Norman's chart of the lower Mississippi River

[2] The map was printed by longtime New Orleans bookseller Benjamin Moore Norman.

[3] As one historian wrote, "At the time Norman's chart was published, the sugar coast stood prominently at the center of political power in Louisiana.

Persac's inclusion of planters' names allows the viewer to navigate his chart as a map of concentrated power.

[5] According to Reconstructing the Landscapes of Slavery (2021), "It has the effect of a promenade along the river, displaying the bounty of nature transformed into capitalist wealth.

This corridor was the nation's leading producer of cotton and sugar and had the densest slave population in the country.

Norman's chart of the lower Mississippi River ( Library of Congress Digital )
After the American Civil War, the U.S. government produced this similar "Manuscript Map Showing Plantations Leased and Plantations Not Leased in Wilkinson, Adams, Clairborne and Jefferson Counties, Mississippi and Concordia and Tensas Parishes, Louisiana" (NAID 26465535)