Duncan Kenner: His Heritage And Its Presence At Bocage

Born in New Orleans, Kenner became a rich sugar planter

, one of the principal slaveholders in Louisiana, and one of the most influential men in the state. After Kenner married Anne Guillelmine Nanine Bringier, he became linked with one of the wealthiest and most powerful Creole families in Louisiana. He built Ashland Plantation (later renamed Ashland-Bele Helene Plantation) for his spouse, which was just 8 miles up the Mississippi River from Bocage Plantation. Kenner was fond of using scientific methods to amplify crop yields and was thought to be the first guy in Louisiana to offer a railroad to bring sugar cane from the fields to the mill. Kenner served for numerous terms in the Louisiana House of Representatives and was a associate of the state constitutional conventions of 1845 and 1852, having presided over the later council. He was also a member of the Confederate Congress and chairman of its Ways and Means Committee.

In July 1863, while visiting his relatives at his Ashland Plantation during a break in the legislature, Kenner closely averted capture by the Union army, making his escape after being warned by one of his slaves of the empending attack of the Federal Troops. By this point in time he had become persuaded that the emancipation of slaves was the solitary method to get independence for the Confederacy. In 1864, he was despatched by Jefferson Davis as special commissioner to England and France to secure the acknowledgment of the Confederate States of America. Davis, through Kenner, offered the freeing of the Confederate slaves in exchange for acknowledgment of the Confederacy by Britain and France. After the capture of New Orleans in 1862, a large amount of Kenner's possessions was confiscated and his slaves were freed, but at his end he was again a a rich man.

Kenner's influence is still felt in Louisiana these days in several ways, in particular at Bocage Plantation. Bocage was originally a wedding present to Christophe Colomb and Francoise Bringier, Anne Guillelmine Nanine Bringier's aunt. The Colomb's child, Louis Arthur, became a cousin of Duncan Kenner when he married into the Bringier family. The family relation and relative proximity of Ashland Plantation to Bocage Plantation would no doubt have brought Kenner down the river to visit his cousins, as well as his brother-in-law, Michel Doradou Bringier, who lived a mile down River Road from the Colombs at L'Hermitage Plantation.

Kenner's existence is still felt at Bocage Plantation today, embodied in an antique bed. The massive four-poster American Empire bed, dating from the 1830's, used to belong to the ancestors of Duncan Kenner and most likely resided at Ashland Plantation. The bed is simple yet sophisticated in its design. The bed has smooth, clean lines, an incised akroter set flanked by two scrolls on the headboard, and smaller akroters on the foot-board and side-boards. The akroters correlate with other akroters located all over Bocage in quite a few of its architectural details, mainly on the gigantic door frame that separates the two double parlors on the upstairs floor.

Surely, Duncan Kenner's was an key component in the expansion and success of antebellum Louisiana. His legacy lives on not only at Ashland-Belle Helene Plantation, but also at Bocage Plantation, where the the Kenner bed resides and connects guests with the heritage of Kenner, the Colombs, and the Bringiers. Not many plantations offer a direct link to the history as Bocage Plantation; come embrace Louisiana's history with a stay in this historic manor.

by: todnako8am

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