19th Century History of the German Coast
and Evergreen Plantation

You are standing in a part of Louisiana that has a rich and fascinating history, particularly in terms of its economic development through time and its social and cultural evolution. Soon after the city of New Orleans was founded in 1718, groups of German settlers began arriving on the west bank of the Mississippi River near the present-day St. Charles, St. John the Baptist Parish boundary. Lured by advertisements in Europe of an agrarian paradise, these hard-working German farmers were very important in helping the colonists of New Orleans to survive by providing much needed food during the first decades of the 18th Century.

No good estimates are available for how many Germans came to the colony, but so many settled along the Mississippi River just upriver from New Orleans that the region came to be called the German Coast. It was here that the Haydel and Becnel families emigrated during the final decades of the 18th Century. In 1792, Pierre Clidamont Becnel, the grandson of some of the first German settlers in the area, established a small Creole cottage on the grounds of what is now Evergreen Plantation.

Following the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, American settlers were encouraged to settle in Louisiana by the availability of cheap land, high cotton and sugar prices, and the expectation of agricultural profit. The slave trade grew along with settlement of Louisiana. After 1835, slaves were imported into the state in large numbers to meet the growing demands of sugar producers, including those along the German Coast.

African-American slaves provided the labor that was required to sustain and enrich the large agricultural enterprises - the plantations - that grew up along the banks of the Mississippi River. As a result of their work, African-Americans were directly responsible for the spectacular economic growth that Louisiana’s River Road area experienced during the first half of the 19th century. After the Civil War, freed African-Americans continued to reside in the Quarters Area at Evergreen until 1940. Freed African-Americans worked at a variety of tasks during the postbellum period on the sugar plantation, which has continued to operate here at Evergreen up to today. Both before and after Emancipation, African-Americans contributed many elements of their traditional lifestyles to the rich and varied cultural tapestry of southern Louisiana.

This was made possible by a grant from the Louisiana Endowment of the Humanities administered through the Cultural Resource Management Program at Southeastern Louisiana University.