Sunnyside Plantation

The Sunnyside Plantation was a cotton plantation near Lake Village in Chicot County, Arkansas. Built as a cotton plantation in the Antebellum South, it employed African slaves and, after the American Civil War of 1861-1865, freedmen. In the 1890s-1910s, it used convict laborers and employed immigrants Northern Italy, many of whom were subject to peonage. They were later replaced by black sharecroppers. The plantation was closed down and it was broken up in the 1940s. Nowadays, only a historical marker reminds Lake Village residents and visitors of its lost history.

The land belonged to Native Americans, followed by the French, until Emperor Napoleon sold it to the United States as a result of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. By 1819, the Arkansas Territory was established. A year later, in 1820, slavery became the law of the land as a result of the Missouri Compromise.

The land near modern-day Lake Village in Chicot County, Arkansas was acquired in the 1820s and 1830s by Abner Johnson, a planter from Kentucky. Johnson served as the Sheriff of Chicot County from 1830 to 1834. His plantation spanned 2,200 acres, with 42 African slaves working in the cotton fields. By 1836, the Arkansas Territory had become a state of the United States of America.

In 1840, the plantation was acquired by Elisha Worthington for US$60,000. Worthington also agreed to give 250 bales of cotton to Johnson annually for the next ten years. Alongside the land and several buildings, Worthington purchased 42 of Johnson's slaves in the transaction. He built a dock on the Mississippi River to facilitate the transportation of cotton.

...
Wikipedia