The Southeast Louisiana landscape and its Mississippi River basin reflect the diverse cultures and settlement patterns of Indigenous peoples, French, English, and Spanish settlers, and African Americans that identify this region of the state. Over the centuries the special character of this landscape has also attracted naturalists, artists, and conservationists. John Jay Audubon (1785-1851) spent significant time in the area where he developed his passion for ornithology and began his pioneering work, Birds of America. In 1775, the American naturalist, painter, and writer William Bartram (1739-1823) explored the land east of the Mississippi River that would become the Feliciana Parishes of the State. He ended his expedition by traveling west across the river and arriving at Pointe Coupée.
The two sides of the great river could not have been more ecologically distinct—Bartram discovered the geomorphological histories that belie those differences. On the east side, loess soils blown in over the millennia from the Great Plains shaped the distinctive rolling hills and deep ravines of the area and generated its unique vegetative character. In contrast, to the west, annual flooding of the river scoured the land and deposited some of the continent’s richest soils. Lowland plant communities and crops populate the pervasive flat, low-lying land. The agricultural heritage of this area is legendary.
The three sites selected for the excursion by The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF) exemplify the natural and cultural characteristics of these two diverse landscapes: LeJeune House, west of the river, and Live Oak and Afton Villa, east of the river. In this lesser known region, which possesses a high level of integrity, TCLF Board Members Doug Reed, FASLA, Jeff Carbo, FASLA, Susan Turner, FASLA, and Victor “Trey” Trahan III, FAIA, have curated the itinerary to illuminate the significance of these remarkable places in the context of the region’s history, including some of the lost and suppressed narratives that have been unearthed in recent years.
The excursion will take place on October 9 in St. Francisville, Louisiana, and complete details and registration can be found at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/revealing-lost-histories-in-southeast-louisiana-tickets-1348664926099?aff=oddtdtcreator
