Historic Riverlands, 1811 Slave Revolt

The 1811 revolt is remembered on foot. The African American History Alliance of Louisiana has held a January commemoration every year since 1995, often at Norco. The artist Dread Scott began organizing a reenactment in 2015, and in November 2019 it took place as a march of 26 miles over two days toward New Orleans. Historians count about 95 rebels dead, from battle, summary killings and executions after trials. By the end of January nearly 100 heads were displayed on pikes along the levee, a warning meant for every enslaved person who saw them.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Whitney Plantation — 6.2 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.
• Destrehan Plantation — 15 mi
  A River Road house begun in 1787 where, in January 1811, a tribunal of five slaveholders tried people who had risen on the German Coast, and where an exhibit now tells the revolt.
• Tickfaw State Park — 22 mi
  A floodplain park on the Tickfaw River, with cypress-tupelo swamp, bottomland hardwoods and about 4.75 miles of trails and boardwalks, plus a nature center with an 800-gallon river aquarium.
• Laurel Valley Village — 24 mi
  A sugar plantation's workers' village south of Thibodaux, with cabins of about 1845, shotgun houses, a store and cemetery, and the 1887 strike and massacre in the parish around it.

More markers nearby

• First Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church Sanctuary — steps away
• Maurin's Theater — 1.3 mi
• Caroline Deslonde Beauregard — 2.0 mi
• Luis Bethancourt — 2.1 mi