Southdown Plantation

Southdown's owner opposed secession. William J. Minor lived near Natchez and ran Southdown, Hollywood and Waterloo through overseers; a Whig who feared secession would hurt sugar, he sided with the Union. In 1862 he and his son Henry were arrested in Houma and freed a week later in New Orleans, and Union troops took sugar and molasses from Southdown and Hollywood. By 1863 the people he enslaved were refusing to work for him. After Union orders required wages, he withheld rations from those who would not labor, then signed an agreement setting hours, wages and provisions.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Southdown Plantation and Terrebonne Museum — steps away
  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 — 4.3 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

• Southdown High School — 0.3 mi
• Fifth Districts High School — 1.1 mi
• Saint Francis de Sales Church — 1.1 mi
• YRF-4C Phantom II — 1.2 mi