Natchitoches Parish is a parish located in the U.S. state of Louisiana. As of the 2020 census, the population was 37,515. The parish seat is Natchitoches. The parish was formed in 1805.
Natchez is a village in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 597 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Natchitoches Micropolitan Statistical Area. The village and parish are part of the Cane River National Heritage Area and located on Isle Brevelle.
Natchitoches, officially the City of Natchitoches, is a small city and the parish seat of Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, United States. At the 2020 United States Census, the city's population was 18,039. Established in 1714 by Louis Juchereau de St. Denis as part of French Louisiana, the community was named after the indigenous Natchitoches people.
Established in 1994, the Cane River Creole National Historical Park serves to preserve the resources and cultural landscapes of the Cane River region in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana. Located along the Cane River Lake, the park is approximately 63 acres and includes two French Creole cotton plantations, Oakland and Magnolia. Both plantations are complete in their historic settings, including landscapes, outbuildings, structures, furnishings, and artifacts; and they are the most intact French Creole cotton plantations in the United States. In total, 65 historic structures and over a million artifacts enhance the National Park Service mission as it strives to tell the story of the evolution of plantation agriculture through the perspective of the land owners, enslaved workers, overseers, skilled workers, and tenant farmers who resided along the Cane River for over two hundred years. This park is included as a site on the Louisiana African American Heritage Trail.
Marie Thérèse Coincoin, born as Coincoin, also known as Marie Thérèse dite Coincoin, and Marie Thérèse Métoyer, was a planter, slave owner, and businesswoman at the colonial Louisiana outpost of Natchitoches.
The Cane River National Heritage Area is a United States National Heritage Area in the state of Louisiana. The heritage area is known for plantations featuring Creole architecture, as well as numerous other sites that preserve the multi-cultural history of the area. The heritage area includes the town of Natchitoches, Louisiana and its national historic district. Founded in 1714, it is the oldest community in the territory covered by the Louisiana Purchase. Cane River Creole National Historical Park, including areas of Magnolia and Oakland plantations, also is within the heritage area.
Isle of Canes (ISBN 1-59331-306-3), a novel by Elizabeth Shown Mills, follows an African family from its importation and enslavement in 1735 through four generations of freedom in Creole Louisiana to its re-subjugation by Jim Crow at the close of the nineteenth century. Mills explores the family's "struggle to find a place in [a] tightly defined world of black and white" — a world made more complex by the larger struggle of Louisiana's native ancien regime to preserve its culture amid the Anglo-Protestant "invasion" that followed the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 and the resulting battle for political and social hegemony. Isle's central theme is the ambiguous lives of those who escaped colonial slavery only to find they could not survive as free without complicity in the slave regime.
Laura Plantation is a restored historic Louisiana Creole plantation on the west bank of the Mississippi River near Vacherie, Louisiana, (U.S.), open for guided tours. Formerly known as Duparc Plantation, it is significant for its early 19th-century Créole-style raised big house and several surviving outbuildings, including two slave cabins. It is one of only 15 plantation complexes in Louisiana with this many complete structures. Because of its historical importance, the plantation is on the National Register of Historic Places. The site, in St. James Parish, Louisiana, is also included on the Louisiana African American Heritage Trail.
The Magnolia Mound Plantation House is a French Creole house constructed in 1791 near the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Many period documents refer to the plantation as Mount Magnolia. The house and several original outbuildings on the grounds of Magnolia Mound Plantation are examples of the vernacular architectural influences of early settlers from France and the West Indies. The complex is owned by the city of Baton Rouge and maintained by its Recreation Commission (BREC). It is located approximately one mile south of downtown.
Oakland Plantation, originally known as the Jean Pierre Emmanuel Prud'homme Plantation, and also known as Bermuda, is a historic plantation in and unincorporated area of Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana. Founded as a forced-labor farm worked by enslaved Black people for White owners, it is one of the nation's best and most intact examples of a French Creole cotton plantation complex. The Oakland Plantation is now owned by the National Park Service as part of the Cane River Creole National Historical Park.
Melrose Plantation, also known as Yucca Plantation, is a National Historic Landmark located in the unincorporated community of Melrose in Natchitoches Parish in north central Louisiana. This is one of the largest plantations in the United States built by and for free blacks. The land was granted to Louis Metoyer, who had the "Big House" built beginning about 1832. He was a son of Marie Thérèse Coincoin, a former slave who became a wealthy businesswoman in the area, and Claude Thomas Pierre Métoyer. The house was completed in 1833 after Louis' death by his son Jean Baptiste Louis Metoyer. The Metoyers were free people of color for four generations before the American Civil War.
Louisiana African American Heritage Trail is a cultural heritage trail with 38 sites designated by the state of Louisiana, from New Orleans along the Mississippi River to Baton Rouge and Shreveport, with sites in small towns and plantations also included. In New Orleans several sites are within a walking area. Auto travel is required to reach sites outside the city.
St. Augustine Catholic Church and Cemetery, or the Isle Brevelle Church, is a historic Catholic parish property founded in 1829 near Melrose, Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana. It is the cultural center of the Cane River area's historic French, Spanish, Native American and Black Creole community.
The Oaklawn Plantation is a historic cotton plantation house in Natchitoches, Louisiana. It is located on the Louisiana Highway 494 east of Natchitoches in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana. It has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since March 28, 1979.
The Jones House, on Louisiana Highway 154 along Cane River Lake near Melrose in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, was built in 1847. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1993.
Cherokee Plantation, also known as Emile Sompayrac Place and Murphy Place, is a former plantation and historic plantation house located in Natchez, Louisiana, near the city of Natchitoches. For many years this site was worked and maintained by enslaved African Americans. This location was part of the Côte Joyeuse area which was home to the earliest French planters in Louisiana.
Narcisse Prudhomme Plantation, also known as Narcisse Prud'homme Plantation, Beau Fort Plantation, and St. Charles Plantation, is a historic planation house and a former plantation, located in the unincorporated community of Bermuda, Louisiana near the village of Natchez. It is one of the oldest plantations in the Cane River National Heritage Area.
Isle Brevelle is an ethnically and culturally diverse community, which began as a Native American and Louisiana Creole settlement and is located in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana. For many years this area was known as Côte Joyeuse. It is considered the birthplace of Creole culture and remains the epicenter of Creole art and literature blending European, African, and Native American cultures. It is home to the Cane River Creole National Historical Park and part of the Louisiana African American Heritage Trail.
Anne des Cadeaux (unknown—1754), was a Native American and devout Catholic. She was enslaved but later gained her freedom. She was active in early colonial Louisiana, and was from one of the early Louisiana Creole families.
