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Black America Web
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Black America Web
Nottoway Plantation Fire Stokes Emotions On Social Media
Source: Google / Google The Nottoway Plantation in Louisiana burned down, and social media users expressed a wide range of emotions in response. The Nottoway Plantation in Louisiana, billed as 'the South's largest remaining antebellum mansion', was devoured by a fire over the past weekend. The responses to the fire have been a mix of emotions ranging from jubilation over the destruction of a symbol rooted in the horrors of the enslavement of Black people, to some expressing sadness as it represented 'the good old South' and their memories of weddings held there. Located 65 miles northwest of New Orleans, the 53,000-square-foot mansion had been rebranded as the Nottoway Resort in recent years, featuring amenities such as 40 overnight rooms, a honeymoon suite, a lounge, fitness center, and an outdoor pool and cabana. According to the National Park Service, 155 enslaved people were recorded at Nottoway Plantation in 1860. The website for Nottoway doesn't mention those people at all. And according to property owner Dan Dyess' words in the New York Post, there is no intent to do so: 'We are trying to make this a better place. We don't have any interest in left wing radical stuff. We we need to move forward on a positive note here and we are not going to dwell on past racial injustice.' That sentiment contrasts with how social media rejoiced in Nottoway burning down. One historian, Dr. Mia Crawford-Johnson, shared a selfie taken across from the site of the mansion burning down, which went viral. Others also shared videos celebrating the mansion's destruction by fire as justice for those who were enslaved, with some using it as an Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response video and editing the video with background music choices like Usher's 'Let It Burn.' Some historians have lamented the lost chance to preserve Nottoway as a site to illustrate the skill and ingenuity of Black enslaved people. 'There are no perfect answers here,' writes noted author and chef Michael W. Twitty in an MSNBC article. 'Nottoway could have gone the way of Whitney Plantation, also in Louisiana, which is a museum dedicated to helping visitors understand who the enslaved people were.' When contacted, Whitney Plantation Museum Executive Director Ashley Rogers felt that Nottoway's chance to go that route was lost long before the blaze. 'It was a resort,' Rogers said. 'I don't know that it being there or not being there has anything to do with how we preserve the history of slavery. They already weren't.' Nottoway Plantation Fire Stokes Emotions On Social Media was originally published on Black America Web Featured Video CLOSE
Axios
16-05-2025
- General
- Axios
Nation's largest remaining antebellum plantation burns to the ground
Nottoway Plantation burned to the ground this week after a fire broke out Thursday, authorities say. Why it matters: The plantation was the largest antebellum mansion remaining in the South, making it an important but complicated connection to the nation's history of enslavement. The latest: The fire's cause is still under investigation, Fox 8 reports, but the building is " a total loss," says Iberville Parish President Chris Daigle. Zoom in: The 64-room mansion was built by John Hampden Randolph in the 1850s. The home was located on the edge of the Mississippi River in Iberville Parish, south of Baton Rouge. In recent years, it had rebranded as Nottoway Resort and served as an event space, offering tours and dining. Between the lines: Randolph was already successful in the cotton business when he decided to expand into sugar production with the development of the plantation at Nottoway, according to 64 Parishes. His success came on the backs of the enslaved people he owned — 155 of them in 1860, records show. Public reaction to Nottoway's destruction has been mixed. Its "early history is undeniably tied to a time of great injustice, over the last several decades it evolved into a place of reflection, education, and dialogue," Daigle wrote. "The loss of Nottoway is not just a loss for Iberville Parish, but for the entire state of Louisiana. It was a cornerstone of our tourism economy and a site of national significance." Lauren Marque Sanders, who said on Facebook that she'd worked at the property for 23 years, called it "beyond sad." "I knew this house like the back of my hand. I'm at loss for words," she wrote. Sharing a video of the building while still aflame, Brad Gordon wrote, "If you don't understand why Black Americans are celebrating the symbolic dismantling of this monument to bondage and generational oppression—well, today, we simply don't care."
