Marie Adrien Persac and Riverlake Sugarhouse

Marie Adrien Persac--an itinerant painter, cartographer, photographer, and lithographer--detailed nineteenth century Louisiana life. One aspect that he captured in his paintings was plantation life in Louisiana during the mid-nineteenth century. Born on December 14, 1823 in Saumur, France, Persac left for America, family legend contends, around 1843, a year after his father passed away (3). We do not know precisely when Persac came to Louisiana, but we do know that he married Odile Daigre in Baton Rouge in 1851. Between 1857 and 1861, Persac painted landscapes; these images present "the image and indeed the very feel of Louisiana plantations on the eve of the Civil War" (9). Persac painted plantations such as the Shadows-on-the-Teche in New Iberia and Faye Plantation in St. Mary Parish. Among these landscapes, Persac also painted Riverlake Plantation, specifically the sugarhouse.

The exact date of Riverlake Sugarhouse in not known. Persac painted it anywhere between 1855-1861. What we do know, though, is that the painting provides us with a picture of Riverlake Plantation, a plantation that once occupied three thousands acres of land in Pointe Coupee Parish. This is the plantation where Gaines grew up, where he was born, in 1933. The painting shows the plantation, and one of the key structures on the plantation, almost seventy years before Gaines's birth. Persac's painting shows the sugarhouse, "the most important building on any sugarcane plantation, for it was here that the sweet but comparatively worthless cane juice was rendered into money-making crystal sugar and the less-valuable but still profitable by-product molasses" (70). In the foreground, rows of sugarcane can be seen. Some rows have slaves harvesting the cane with wagons being pulled behind them to collect the cut cane. In the back left of the panting, a slave cabin can be seen, and next to that, a pile of bagasse (crushed cane pulp) that would be used as fuel for the plantation instead of timber. Inside the sugarhouse, the cut cane would be boiled to extract the sugar.

The Riverlake sugarhouse continued to stand into the twentieth century, and Robert Koch's pictures here show it as it stood in 1935, two years after Gaines's birth. In fact, "[s]ugar brought prosperity to south Louisiana in the nineteenth century," and specifically to Pointe Coupee Parish (70).  This prosperity, though, did not occur on backs of the landowners; instead, the slaves, and later sharecroppers, who worked the land bore the weight of the prosperity with little to nothing to show for their efforts. Today, the sugarhouse is not there; however, the fields remain covered in sugarcane year after year, and grinding season, the time when the cane gets harvested and processed, still occurs in the fall.

Why is it important that we remember images like Persac's or Koch's? Apart from being images of the land where Gaines grew up, what importance do they serve? In regards to Gaines, the importance is obvious. They show us an historical account of "his people," the ones who lived on and worked the land of Riverlake Plantation. In a broader sense, the paintings and photographs provide us with an historical account not just of the plantation system but also an account of the aftermath of the Civil War, Reconstruction, and through the Great Depression. To understand where we are today, and how we got here, we must understand the past and images like these help us to do that.

Bacot, H. Parrott, Barbara SoRelle BAcot, Sally Kittredge Reeves, John Magill, and John H. Lawrence. Marie Adrien Persac: Louisiana Artist. Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 2000. Print.

Ernest Gaines and the Land He Writes About

When I first read Ernest Gaines' A Gathering of Old Men around 2004 or 2005, I never thought I would have the opportunity, in such a short period of time, to work in the Ernest J. Gaines Center and to get to know the man and the land that he writes about. In the documentary above, John Callahan comments that all fiction contains about 99% reality from experiences, surroundings, people, etc. I could have gone my whole life reading Gaines' work without having any connection to them beyond the printed words on the page. While I would still, no doubt, find pleasure and inspiration in the texts, I would not have the opportunity to fully appreciate their importance. Walking the land that Gaines' invokes in his novels feels different than walking through the streets of New Orleans in the footsteps of Tennessee Williams, John Kenendy Toole, Kate Chopin, William Faulkner, and countless others. I do not get the same feeling walking those streets in the French Quarter as I do when I walk through the church, the cemetery, or the sugarcane fields that Gaines draws inspiration from when constructing the land around Bayonne. Millions of people walk those streets in New Orleans. How many walk those fields where Gaines grew up?
Gaines' connection to the land where he spent the first fifteen years of his life can be seen very strongly throughout his oeuvre. He tried to write about other areas; however, he always returned again and again to Louisiana. Speaking with John Lowe in 1994, Gaines said, "I've tried to write about my army experiences; I've tried to write about San Francisco, about Bohemian life and that sort of thing. But everything comes back to Louisiana" (298). Louisiana continually draws Gaines back in his writing. Earlier, talking with Marcia Guadet and Carl Wooton, Gaines said he has an attachment to the land where he grew up. He cares about the cemetery on the land where the people he knew and his ancestors are buried, some in unmarked graves. Talking about the quarters, Gaines said, "I suppose as children we loved the quarters. I mean we loved it more than the people who owned it loved it, but we were limited" because they did not own the land (75). This land draws him back because "that's where everything was for [him]" (75). 
All of this brings me back to the beginning of this post. Over the past few years, I have had the opportunity to walk upon the earth that Gaines walked during his formative years. I have had the opportunity to clean the cemetery where his ancestors lay and where he wants to be buried with the inscription "To Lie With Those Who Have No Marks" on his tombstone. The place, Riverlake Plantation, provided Gaines with the material he would write about he scoured the library in California to find his people and their voices in the books collected there. He created that voice and breathed life into it, allowing those who have no mark to speak for the world to hear. Riverlake Plantation also provided me, and more importantly my family, with the opportunity to never forget the past. My daughter has been able to help clean the cemetery every October for the past few years, and my son had the opportunity this year. Even though they are not old enough to understand the importance of what they are doing or where they are walking, I know that one day they will. They will understand that they helped, in some small way, to keep the memories of Gaines and his ancestors alive.
 

For a video of the annual cemetery cleaning go to CNN's website.

Gaudet, Marcia and Carl Wooten. Porch Talk withErnest Gaines: Conversations on the Writer’s Craft. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1990. Print. 

Lowe, John. "An Interview with Ernest Gaines." Conversations with Ernest Gaines. Ed. John Lowe. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 1995. 297-328. Print.