- WOMEN'S STUDIES
- >
- Mutinous Women: How French Convicts Became Founding Mothers of the Gulf Coast by Joan DeJean
Mutinous Women: How French Convicts Became Founding Mothers of the Gulf Coast by Joan DeJean
Mutinous Women: How French Convicts Became Founding Mothers of the Gulf Coast by Joan DeJean
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 financially expedient to imprison them -- the 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 triumphs 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.
Drawing on an impressive range of sources to restore the voices of these women to the historical record, Mutinous Women introduces us to the Gulf Coast's founding mothers.
Basic Books, Hardcover, 1st Edition, 1st Printing, 2022
THIS IS A BRAND NEW BOOK.