Skip to content
You are not logged in |Login  
     
Limit search to available items
Book Cover
book
BookBook
Author DeJean, Joan E., author.

Title Mutinous women : how French convicts became founding mothers of the Gulf Coast / Joan DeJean.

Publication Info. New York : Basic Books, 2022.

Copies

Location Call No. Status
 East Hartford, Raymond Library - Adult Department  976 DEJEAN    Check Shelf
 Enfield, Main Library - Adult Department  976.02 DEJ    Check Shelf
 Farmington, Main Library - Adult Department  976.02 DEJ    Check Shelf
 Mansfield, Main Library - Adult Nonfiction  976.02 DEJEAN    Check Shelf
 Simsbury Public Library - Non Fiction  976.02 DEJEAN    Check Shelf
 West Hartford, Noah Webster Library - Non Fiction  976 DEJEAN    Check Shelf
Edition First edition.
Description ix, 437 pages : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 379-415) and index.
Contents Preliminaries: a second coast, a second ship -- False arrests and trumped-up charges -- John Law's Louisiana gold rush -- "Merchandise" for Lousiana -- The roundup -- Chains and shackles -- "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.
Summary "On December 12, 1719, a ship named La Mutine, or the Mutinous Woman, sailed from the French port of Le Havre, bound for the vast North American territory then referred to as "the Mississippi." La Mutine was loaded with goods that the fledgling French colony urgently required for its survival, basic foodstuffs such as flour and lard. But its principal commodity was a new kind of French export: women. The women who arrived in the New World from that frigate would go on to found Gulf dynasties, but their beginnings were less auspicious. 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 98 women who were shipped to the colony, only 44 survived. Despite the bleakness of these women's origins, they 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, founded only a year before their arrival, and in settling Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi. Today, hundreds of thousands of Americans can trace their lineage La Mutine. 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's Founding Mothers -- the "mutinous women" of La Mutine."-- Provided by publisher.
Subject Gulf States -- History -- To 1803.
Frontier and pioneer life -- Gulf States.
France -- Colonies -- America -- Biography.
French -- Gulf States -- Biography.
Women prisoners -- France -- History -- 18th century.
Female offenders -- France -- History -- 18th century.
Convict ships -- France -- History -- 18th century.
Mutine (Frigate) -- History.
Genre/Form Biographies.
Added Title How French convicts became founding mothers of the Gulf Coast
ISBN 9781541600584 (hardcover)
1541600584 (hardcover)
9781541600591 (ebook)
-->
Add a Review