Dispatches from Home – The Burning of Nottoway!

Hands Down The Best Post I’ve Seen Written About Nottoway Plantation From A Proud & Intelligent Black Woman’s (Felicia Johnetta Williams Gary) Perspective. It’s long but well worth reading!!!

“I’ve seen a lot of comments on various social media platforms about the burning of Nottoway. I’m not on social media platforms a lot, but every now and then, I see things that I feel compelled to comment on. This is one of them. So sit back and get your cup of coffee, glass of water, or favorite drinking beverage if you decide to read what I’ve written. Because it isn’t short, but it is heartfelt, honest, straightforward, and true. Those who know me and how I am, know this is me all my living days.

While I understand the mixture of feelings about the burning of Nottoway. I am going to tell you something about it from those of us that’s from where Nottoway stood.

As you know, I am a Louisiana-born, raised, and proud Black Woman of Creole and Cajun heritage. I have traced and collected documents and information about my maternal and paternal family histories all the way back to slavery times. We Louisianians are a proud and resilient people. We are a mixture (blend) of every culture, race, creed, etc., a beautiful, delectable, tasty gumbo.

The maternal and paternal roots, history, heritage, and legacy of my family is from Bayou Goula (Iberville Parish) and New Orleans(Orleans Parish) that’s where the family trees begin and spread out here in America and the other continents and other countries.

I’ve always said history is what it is- good, bad, ugly. It is all-encompassing and permanent. No matter how we like it, dislike it, try to hide, dismiss, or ignore it. It happened and it is recorded in the record of time, heaven, earth, and universe. All we can do is remember, grow, and learn from history, and those parts of history that were wrong, unjust, and horrible, we make sure not to repeat. Where I’m from, we don’t hide our history. We embrace it, all of it- good, bad, and ugly. We learn, grow, and take responsibility and ownership of it.

And yes, we are very protective of our history, heritage, roots, and culture. We don’t seek reparations for anything because we value and know the most important thing is to keep our family histories, culture, customs, heritage, traditions intact and passed on to the next and future generations. So, when some of you stated that what was lost in the burning of Nottoway is the history of that house and that land, you are correct.

Nottoway didn’t burn as a vengeful act of our ancestors because it was the blood, sweat, tears, pain, joys, sacrifices, struggles, and triumphs of our ancestors that built that house, built that land, and built us.

Nottoway sat in the middle of three communities: Bayou Goula, White Castle, and Dorseyville- each one diverse, equal, and inclusive. Black, White, Red, Yellow, French Creole, Cajun, Italian, Polish, Asian, Spanish, etc., every one of us has historical and cultural ties to that house.

I fight as I do against white supremacy, injustice, and against all racists because I was taught to do so by my family (maternal, paternal) and all those people from all the communities- Bayou Goula, White Castle, Dorseyville, and New Orleans regardless of our skin color, creed, beliefs, etc.

What you are shown and told by Hollywood and others, not of the places and spaces I am from, those who know not of our history, experiences, culture, heritage, and legacy have no right to judge us or tell us how we should be feeling, what to think, act, etc. Yes, we do feel insulted and take offense.

We Louisianians are not like any other Southerners you know or will come across. When you are told Louisiana is the most unique Southern State with a unique, diverse, and inclusive history and people, that’s no lie. Believe it. Our history, ways, culture, heritage, legacy, stories, life experiences, and people are not like anybody else. No matter where else we live, travel, we carry all that with us. It’s ours.

In closing, I want you and others to know that Nottoway was where I got my first job as a teenage girl working as a banquet staff employee in Randolph Hall and I worked as a tour guide at Nottoway after leaving by beloved City of New Orleans to return to my beloved Country Home of Bayou Goula and live in White Castle. On my tours, you learned not only about the people who lived in that house, you learned about the enslaved and the free people of color tied to the house. You see, Louisiana was the only state that had Free People of Color (Gens De Couleur Libre) that owned property and owned plantations and lucrative businesses, as well as FreedMen and FreedWomen that did the same either through manumission or placage (that’s another story). Even created their own villages and communities that were prosperous and lucrative (Faubourg Maringny and Treme, to name a few). No other Southern State had this to be and occur so often BEFORE the American Civil War. So our ancestors in Louisiana weren’t all slaves, and they created, invented, and built things that stood the test of time and make us their descendants to stand proud.

Nottoway was never a death camp for any of us, because our ancestors’ blood, sweat, tears, joys, hardships, and triumphs built that house, that land, and our communities. It built us. We don’t need reparations. We are the reparations. — Felicia Johnetta Williams Gary ” Dispatches from Home – The Burning of Nottoway!