The Broussard Farm

The Broussard Farm is the home to Avery Broussard, his father, Rafael Broussard, and Batiste, a Negro houseman and friend to the family. The farm has gone from being a place once glorious but now on the verge of bankruptcy. The farm is located in Martinique Parish and has been owned and operated by the Broussard family since the 1850s, when Avery Broussard's great grandfather bought it from the Louisiana government when he arrived from the West Indies. The great-grandfather built a house and turned the land into one of the largest and most profitable sugarcane plantations in the south. Alongside the owner was a free slave who would help to build the plantation and stay by his friend and benefactor's side until his death in 1870.

Over the years, war and other great tragedies befell the farm and the two thousand acres purchased by Broussard's...