Whitney Plantation Museum Tours

The Whitney Plantation was one of the most infamous plantation estates in Louisiana, having housed some 60 slaves between 1819 and 1860. Today, the site serves as one of the only slavery memorial museums in the United States, having opened in 2014. Through original period buildings, art exhibits, and first-person narratives, visitors can gain an understanding of the lives of slaves in 19th-century America.

The plantation site, on the National Register of Historic Places since 1992, includes a stately plantation home and a number of historic outbuildings. While the visitors center museum exhibits are self-guided, the other plantation buildings—including the French Creole–style Big House, slave quarters, and a church—can only be visited by 90-minute guided tour, included with admission. The poignant exhibits and memorials help visitors see the stark contrast of the lives of slaves and slave-owners in pre-Civil War Louisiana. Most travelers see the Whitney Plantation has part of an extensive plantation tour from New Orleans.

The Whitney Plantation is located in Wallace, Louisiana, 46 miles (74 kilometers) northwest of New Orleans. Group and private tours offer round-trip transportation from New Orleans, while ride-sharing applications are not readily available in the area.

The Whitney Plantation is open year-round but closed on Tuesdays and on New Year's Day, Mardi Gras, Easter Sunday, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, and Christmas Day.

Words and art are used at the Whitney Plantation to honor the lives of the slaves who worked and died there. Throughout the site are The Children of Whitney, life-sized sculptures of slave children by American artist Woodrow Nash. In the Field of Angels exhibit, the 2,200 children who died under slavery in Louisiana are commemorated, with their names listed on granite. Names of Whitney Plantation slaves are recorded with their ages and skills on the Wall of Honor, and in the Allèes Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, the names of all 107,000 people recorded in the Louisiana Slave Database line 18 walls, along with quotes and pictures from the time of slavery.