This route traces the difficult history of enslavement, dating back to the city’s colonial origins. New Orleans was one of the main hubs of the transatlantic trade of Africans in bondage. Critical sites of memory remain within the oldest neighborhoods of the city, including a former plantation in Algiers, a place of powerful resistance now known as Congo Square, and one of the earliest communities founded by free people of color in New Orleans. Slavery is one of the main historical antecedents to what has become the prison industrial complex, so we at Nola to Angola believe it’s crucial to acknowledge this history.
Click here to see suggested turn-by-turn directions and stop info for this 4.5 mile route.
This historical marker honors the individuals who perished and others who survived the Middle Passage during the transatlantic trade of Africans in bondage. This area was used as a warehouse, a workshop, a farm, and a lumber mill to support the colony on the east bank of the river. Primarily, the area around the courthouse was a repository for captives from Senegambia, Congo, and the Bight of Benin. At that point in time, it was known as the Company Plantation. Housing 154 enslaved people at its peak, it was the largest single group of enslaved Africans in Louisiana.
Originally the St. Louis Hotel, this site hosted a large antebellum slave exchange. Travelers to New Orleans throughout the 19th century described this slave auction block in their travelogues. If you face the hotel on the Chartres Street side, you can decipher the word “CHANGE,” which once read “NEW ORLEANS EXCHANGE.” This old vestige is a stark reminder of an often-hidden history.
Every year from September to May for decades, the area around the French Quarter was devoted to what New Orleanians called “slave pens,” high brick walls containing enslaved men, women, and children. These were the holding cells enslaved people were forced into as they waited to be inspected for purchase. If you walk over to the neutral ground on Esplanade, you’ll find a historical marker memorializing this site of bondage.
Listen to Erin M. Greenwald speak about life for enslaved people in nineteenth century New Orleans:
One of the most important sites of memory in the oldest area of New Orleans, Congo Square is a historic place of oppression and powerful resistance. The mythology around Congo Square has been built up by predominantly white writers who never witnessed the enslaved people who spent time here. In 1817, Congo Square was called the Place Publique, and it was the only area enslaved individuals were allowed to gather, and they were only sanctioned to do so on Sunday afternoons. As such, Congo Square became a clandestine place to play music, dance, and sell goods. The music incorporated elements from West African tradition, eventually transforming into the style we now call jazz. Hence, Congo Square earned the reputation as the birthplace of jazz. It’s important to emphasize that this music was first and foremost a show of resistance against an oppressive colonial government.
Since 1996, the New Orleans African American Museum has been devoted to telling the complicated story of the African Diaspora. By the mid 1850s, the neighborhood you’re in now, the Tremé, was historically home to the largest, most prosperous, and most politically progressive community of Black people in Louisiana. During the 1700s, this particular lot where the NOAAM sits was controlled by the Morand family and their plantation. A hat maker and real estate developer named Claude Tremé acquired it, and then sold the land to the city of New Orleans in 1810. From then on, it became home to many free people of color in the area. The Museum’s presence here creates a powerful continuum of the past, present, and the future.
Saint Augustine Catholic Church is the oldest African-American parish in the entire country. In 1841, a community of Catholic free people of color founded the church and purchased an extra set of pews for parishioners who were still enslaved. The list of notable parishioners through the years is lengthy; to name a few, jazz luminary Sidney Bechet, civil rights activists Homer Plessy and A.P. Turead, and Mardi Gras Indian Chief Tootie Montana all worshiped here over the years. Look for a historical plaque on a garden plot beside the church, punctuated by a cross made of chains. It marks “the Tomb of the Unknown Slave,” a critical reminder of the countless lives stolen and lost during the many years Africans were enslaved in New Orleans.
The mark that enslavement left on New Orleans and New Orleanians is still with us in another way too: the development of the modern prison industrial complex. Listen to Erin M. Greenwald explain the linkage below, and also check out the NTA route “Slavery by Another Name” to learn about organizations engaged in resistance to mass incarceration. Or ride “Monuments to Injustice” for more about place names in New Orleans that reflect historic wrongs and the people who supported, perpetrated, and excused them.
While you are riding, bring masks and hand sanitizer, respect physical distancing, and make sure that you have an emergency contact who knows where you are and can pick you up if needed. We also have some more in-depth tips for safe biking in the pandemic, check them out! Please be aware that NOLA to Angola cannot provide logistical or emergency support to individual riders this year. Take care, and safe riding!
