Slavery existed in Louisiana as a forced labour system from the 1710s until the early 1860s. The scarcity of labour in the colony's early days created a need for workers, and French colonial authorities relied on the institution of forced labour to fill this need. Enslaved persons of African descent provided the work for developing new farms and plantations, as well as the growing and harvesting of crops. Major crops included indigo, rice, and tobacco during the colonial period under France and Spain. By 1785 enslaved people comprised 50% of the colonial population, and after 1800, sugar and cotton became the major crops that relied on slave labour, with enslaved persons comprising 40-50% of Louisiana's population.

Enslavers sometimes forced enslaved workers to wear collars as punishment or if they were known to run away. A slave pen was a plantation jail used to imprison enslaved people and enforce plantation rules. Cells were commonly found near the overseer's home or enslaved person's quarters. They were used to incarcerate or punish enslaved people for committing offences such as disobedience, drunkenness, theft, or running away. Most large plantations enforced their private rules strictly and did not allow non-residents to visit without specific business at hand. Some masters even forbade non-slaves to talk with their slaves, feeling that such conversations had the potential to cause trouble.

Planters were the owners of a plantation, and they were a diverse group based on their wealth, gender, and racial identity. Plantations varied in size and wealth. The most extensive plantations were some of the wealthiest in Louisiana, while owners of smaller plantations were less financially secure. Free persons of Color and Creoles of Color also owned plantations and an enslaved workforce. The Metoyer Family, who owned a large plantation in Natchitoches Parish, was considered one of the wealthiest Creoles of colour families in the United States before they ran into financial debt in the 1830s.

Planters had a great responsibility in running the plantation. It was their obligation to manage the finances and make a profit. This was extremely difficult with the fluctuations in agricultural commodities markets. Wealthier planters often had their accountants to help maintain the financial ledgers. Farmers were also responsible for managing their workforce, including overseers, factories, and enslaved people. The institution of slavery allowed planters to keep labour costs low, generally. However, many growers also had to implement specific rules to maintain the social hierarchy and ensure enslaved people performed their work. After the Civil War, the sharecropper system replaced slavery. This was a new system of labour management based on extending credit and agricultural supplies to resident workers.

Solomon Northrup, an educated free-born carpenter and violinist from Saratoga Springs, New York, wrote the book Twelve Years an enslaved person with Assistance, a memoir about his life as an enslaved worker in central Louisiana from 1841-1853. He was kidnapped by slave traders and sold into slavery in Louisiana and worked as a carpenter and labourer on several plantations in Rapides and Avoyelles Parishes. His description of his time as an enslaved person provides a personal account of the hard work, cruelty, and degradation of slavery in Louisiana. Northrup eventually gained his freedom with the help of friends and family, spending the remainder of his life lecturing and promoting abolition. For years, historians considered his memoir to be fiction, but in the 1960s, Rapides Parish historians Sue Eakin and Joseph Logsdon proved that Northrup's account was valid. As a result, Northrup's book provides an accurate account of slave life in Louisiana.