National Register Listing

Evan Hall Slave Cabins

W of Donaldsonville, Donaldsonville, LA

The Evan Hall Slave Cabins are of state significance in the area of architecture because they represent unusually fine surviving examples of a once common antebellum building type which has all but disappeared from the state.

The census schedules of 1860 reveal that there were approximately 1,640 holdings of 50 or more slaves in Louisiana on the eve of the Civil War. In addition, there were, of course, innumerable holdings of less than 50. This indicates that at one time there must easily have been thousands of slave cabins across the state. They were a very predominant feature of the rural landscape, vastly outnumbering the plantation houses. However, today this situation is reversed and antebellum plantation houses have survived in greater numbers than slave quarters. As far as the State Historic Preservation Office is aware, there are only eight collections of rural slave cabins remaining in Louisiana. This certainly qualifies the Evan Hall cabins as rare survivors.

However, beyond this, they are architecturally superior to all other collections known to the State Historic Preservation Office. One of the reasons that few slave cabins have survived is that many were flimsily built, to begin with. Some, of course, were built using substantial frame construction, but relatively few were made of brick. Brick slave quarters were, of course, the finest and the most substantial. Of the above eight collections of slave quarters, only three are constructed of bricks. Of these, the Evan Hall cabins are the only ones that feature arch brick construction of any kind, let alone full round head relieving arches over both the foundation and the fenestration. Therefore, they may very well be the best-crafted slave cabins remaining in the state.

Local significance of the building:
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1983.