000 years ago the Gulf of Mexico was pushed back from this area by the rich alluvial silt of the Mississippi River, Not long afterwards, nomadic bands of native Amerindians wandered through in annual migrations. Because this particular plot of land sits high above a geologic fault line, native settlements took root here by the early 1700s.  By the 1780s, a large Colapissa ceremonial center was located here.  The village named "Tabiscania," or "long river view," was still nestled among Cajun Farms when, in 1804, the Laura "Big House" was erected "with Indian huts surrounding it."

Considering the natives to be Frenchmen, the French did not force them off the plantation.  Instead, they lived on the fringes of European economy and settlements, with the last , full-blooded native Colapissa remaining on the property until 1915.

WEST-AFRICANS
The first human cargo pushed off the docks in New Orleans arrived in the 1720s: slaves from French Senegal.  For the next 60 years, these Muslim slaves were joined mostly by their fellow tribesmen from the SeneGambian basin. Captured for their agricultural and construction skills, their work created the colony and influenced all segments of the newly forming Creole culture, best seen today in cuisine, music, family centered traditions, architecture & life-style.

This sugar plantation started in 1805 with 7 slaves (6 west-African and  1 Amerindian). By the start of the Civil War, 185 enslaved workers were employed on this farm. Descendants of these very slaves live near the Laura Plantation to this day.


EUROPEANS
From the 1750s, several Frenchmen tried unsuccessfully to make a go of this property.  In 1785, Spain ceded the land to 4 exiled Acadian (Cajun) farmers who lived here until 1804.  With help from Thomas Jefferson, the land was granted to a French veteran of the American Revolution, Guillaume Duparc, who died soon afterwards.  Four generations of women in his family ran the growing sugar plantation until Laura, the great-grand daughter of Duparc, sold it in 1891 to the family of Florian Waguespack, who were Creoles of German descent. 

The Waguespacks continued to farm sugarcane until 1981 when it was bought by a consortium of investors who planned to destroy the historic buildings and build a bridge across the Mississippi River at this site.  The earthquake fault below the historic site ruined their venture and the land went into receivership until it was sold at auction in 1992.

In 1993, the old homestead was acquired by the Laura Plantation Company, a private enterprise, for the purpose of restoring the site and opening it to the public as a Creole cultural attraction.