The largest pre-Civil War mansion in all of the American South burned to the ground as a devastating fire ripped through the historic wooden structure built nearly 200 years ago.

Nottoway Plantation burned to the ground this week after a fire broke out Thursday, authorities say. Why it matters: The plantation was the largest antebellum mansion remaining in the South, making it an important but complicated connection to the nation's history of enslavement.

The historic Nottoway Plantation, located in Iberville Parish, Louisiana, and the largest surviving antebellum home in the South, was severely damaged by a fire that broke out Thursday afternoon.