The Founding of Smithridge
Dublin Core
Title
The Founding of Smithridge
Description
Smithridge originated with two formerly enslaved men, Robert and Edward Smith, and their white enslaver father, Benjamin Franklin Smith, who worked as an overseer in the 1840s on the Terrebonne Parish plantation owned by Phoebe Pierce. There Smith met Nellie Jones, an enslaved woman of African descent who had survived the domestic slave trade from Virginia to Louisiana. Smith and Jones had two children, Robert in 1849 and Edward in 1852. The power dynamics of their interactions—Smith as the free, white overseer and Jones as an enslaved woman of African descent—made it impossible for their relationship to be truly consensual.
In 1853 Smith began buying property for his own plantation on Bayou Little Caillou. He also began purchasing enslaved people, including Nellie and their two children. By the Civil War, the Smith Plantation encompassed over six hundred acres and was one of eighty sugarcane plantations in the parish. According to the 1860 US Federal Census Slave Schedule, there were twenty-eight people enslaved on the Smith Plantation.
The Civil War disrupted sugar cane production and ultimately led to the end of the slavery-based economic system. Although the Union Army occupied parts of Louisiana, Nellie, Robert, and Edward maintained their status as enslaved people as the Emancipation Proclamation did not extend to Union-held territories. In September 1864, Louisiana voters adopted the state’s new constitution, which abolished slavery, freeing Nellie, Robert, Edward, and the other enslaved people on the Smith Plantation. Robert and Edward remained on Smith Plantation working as tenant farmers.
Upon Benjamin Smith’s death in 1877, Robert and Edward purchased the land from his white widow. By 1881, they owned much of the original six hundred acres. Other formerly enslaved people, including John Brown, Victor Fitch, Daniel Harrison, Jim Harris, and Jack Nightshed, purchased plots of the plantation. Most African Americans in the area labored as sharecroppers or low-wage field workers on sugar plantations in the same gang-labor system employed under slavery and lived in the cabins once occupied by formerly enslaved people. Smithridge was an outlier as the Black residents owned the land they farmed.
In 1853 Smith began buying property for his own plantation on Bayou Little Caillou. He also began purchasing enslaved people, including Nellie and their two children. By the Civil War, the Smith Plantation encompassed over six hundred acres and was one of eighty sugarcane plantations in the parish. According to the 1860 US Federal Census Slave Schedule, there were twenty-eight people enslaved on the Smith Plantation.
The Civil War disrupted sugar cane production and ultimately led to the end of the slavery-based economic system. Although the Union Army occupied parts of Louisiana, Nellie, Robert, and Edward maintained their status as enslaved people as the Emancipation Proclamation did not extend to Union-held territories. In September 1864, Louisiana voters adopted the state’s new constitution, which abolished slavery, freeing Nellie, Robert, Edward, and the other enslaved people on the Smith Plantation. Robert and Edward remained on Smith Plantation working as tenant farmers.
Upon Benjamin Smith’s death in 1877, Robert and Edward purchased the land from his white widow. By 1881, they owned much of the original six hundred acres. Other formerly enslaved people, including John Brown, Victor Fitch, Daniel Harrison, Jim Harris, and Jack Nightshed, purchased plots of the plantation. Most African Americans in the area labored as sharecroppers or low-wage field workers on sugar plantations in the same gang-labor system employed under slavery and lived in the cabins once occupied by formerly enslaved people. Smithridge was an outlier as the Black residents owned the land they farmed.
Ellen Thompson Smith 
Marriage License of Ed Smith and Ellen Thompson Feb. 11, 1880
Ed Smith (1852-1945)
"Slave Schedule," 1860 Census. This document lists 28 people enslaved by Benjamin Smith on the right-hand column. Please note enslaved people are not named. The ages of the enslaved people range from 3-65.