Thought experiment

I think it was actually 2 valentine’s days ago, I can’t remember at this point but I do remember telling my coworker about it the next morning so yeah it had to be. actually they’ve all sucked but this one stands out lol. anyways, this is going to be all over this place but basically the guy I was “talking” to didn’t care to do anything together and said he had work etc. at this point I was pretty much over the situationship not going anywhere after already expressing how i felt and what i wanted etc.

anyways, this guy from NY was consistently asking me out on IG but I wasn’t really paying him any mind because i couldn’t get over the situationship 🙄. he asked would i like to go out to eat and I said sure. he chose valentine’s day, which was the next day but i wasn’t paying anymind to that tbh. fast forward, i’m not gonna lie I wasn’t really interested but there’s nothing wrong with making a new friend. he told me to meet him uptown at a spanish spot. so i got to the city alittle early and like a weirdo sat across the street from the place talking to my best friend on the phone waiting until i saw him. eventually i saw him walk up and waited like 10 more minutes and eventually went in.

The owner of this particular plantation had it built by slaves for 3 years. Every brick was handmade. Over 120,000 bricks on 2,000+ acres of land (this place was huge.) The clay used for the bricks came from the Mississippi River. The majority of the slaves are buried under the Levees and water. Some are buried with their Masters. Not allowed to live with them but could be dead with them.

Before you enter the house, there’s a list of slaves who lived here including their age and how much they were purchased for. 124 total. Some slaves were worth as little as $25. As young as 5 years old.

On this particular plantation, the owner was big on punishment…he used noise making neck restraints. Imagine three 4lb balls around your neck with bells inside. Children were restrained by ankle locks that connected between their ankles.

This was a sugar cane plantation, one the worst practices to involve slaves because of its danger. A lot of slaves were decapitated, amputees and killed from the fields and machinery. A lot of kids lost their lives creating sugar. Speaking of children, a child stood in the living room and operated the fan with a string while guests ate dinner. As young as 3 years old.

Here’s what shook me even further: Before the Civil War, a lot of slave owners were going in debt and could not afford their properties and were not producing enough cotton and sugar to maintain their lifestyles. Slaves were used as HUMAN CREDIT CARDS. Slaves were a guaranteed line of credit. You could get HALF of your property’s value depending on how many healthy and able slaves you owned.

My people were human credit cards and lines of credit to BANKS. We were property. We were labeled as equipment and nothing more.

There is no such thing as a good slave owner. They owned my PEOPLE and used them as checks and balances. This cycle continues with prison and brutality. I do not want to hear shit about “Why can only Black people say this or that?” I don’t want to hear shit about “we’re all human.”

SOME of the enslaved names, ages, race and purchase price.

The living room.

Interior.

The dining room. That piece hanging above the table is ORIGINAL to the house. That’s the fan that a slave as young as 3 years old had to operate manually with a string.

The view from the balcony in the main hallway. This is how they looked over the slaves while they worked in the yard.

*sigh* Names of the enslaved that occupied the shacks. Children included. Their names are written inside one of the shacks. I’m not sure if there are other names inside other shacks because I could only handle 2. After I saw the punishment equipment, I left.

Slave Shacks. These are NOT the original shacks. These were built to imitate them.

Slaves for Sale Ads.

The landscape of Slavery throughout the United States in 1860. JUST 1860. Let that sink in.

Note: The last time the home was OWNED by a Louisiana citizen was 1972. This is her original bedroom, her lipstick is STILL on the dresser. This is why the house has been updated since slavery times because it was occupied up until 1972. Regardless, this used to be where house slaves slept.

The backs of slaves, LITERALLY financed major corporations today. There are businesses today that started with a slave as a human credit card transferred from generations for wealth.

Some of our GRANDPARENTS were slaves. Let’s not forget slavery turning into the Jim Crow era.