The Enslaved

Probate records from 1829, the year Bernard de Marigny bought the Bonnabel cattle ranch, list nine enslaved people: five men, three women and a toddler named Josephine. The workforce then swelled and shrank with his debts. A 1837 mortgage pledged 98 people against a $50,000 loan, and in 1841 a bank took most of the 74 named in a new one. Skills are on record: Ned Cordonnier was a shoemaker, Bonnine a nursery maid, and a man named Sam led weekly worship and painted. They built the sugar house, kilns and canal themselves.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fontainebleau State Park — 0.8 mi
  Lakeshore park on the Northshore where Tchefuncte potters, Acolapissa and Choctaw lived, and where 153 people were enslaved at Marigny's sugar and brick plantation by 1840; the mill ruin still stands.

More markers nearby

• Fontainebleau Plantation Sugar Mill — steps away
• Native Peoples — 0.2 mi
• Pottery Hill — 1.3 mi
• Battle of Lake Pontchartrain — 1.5 mi