Whitney Plantation Tour

Explore the Whitney Plantation in New Orleans!

In 2014, the Whitney Plantation opened its doors to the public for the first time in its 262 year history as the only plantation museum in Louisiana with a focus on slavery. Through museum exhibits, memorial artwork, restored buildings, and hundreds of first-person narratives, visitors to Whitney will gain a unique perspective on the enslaved people who lived and worked here.

The early owners of Habitation Haydel, later known as The Whitney Plantation, became wealthy producing indigo before the plantation transitioned to sugar in the early 1800s. Whitney is also significant because of the number of its historic outbuildings which were added to the site over the years, thus providing a unique perspective on the evolution of the Louisiana working plantation.

The Big House is one of the finest surviving examples of Spanish Creole architecture and one of the earliest raised Creole cottages in Louisiana. Although a limited portion of the original tour, the house is undergoing renovations in 2021 and it is not currently open.

The Whitney Plantation Historic District is on the National Register of Historic Places. As a site of memory and consciousness, the Whitney Plantation Museum is meant to pay homage to all enslaved people on the plantation itself and to all of those who lived elsewhere in the United States.

On your journey to this historic setting, you’ll also have the opportunity to enjoy a panoramic view of Lake Pontchartrain as you cross the Bonnet Carre Spillway (the flood outlet of the Mississippi River). Travel past Laura, Oak Alley, Evergreen, Felicity & St. Joseph Plantations, ghosts of the past that front the Mississippi River, where rich crops of sugar cane, cotton, and indigo from these fertile lands once traveled to ports of trade.