MS01.01.03.B01.F13.006

of the culture he left behind in Africa. If he were unable to
adapt his artistry to the overall design of the building
to be made he then used what skills he had to enhance
parts of it. Such work can be documented in the case of
the skilled black craftsmen who helped to build and embellish the interior of the Jansen
House in the upper regions of the Hudson River in 1712.

Perhaps the most outstanding examples of the physical
presence of an African-American survival type in architecture
is to be found in the AFRICAN and YUCCA HOUSES and surrounding structures of Melrose Plantation at Natchitoches, Louisiana.
The principal house was built in 1743 for Marie Teresa Quan Quan
a slave taken from West Africa. After being
granted her freedom, she became the adopted bride of a Frenchman named Thomas
Metoyer. She then became overseer of the Melrose plantation. To this line of four
architectural dwellings was added the famous Melrose House.
Louis Metoyer, the grandson of Marie Theresa, built the formal central structure now known as Melrose in 1833. After some mismanagement and plotting by debtors, the plantation returned
to the hands of local whites in 1847. This Africanized architectural
plan met the
particular need of a functional design for the Cane River
Region while serving as a modified model for certain antebellum
forms which followed. The basis for the Melrose and
Yucca architectural form was grounded in an African concept
of building which survives in Central and West
Africa in our own times.