The Sound of Time (Oakland Bell)

Plantation bells could be turned against the system that rang them. In 1839, on the Montalvo sugar plantation in Matanzas, Cuba, enslaved people used the prayer-time bell as the signal to attack overseers and flee into the woods. On October 10, 1868, Carlos Manuel de Cespedes rang the bell of his La Demajagua mill to gather the people he held in bondage, tell them they were free and call them to fight Spain, which began the Ten Years' War. Bells like these hung in tall towers that also served as lookouts over the workers.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Cane River Creole National Historical Park — steps away
  Oakland and Magnolia, two Cane River cotton plantations kept as they stood, told through the enslaved families who worked them, the 1864 and 1804 freedom seekers and the tenant farmers who stayed into the 1960s.
• Melrose Plantation — 5.0 mi
  The Cane River estate built on land granted to Louis Metoyer, son of Marie Thérèse Coincoin, with the Yucca House and African House, later an artists' retreat; guided tours Thursday to Sunday.
• St. Augustine Church, Isle Brevelle — 5.3 mi
  The parish church at the heart of the Cane River Creoles of color, begun by Augustin Metoyer on his family's land and still holding Mass for the community that grew from Marie Thérèse Coincoin's children.
• Fort St. Jean Baptiste State Historic Site — 7.8 mi
  A reconstruction of the 1716 French fort beside the Natchitoches village, with a palisade of nearly 2,000 pine logs, a chapel and storeroom, and living-history programs, open Wednesday to Sunday.

More markers nearby

• The Enslaved Nanny's Room — steps away
• Bois d'arc (Osage Orange) — steps away
• Creole Architecture — steps away
• Working Iron — steps away