My journey through New Orleans has been an enlightening experience, blending travel, literature, and history to form a deep connection with the city and its stories. This third blog post focuses on Black history in New Orleans, revealing both the beauty and the often unseen ugliness of the city’s past. We visited the Whitney Plantation, watched "12 Years a Slave," and read "The Yellow House" by Sarah Broom. These experiences have profoundly shaped my understanding of the legacy of slavery and systemic racism, building from my foundational understanding of African-American history.

Watching "12 Years a Slave" and learning about Solomon Northup's experience was both horrific and educational. It was angering and upsetting, yet also nuanced and understanding. It provided a clear picture of what has happened in our past and the movement and progress since then. The most important thing I found while reading more about "12 Years a Slave" is that Solomon Northup was not exaggerating his experience; he was accounting for the facts and the harsh reality of Deep South sugar plantations that were dangerous. Northup concludes his narrative with the following statement:

"My narrative is at an end. I have no comments to make upon the subject of Slavery. Those who read this book may form their own opinions of the 'peculiar institution.' What it may be in other States, I do not profess to know; what it is in the region of Red River, is truly and faithfully delineated in these pages. This is no fiction, no exaggeration. If I have failed in anything, it has been in presenting to the reader too prominently the bright side of the picture. I doubt not hundreds have been as unfortunate as myself; that hundreds of free citizens have been kidnapped and sold into slavery, and are at this moment wearing out their lives on plantations in Texas and Louisiana. But I forbear. Chastened and subdued in spirit by the sufferings I have borne, and thankful to that good Being through whose mercy I have been restored to happiness and liberty, I hope henceforward to lead an upright though lowly life, and rest at last in the church yard where my father sleeps" (Northup, 1853).

Visiting the Whitney Plantation made me understand how subjugation continued for generations. It was the age-old strategy of the whites to use divide and rule for continuous subjugation. The slave pens and having slave drivers, meaning an enslaved person would punish his fellow slaves for output work on the cotton field, highlighted this. Watching the movie built my knowledge of American history, slavery, and reconstruction. This is my first time being exposed to the history of slavery in the USA at such a granular level.

Watching the movie made me question: if I were an enslaved person, how would I break free? Would I rebel, be patient and wait it out, or be one of the lucky ones with unique artistic skills or carpentry? Solomon was one of the lucky ones who was kidnapped but was able to regain his freedom through a Canadian abolitionist he briefly worked with on his master's plantation. Patsey, one of the fellow enslaved people on the plantation, was almost killed through whippings by Epps (the master) for getting a bar of soap from another plantation. The question was always about survival. How would I fight for my freedom? Be in despair constantly or compete with my fellow enslaved people? I don't know what side of history I would have been on.

Even though Ford (Solomon's first master) knew that Solomon was actually a free person, he passed him onto Epps to repay his debt, showing the economic priorities at the time and the belief in the economics of the peculiar institution. The biggest realization for me through this course has been that economics works because of demand and supply. There was a demand for slavery and enslaved labor, and people supplied it even if it was evil. The unfortunate reality is that slavery still exists in some parts of the world today, in regions in Africa and other areas where it is illegal. The conditions are far worse now, as there is less incentive to keep kidnapped or sold individuals healthy compared to the 1800s when they were valuable assets and maintained to generate maximum extractable value (MEV). We saw Epps justify almost killing Patsey by saying it was “no sin” because she was his property.

The abolitionist movement argued that it was inhumane to own another human being, as Lincoln believed, but very few individuals paid attention to the horrific conditions of slavery like Solomon Northup describes and Harriet Beecher Stowe illustrates in "Uncle Tom's Cabin." There was very little sympathy for what slaves went through, and this empathy came later, following the 1850s and the new states, the Compromise of 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act, the Douglas-Lincoln debates, and as a result of these two documentations. Religion and the Bible were often used to justify slavery, with texts like "obey your masters" being interpreted timelessly across different cultures and times. Later, Black people founded their own churches during the era of sharecropping and were trapped in a vicious cycle of debt by plantation owners who opened shops and exploited uneducated Black people. As we know, Black churches, music, and art became the coping mechanisms many black people used to move through their experiences at the time.

One of my biggest learnings is that education and healthcare are perhaps the most important factors for growth in this world. The reason we can read Solomon Northup's work today is because of his education and skills. He knew how to build houses, was a skilled musician, and played the violin well. He was treated better than his counterparts, and that's one of the reasons we have his work today. One of sources of inspiration in the subject of history, economics, and finance is Ray Dalio (I highly recommend reading his work or watching his videos here), who describes the world and the history of mankind through five forces: Debt-Money economics, internal conflict, external conflict, environment, and technology. I have added two of my own forces to that framework—education and healthcare. The invention of contraception also played a role, as slave owners benefited from impregnated enslaved women, considering their children property and ensuring a supply of labor for generations.

Education was crucial—the ability to read and write meant the ability to communicate, store information, and pass down wisdom to future generations. Families in slavery were more worried about each other and their children. Standing inside the slave pens and cages at Whitney Plantation, I used my imagination to understand what it would be like to be locked up and brutally attacked. The history of Louisiana laws giving free rein to slave owners to treat slaves as they liked, including placing bounties on runaway slaves, showed how a system (a group of people working together to promote legislation, mindsets, and societal goals that matched their interests) was formed against Black people from the start of “The Peculiar Institution.”

This experience also made me think about human rights overall. It made me realize the individual atrocities and how caring about lives affected by current conflicts, like those in Gaza, is similar to understanding human sufferings in the past. Enslaved people were subjected to bad water, diseases, and unhealthy diets that caused long-term health issues for generations. The legacy of slavery still affects Black communities today, with higher mortality rates and health problems like diabetes and heart disease. Progress takes time and effort, and the true effect of policy and cultural change will take a hundred years to manifest fully. We have done half a century of work but still have half a century to go. 1964 was really the year when these systems working against African-Americans were suspended, and there will be a time lag effect of a century from then to see a full effect of equity based on my prediction.

Reading "The Yellow House" by Sarah Broom added another layer to my understanding of New Orleans’ black history. Broom’s narrative, interweaving her family’s story with the broader history of the city, highlights the enduring impact of systemic inequalities. Her reflections on her childhood home, both a sanctuary and a symbol of neglect, mirror the socio-economic challenges faced by many black families in New Orleans. The Yellow House itself becomes a symbol of both resilience and decay. Broom writes, "There was a quiet nobility in the way we bore the weight of our history, even as the house itself leaned into the earth, sagging with the accumulated burden of years.” The resilience displayed in "The Yellow House" echoes the strength of the city’s black residents, despite the adversities they faced, and the traditions that carry on to honor this legacy of resilience.

I am grateful for this experience in Louisiana and visiting the Whitney Plantation. It has deepened my understanding of how slavery was an "evil" but was justified for economic benefits. It was not “necessary” as Thomas Jefferson argued, but “beneficial” to the economic powerhouse of the South. Slave masters knew it was a sin but used laws to deem slaves as property and rationalize it in their minds. This reflection made me ponder which side of history I would have been on. I believe in free market economics, but I understand that some products, services, or in this case people demanded should never be supplied, as supplying them can be evil. Would I have been a southerner justifying the institution, an abolitionist, a cotton processor benefiting from enslaved labor, or someone documenting these atrocities? I hope I would have had the wisdom and self-belief to distinguish right from wrong and be on the right side of history.