An excellent and eye opening documentary about a charming city in Mississippi, once home to more millionaires than anywhere in the U.S. Natchez is the home of modern Southern hospitality. Lots of history here, y’all.
I’ve always loved the dreamy architecture and manicured gardens of the American South. When I visited a friend living in Savannah, Georgia, I made sure to take a homes‑and‑gardens tour. Same in Charleston, South Carolina. I admired the 18th‑century Creole cottages in New Orleans and the Spanish‑influenced wrought iron that defines the French Quarter, especially those lacy balconies. It all takes you back to a bygone era.
Natchez is famous for its breathtaking antebellum mansions -grand, columned estates that seem frozen in time. The history of this place is rich, as rich as the labour of the enslaved people who built it brick by brick. It’s kind of like Beauty and the Beast: if you’re going to tell a story, at least tell the whole story.
There’s a truth the city doesn’t always make visible, even as the beauty of these homes draws visitors from around the world.
To walk through Natchez is to feel both the elegance and the weight of that past existing side by side. The film intentionally captures this beauty in a way that feels nostalgic, almost seductive – the South as many want to remember it. But it also shows how the city’s prosperity was built on exploitation, and how that legacy still shapes its present.
A community deeply divided over how to tell its own story, with some wanting to preserve the romantic myth, others demanding truth and accountability.
Natchez wasn’t just a pretty river town; it was once one of the wealthiest cities in the United States because of cotton. The entire local economy revolved around it. Before the Civil War, the region’s rich soil and access to the Mississippi River made it a prime location for large plantations, and cotton became the engine that drove everything. But that prosperity came at a devastating human cost. The cotton industry in Natchez depended on the forced labour of enslaved people who planted, tended, and harvested the crops under harsh conditions. Their labour created the wealth that built the grand homes the city is now known for. That’s the part Natchez often glosses over – the beauty of the architecture is inseparable from the exploitation that funded it.
Many of the families who open their doors for tours do so for practical reasons as much as pride. Maintaining these enormous homes with their aging foundations, sprawling gardens, and intricate architectural details is extraordinarily expensive, and tourism helps keep them standing. But it’s not just about money. For many locals, sharing these homes is a way of preserving a story they’ve inherited, even if that story includes chapters the city has long been reluctant to confront. The tours become a kind of living archive: part preservation, part performance, and part economic necessity.
I think as long as you can at least acknowledge the past, you can enjoy the present.
* Antebellum literally means before the war – in the U.S., it refers specifically to the period before the Civil War. In architecture and tourism, it’s still widely used to describe homes, estates, and design styles from that era. In places like Natchez, the term is often used to highlight beauty while downplaying the brutal labour by what they refer to as workers (actually, slaves chained by ankle, wrists and neck) that made that beauty possible.
Girl Who Would be KING on Life, Style and INSPIRATION. 
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