A Short Note to the Dead Of Not So Long Ago

Here in Cancer Alley, Louisiana, the lives of the dead and enslaved who built the land and its wealth are making news today.

Names of the enslaved at Oak Alley plantation, near the Old Buena Vista graves in St. James Parish, Louisiana

Stanley. Simon. Harry. Betsy. Rachel. 

You haven’t been dead all that long

That I don’t think of you every day

As I return you to the land of the living

Drawing inspiration and wonder

From Knowing You Existed Once

Chattel then, 

Mortgaged many times

Property of the Buena Vista plantation in St. James Parish, Louisiana.

But you are making news today.

How is that for payback?

Neck shackles and children’s restraints at Oak Alley plantation

These are the names of the dead

Buried here on the Old Buena Vista Plantation

In Cancer Alley, Louisiana, where I stand and revere.

They exist. They matter.

The state of Louisiana cannot stamp them out no matter how hard it tries, with the complicity of the colonizing Taiwanese of Formosa who treat our citizens like they are less than zero, not even chattel. Still, a pestilence, a nuisance, like a bug, and their plastic plant could become the sanitizing biocide that makes the land empty of people and ripe for chemicals.

This land is ours to honor and preserve; now, folks must fight for it. It is stained with blood.

And should not be stained with the refuse of the world’s largest plastic complex.

Researcher Leno Gobert identified the enslaved individuals and the age at which they died: Stanley, 31; Simon, 23; Harry, 18; Betsy, 18; and Rachel, 9, all of whom lived and died on the Old Buena Vista plantation.

Gobert and other groups want to see the Buena Vista burial site commemorated with grave markers and made easily accessible to visitors.

The burial site at the Old Buena Vista Plantation in St. James Parish where Formosa wants to build what it calls the world’s “most advanced” plastics plant.

“They deserve to have a place in history, to be more than commodities bought and sold from one plantation to another,” she said.

Formosa, which has long planned to build what it calls the world’s most advanced plastics plant, isn’t outwardly acknowledging these findings based on a statement from its spokeswoman.

This is the tipping point battle for the planet's survival. Formosa is a Taiwanese company colonizing Louisiana like it was in the Nineteenth Century.

All of these dead didn’t die in vain. They’re making their lives matter.

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