Manon's Corner

Manon Baldwin kept a tavern and boarding house on this corner until her death in 1858, and she stood in a long Louisiana tradition. In Spanish New Orleans free women of color worked as seamstresses, midwives, tavern keepers and boardinghouse keepers, and often put their earnings into land and houses. Margarita Trudeau, a retailer, bought her son's freedom in 1782. After the American takeover, laws of 1806 and 1808 made manumission harder and required papers naming them free people of color, and by the 1850s vigilante pressure was driving many out.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Le Vieux Village and the Venus House — 0.5 mi
  A heritage park in Opelousas built around the Venus House of about 1791, the home of a free Creole woman of color, Marie Francois Venus, with an old schoolhouse, Methodist church and the visitor center's zydeco music exhibit.
• Prairie Acadian Cultural Center — 21 mi
  A National Park Service center in Eunice on the Cajun prairie, with exhibits on the Acadians who settled the prairies, a Courir de Mardi Gras display, free music and cooking demonstrations, and the shuttered Liberty Theatre nearby.
• Vermilionville — 23 mi
  A living-history village of about 23 acres on Bayou Vermilion in Lafayette, opened in 1990 to interpret the Native peoples, Acadians, Creoles and people of African descent of the Attakapas region.
• Atchafalaya Welcome Center — 25 mi
  A state welcome center inside the Atchafalaya Basin, the nation's largest river swamp, with exhibits on Basin history and life, a film, a crawfishing boat and French-speaking staff.

More markers nearby

• Opelousas — steps away
• Opelousas (Capital of Confederate Louisiana) — steps away
• Jim Bowie Oak — steps away
• Delta Theater — steps away