The enslaved Africans and their descendants cleared the land and planted corn, rice and vegetables. They also cultivated crops of indigo and the indigotiers (indigo makers) ran processing facilities. They later grew sugar cane and enslaved sugar masters ran the mills. They built levees to protect dwellings and crops. They also served as sawyers, carpenters, masons and smiths; raised horses, oxen, mules, cows, sheep, swine and poultry; worked as cooks; and performed all kinds of duties that made life easy and enjoyable for their masters. The enslaved people responded to the violent system by running away and sometimes by using violence back against their masters and overseers. According to Le Page du Pratz (1758, p. 334), a manager of the king's plantation, many of the Africans brought to Louisiana in the early years of the French regime killed themselves, sometimes by drowning themselves, or fled, roaming around the sea in the hope of returning home. However, revolt and marronage were not the only means of resistance. Social control was enforced mainly through physical pain inflicted on the enslaved. Their bodies were beaten, but cultural resistance prevented their spirits from being broken and their ties to their lost homes from being totally destroyed. They resisted through songs, both secular and sacred. Enslaved people sang while performing collective duties and individual tasks, and the very fields of their labour were the bedrocks of blues, zydeco, jazz and rock and roll. Their sacred songs accompanied the rise of the Black Church and their secret rituals in the swamps eventually gave rise to the Black Masking Indians and the Voodoo queens of New Orleans.