We visited Oak Alley Plantation outside of New Orleans, Louisiana. Today, it is a National Heritage Landmark, but was originally a sugar cane plantation owned by the Roman family. Their extensive landholdings stretched for nine miles along the western bank of the Mississippi River. More than 100 enslaved men, women and children lived and worked at Oak Alley, performing the labor that sustained the plantation’s sugar industry. Across the broader Roman family’s properties, nearly 900 people were enslaved. Their lives and labor were central to the family’s wealth and the plantation’s economic success. The Southern Live Oaks for, which the Plantation is named, are between 190 and 200 years old.