Whitney Plantation tour

Take an eye-opening look into American history at a prominent plantation home located on the Mississippi river front. Drive along the Great River Road, winding beside the Mississippi River to visit the Whitney plantation.

In 2014, the Whitney Plantation opened its doors to the public for the first time in its 262 year history as the only plantation museum in Louisiana with a focus on slavery. Through museum exhibits, memorial artwork, restored buildings and hundreds of first-person slave narratives, visitors to Whitney will gain a unique perspective on the enslaved people who lived and worked here.

The early owners of Habitation Haydel, later known as The Whitney Plantation, became wealthy producing indigo before the plantation transitioned to sugar in the early 1800's. Whitney is also significant because of the number of its historic outbuildings which were added to the site over the years, thus providing a unique perspective on the evolution of the Louisiana working plantation.

The Big House is one of the finest surviving examples of Spanish Creole architecture and one of the earliest raised Creole cottages in Louisiana. The Whitney Plantation Historic District is on the National Register of Historic Places. As a site of memory and consciousness, the Whitney Plantation Museum is meant to pay homage to all slaves on the plantation itself and to all of those who lived elsewhere in the United States.