Three miles west of Jeanerette along Highways 182 and 87 there is history in the fields on both sides of Bayou Teche on what was then, and still is, known as Hope Plantation, a 2,370-acre sugar cane plantation. A thriving and dramatic enterprise was ongoing there a century ago though many of the details have long been forgotten.

From around 1900 to 1925 the activities on this land were different from what one sees today. Among the fields of tall stalks of bright green cane, a narrow-gauge railroad chugged along, bringing the stalks to the brick sugar factory where the cane juice would be ground and processed into granules. It was the property of the State of Louisiana Penitentiary Board of Control and was a penal colony (a prison farm). It operated for approximately the first 25 years of the twentieth century.

While its official name was Louisiana State Penitentiary at Hope Plantation, to the people in Iberia Parish it was commonly known as the “Negro Prison.” It had been purchased in 1900 at the same time as was Angola Prison in West Feliciana Parish to be used as a prison and sugar plantation for convicts following dramatic prison reforms. (See “History of Angola,” 1901, Angola State Farms and the Board of Control — angolamuseum.org.)

The 1920 U.S. Census lists 280 men and boys by name and age incarcerated there, noting that most were blacks (95 percent) in their 20s, 30s and 40s. They were required to do hard, manual labor in the fields — cultivating and harvesting the cane. It was difficult, back-breaking work done under the harshest conditions and the watchful eye of armed prison guards.

The convicts stood and bent and loaded the heavy stalks of cane, wearing long, striped pants held up by suspenders, long sleeved white shirts, and a fedora-style hat. Each man carried a machete (long, wood handled knife) to be used for cutting the thick, heavy stalks. The cane was then loaded into carts on a narrow-gauge railroad and transported from the field to the “sugar house.” There it was crushed, and the juice was boiled and granulated. It was hot, man-breaking work.

The prisoners were housed in long, low-ceilinged, wooden barracks set onto an open field while the warden or “captain” lived in a genteel home under thick oak trees, not far away, perhaps with his family. There were also other buildings — a bakery, a hospital, a pharmacy and a bathhouse.

Some of the land on the banks of the Teche was found to be composed of red alluvial clay. Three large kilns were built to manufacture bricks for other buildings on the plantation and for sale. This, too, was hot, heavy work.

But remember, it wasn’t meant to be a resort … it was designed to be a penal colony, a prison farm, a penitentiary where men were kept, to repay their debts to society.

After nearly two and a half decades, the State Board determined to close the prison in Iberia Parish. The land was leased, according to a brief article in the Baton Rouge Morning Advocate, November 4, 1925. The state decided to concentrate its activities on the prison commonly referred to today simply as “Angola” in West Feliciana Parish which now occupies 18,000 acres on the banks of the Mississippi River, north of Baton Rouge.

Discussions continue to this day as to what defines humane prison conditions. For these men, it was better than it had been in the previous years, but perhaps worse than today.

JULAINE DEARE SCHEXNAYDER is retired after a varied career in teaching and public relations. Her email address is julaines14@gmail.