Tiana’s Bayou Adventure Offends on Day One: Direct Reference to Historic Slaves

By Published On: January 23, 2023

Tiana’s Bayou Adventure Offends on Day One: Direct Reference to Historic Slaves

By Published On: January 23, 2023

They’re actually doing to Splash Mountain what we thought was surely too awful to happen. Tiana’s Bayou Adventure is indeed based on the Avery Island salt dome in Louisiana — a geographical feature that is nothing like a mountain or even a hill. Worse, Avery Island has a deep history with slavery.

 

Many of us believed it was just too stupid for Walt Disney Imagineering to pursue. If they were going to do Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, surely they wouldn’t go this route. But sure enough, the reporting from WDW Pro with Valliant Renegade, has come true. The storyline for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure is based around the Avery Island slavery-driven salt mining. We’ve gone from “a laughing place” to historically-inspired salt mines where real-life slaves toiled and worked in abhorrent conditions. Good grief!

The evidence is all over the construction walls where “Southern Dome Salt Company” is proudly displayed on every single brown panel. How in the world did we go from African folklore and mythology to references to real-world, back-breaking slavery? And even if this story is supposedly about Tiana and her workers having ownership over a salt mine, this is so far astray from the movie that it also seems to confirm the leaks from WDW Pro that the ride would be based on a different narrative featuring the characters — including a new soundtrack.

So we’re all going to ride through a cartoonized and gentrified version of slave salt mines that Tiana now supposedly owns because she not only owns a restaurant, she’s taking on Tobassco with her vast real estate holdings.

Courtesy: WDW Magic

Image Courtesy: WDW Magic

“Many hundreds of men were at work, and at times as many as 500 wagons loaded with the product left the island in a day. Some of these ox-drawn wagons made long trips into Texas and northward, while a great deal of salt was hauled to the Atchafalaya River, thence shipped to Vicksburg by boat and from there distributed by rail.

“So great was the rush that all else on the island was abandoned. A magnificent crop of cane was left uncultivated and uncut in the fields. The price was fixed at $9.00 per barrel, gold basis, and remained at that until after the close of the war.”

Union Gen. Banks drove the Confederates out and destroyed the salt works. A brigade was sent down for that purpose, but after they left repairs were instituted and the work went on.

HoumaToday

Need a little more history on the salt mines?

The Marsh House Slave Quarters site includes two small standing brick cabin structures
on the west side of Avery Island (Figs. 1, 2). The site is a portion of the housing area for
enslaved Africans and African Americans working for the sugar plantation established by John
Marsh in 1818. Marsh, from Connecticut, brought enslaved people from New York and New
Jersey with him to his sugar plantation in Louisiana. By 1840, the plantation was known as
Marsh-Avery plantation, and by the time of the Civil War, was known just as Avery Plantation.
The 1860 slave schedule lists 100 enslaved persons living on Avery Island during that year. The
plantation continued after the war as Avery Plantation until 1908, when it became the Avery
Planting and Improvement Company.

David T. Palmer

 

So there you go. We’ve gone from Zip-a-dee-doo-dah and African folklore about Br’er Creatures in Georgia to a straight-up story about Louisiana plantations and salt mines harvested by real slaves from real history. It’s a heck of an improvement (note the sarcasm). And again, it will be cartoonized and Disneyfied. It’s a happy salt mine after all!

This attraction could wind up being fantastic. I hope it does. But right off the bat, this is a very, very bad sign.

For all the latest news that should be fun, keep reading That Park Place. As always, drop a comment down below and let us know your thoughts.

About the Author: Pamela Fitzgerald
Joining That Park Place in August of 2021, Pamela Fitzgerald is a freelance writer covering entertainment and theme parks. Mrs. Fitzgerald has a special fondness for Walt Disney World, and especially focuses on theme park discounts for military, first responders, and other critical employees looking for vacation fun.

They’re actually doing to Splash Mountain what we thought was surely too awful to happen. Tiana’s Bayou Adventure is indeed based on the Avery Island salt dome in Louisiana — a geographical feature that is nothing like a mountain or even a hill. Worse, Avery Island has a deep history with slavery.

 

Many of us believed it was just too stupid for Walt Disney Imagineering to pursue. If they were going to do Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, surely they wouldn’t go this route. But sure enough, the reporting from WDW Pro with Valliant Renegade, has come true. The storyline for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure is based around the Avery Island slavery-driven salt mining. We’ve gone from “a laughing place” to historically-inspired salt mines where real-life slaves toiled and worked in abhorrent conditions. Good grief!

The evidence is all over the construction walls where “Southern Dome Salt Company” is proudly displayed on every single brown panel. How in the world did we go from African folklore and mythology to references to real-world, back-breaking slavery? And even if this story is supposedly about Tiana and her workers having ownership over a salt mine, this is so far astray from the movie that it also seems to confirm the leaks from WDW Pro that the ride would be based on a different narrative featuring the characters — including a new soundtrack.

So we’re all going to ride through a cartoonized and gentrified version of slave salt mines that Tiana now supposedly owns because she not only owns a restaurant, she’s taking on Tobassco with her vast real estate holdings.

Courtesy: WDW Magic

Image Courtesy: WDW Magic

“Many hundreds of men were at work, and at times as many as 500 wagons loaded with the product left the island in a day. Some of these ox-drawn wagons made long trips into Texas and northward, while a great deal of salt was hauled to the Atchafalaya River, thence shipped to Vicksburg by boat and from there distributed by rail.

“So great was the rush that all else on the island was abandoned. A magnificent crop of cane was left uncultivated and uncut in the fields. The price was fixed at $9.00 per barrel, gold basis, and remained at that until after the close of the war.”

Union Gen. Banks drove the Confederates out and destroyed the salt works. A brigade was sent down for that purpose, but after they left repairs were instituted and the work went on.

HoumaToday

Need a little more history on the salt mines?

The Marsh House Slave Quarters site includes two small standing brick cabin structures
on the west side of Avery Island (Figs. 1, 2). The site is a portion of the housing area for
enslaved Africans and African Americans working for the sugar plantation established by John
Marsh in 1818. Marsh, from Connecticut, brought enslaved people from New York and New
Jersey with him to his sugar plantation in Louisiana. By 1840, the plantation was known as
Marsh-Avery plantation, and by the time of the Civil War, was known just as Avery Plantation.
The 1860 slave schedule lists 100 enslaved persons living on Avery Island during that year. The
plantation continued after the war as Avery Plantation until 1908, when it became the Avery
Planting and Improvement Company.

David T. Palmer

 

So there you go. We’ve gone from Zip-a-dee-doo-dah and African folklore about Br’er Creatures in Georgia to a straight-up story about Louisiana plantations and salt mines harvested by real slaves from real history. It’s a heck of an improvement (note the sarcasm). And again, it will be cartoonized and Disneyfied. It’s a happy salt mine after all!

This attraction could wind up being fantastic. I hope it does. But right off the bat, this is a very, very bad sign.

For all the latest news that should be fun, keep reading That Park Place. As always, drop a comment down below and let us know your thoughts.

About the Author: Pamela Fitzgerald
Joining That Park Place in August of 2021, Pamela Fitzgerald is a freelance writer covering entertainment and theme parks. Mrs. Fitzgerald has a special fondness for Walt Disney World, and especially focuses on theme park discounts for military, first responders, and other critical employees looking for vacation fun.
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Joshua
Joshua
1 year ago

“Marsh, from Connecticut, brought enslaved people from New York and New
Jersey with him…”

I wish us Yankees knew our own history.