Canary Islanders Memorial

About 2,100 Canarians arrived in Spanish Louisiana between 1778 and 1783, driven from the islands by poverty and overpopulation. They were settled in four places: Galveztown, Valenzuela, Barataria and San Bernardo. Disease and flooding plagued Galveztown and Barataria. Valenzuela and San Bernardo did better, though their paths diverged. Valenzuela was rapidly gallicized after a large migration of Acadian refugees to Bayou Lafourche, while San Bernardo kept much of its distinctive culture and language into the twenty-first century. Many Isleños also fought in the American Revolutionary War.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• E. D. White Historic Site — 20 mi
  A National Historic Landmark house of about 1790 on Bayou Lafourche, built by enslaved people and home to two Whites, a governor and a Chief Justice, with an exhibit on the bayou's history.
• Whitney Plantation — 20 mi
  A museum on a former sugar plantation along the River Road that tells its story through the people who were enslaved there, with memorials to 107,000 enslaved Louisianans and 2,200 children.
• LSU Rural Life Museum — 23 mi
  Four slave cabins moved from Welham Plantation and a working-plantation row of more than twenty saved buildings, on land the Burden family held as Windrush plantation since the 1830s.
• Wetlands Acadian Cultural Center — 23 mi
  A Jean Lafitte National Historical Park center on Bayou Lafourche with Acadian and bayou-life exhibits, a 200-seat theater and ranger-guided boat tours to the E. D. White house.

More markers nearby

• The Swamp — 0.2 mi
• The Culture — 0.2 mi
• Ascension Of Our Lord Catholic Church — 0.2 mi
• Central Agricultural School — 0.3 mi