Mutinous Women

February 14, 2022
University of Pennsylvania historian DeJean (How Paris Became Paris) paints an intriguing portrait of the early 18th-century French women who overcame “false arrests and trumped-up charges,” forced deportation, hurricanes, and other hardships to help shape life in the fledgling colony of Louisiana. According to DeJean, corrupt police and prison officials working with the Indies Company conspired to deport more than 130 female inmates as part of a scheme to help populate the colony. Many of the deportees had been arrested on dubious charges of prostitution and begging; in one unfortunate case, a woman was detained “by accident, when a murder took place just outside the cabaret where she had stopped for a beer at the end of a hot day.” DeJean skillfully reads between the lines of the existing police and prison documentation to bring context and nuance to these women’s stories. She also draws on soldier and historian Jean Dumont’s contemporaneous accounts of life in Louisiana, where he met his wife, deportee Marie Baron. Though the deportees arrived in America destitute, some went on to build the first houses on Royal Street in Mobile, Ala., and Bourbon Street in New Orleans, and became matriarchs of prominent regional families. This scrupulous account restores a group of remarkable women to their rightful place in French and American history.

March 1, 2022

In 1720, 132 French women convicts were loaded onto a ship named La Mutine and sent off to the American colony of Louisiana where investor/con artist John Law's expanding mainland empire was missing one desired commodity: women. Arrested and imprisoned in Paris on trumped-up charges of prostitution, smuggling, or theft, the women left France poor and unmourned. But in decades to come, many of them would rise to positions of lasting influence and wealth in colonial Louisiana. DeJean (Romance languages, Univ. of Pennsylvania; How Paris Became Paris) does a wonderful job of tracing the lives of these women through government and parish records, plotting their marriages, deaths, births and financial fortunes through succeeding decades. The collapse of Law's shady empire in 1720 caused initial chaos in the colonies but also freed its residents to pursue their own destinies. VERDICT The level of detail in this scrupulously researched tale makes for slow reading at times but it brings to light the contribution of these formidable women to the early history of Gulf Coast France, a contribution till now has largely swept under the carpet. A fascinating book for history lovers, not just academics.--David Keymer

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March 15, 2022
The La Mutine set sail from France in December 1719, carrying solely women, with the intent to settle the Gulf Coast. This journey was prompted by economic turmoil in France and the pursuit of colonizing the area that would eventually become Louisiana. Scottish economic theorist John Law had recently risen to power with the aim of overhauling the French economy with ideas based around the idea of using stock as currency. Law also advocated for the "transportation method,"" an immigration system created to deport those convicted of crimes and bind them into servitude, as became the case for the women of La Mutine. The 140 women aboard the La Mutine had been disproportionately arrested on false charges by corrupt police officers operating in France. Exploitation and dishonesty fueled the settling of the Gulf Coast, and so doing rendered these women voiceless for generations. With rich writing, author and University of Pennsylvania professor DeJean (The Queen's Embroiderer, 2018) gives the women who settled Louisiana, and their lost stories, a long-overdue historical reckoning.

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Starred review from March 15, 2022
A welcome retelling of a forgotten segment of American history. In her latest work, DeJean, author of How Paris Became Paris and many other works of history, unearths the story of the unlikely women who became the Gulf Coast's founding mothers. In 1719, a ship called La Mutine set sail from France and docked in New France, what is now Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Inside were more than 130 sickly women, ravaged human cargo destined for the Colonies as punishment for alleged crimes. Records show that many of the women were charged with prostitution, but in reality, many could not defend themselves or even understand the accusations against them. Oppressed by a system that detested the impoverished, they became victims of slave ship owner John Law, who saw them as an opportunity to fill a need for 6,000 French settlers to work in the Colonies. Together with a craven warden from the women's prison, Law sealed the fate of these young, often illiterate women without their input. "French authorities," writes the author, "set no ground rules; no one considered the exact terms on which female detainees were to be shipped off 'to the colonies' or even what the authorities should call the process they were establishing." Only 62 survived the voyage. What transpired after they landed ashore, however, is a clear demonstration of the beauty and power of the feminine spirit, and DeJean chronicles their experiences in well-written, often gripping prose. During their passage, which included forced dwelling in dangerous cargo holds, some women became lifelong friends. Upon their arrival, many were married off to local soldiers who had returned from war, and they set about making lives for themselves and their new husbands. Over time, many fought to clear their names, and some became wealthy property owners or ran successful businesses. Regardless of the directions of their new lives, together they ensured that their children "enjoyed experiences and opportunities that they themselves had never known." Readers will come away fascinated and inspired by this relatively unknown tale of strength and the human spirit.

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