New Acadia / Nouvelle Acadie

Neither the French nor the Acadians reached an empty bayou. French settlers came from New Orleans after Spain took control of Louisiana in 1762, and Acadians followed after roughly a decade of searching for a home. By then Houma families were already living in the Terrebonne country: the United Houma Nation places its founding families near Bayou Terrebonne around the 1790s and says its people began moving to their present homes around 1800. The town's name is theirs, and houma probably meant red.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Southdown Plantation and Terrebonne Museum — 1.4 mi
  A Greek Revival sugar plantation house in Houma, worked by 233 enslaved people by 1852, with the last Terrebonne mill's story and a worker's cabin of about 1885.
• Mandalay National Wildlife Refuge — 5.6 mi
  A 4,212-acre refuge of freshwater marsh and cypress-tupelo swamp southwest of Houma, with a nature trail to a boardwalk and observation deck and mostly boat-only access.
• Laurel Valley Village — 14 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.
• Wetlands Acadian Cultural Center — 15 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 Grand Dérangement / Le Grand Dérangement — steps away
• Bayou Terrebonne — steps away
• A History of Terrebonne Parish — steps away
• 1834-1934 — steps away