Bibliograph

Mutinous women, how French convicts became founding mothers of the Gulf Coast, Joan DeJean

Type

Label

Mutinous women, how French convicts became founding mothers of the Gulf Coast, Joan DeJean

Language

eng

Bibliography note

Includes bibliographical references and index

resource.biographical

contains biographical information

Illustrations

mapsillustrations

Index

index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

Mutinous women

Nature of contents

bibliography

Oclc number

1262964906

Responsibility statement

Joan DeJean

Sub title

how French convicts became founding mothers of the Gulf Coast

Summary

In 1719, a ship named La Mutine sailed from the French port of Le Havre, bound for the place the French called "the Mississippi." It was loaded with urgently needed goods for the fledgling French colony, but its principal commodity was a new kind of export: women. Falsely accused of sex crimes - some for reporting rape, others because their families were obscenely poor and it was financially expedient to imprison them - these women were prisoners, shackled in the ship's hold. Of the 132 women who were transported this way, only sixty-two survived. Even though most were of modest origins, many achieved unlikely triumph across the Atlantic. They managed to carve out a place for themselves in the colonies that would have been impossible in France, making advantageous marriages and accumulating property. Many were instrumental in the building of New Orleans and in settling Louisiana, Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, and Mississippi. With each generation, their tens of thousands of descendants have spread ever more widely across this country. Drawin on an impressive range of sources to restore the voices of these women to the historical record, Mutinous Women introduces us to the Gulf South's founding mothers

Table Of Contents

Preliminaries: A Second Coast, a Second Ship -- Part I: France. False Arrests and trumped-Up Charges -- John Law's Louisiana Gold Rush -- "Merchandise" for Louisiana -- The Roundup -- Chains and Shackles -- Part II: The Second Coast. "The Islands" of Louisiana -- The Desert Islands of Alabama and Mississippi -- Biloxi's Deadly Sands -- Putting Down Roots in Mobile -- Building a Capital in New Orleans -- Women on the Verge in Natchitoches, Illinois, and Arkansas -- Louisiana's Garden on the German Coast -- Natchez, John Law's Folly -- Pointe Coupée in the Shadow of Natchez -- The End of the Women's Era -- Coda

Target audience

adult

resource.variantTitle

How French convicts became founding mothers of the Gulf Coast

Classification