Joan DeJean
Mutinous Women: How French Convicts Became Founding Mothers of the Gulf Coast
From the publisher
The secret history of the rebellious Frenchwomen who were exiled to colonial Louisiana and found power in the Mississippi Valley
In 1719, a ship named La Mutine (the mutinous woman), sailed from the French port of Le Havre, bound for 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, these women were prisoners, shackled in the ship’s hold. Of the 132 women who were sent this way, only 62 survived. But these women carved 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.
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 South’s Founding Mothers.
Review
“Gripping from its opening scene of a corpse discovered on a Paris side street, Joan DeJean’s Mutinous Women tells the stories of these French women, deported as unwanted criminals to what would become, less than a century later, part of the United States… Through astounding research in French and Louisiana archives… Ms. DeJean uses her knowledge as a scholar of early modern France to great effect. … a fascinating history and a reminder that all kinds of people helped to build what became the United States.”― Wall Street Journal
“Working with a chaotic and often confusing historical record, DeJean traces the constellation of forces—including avarice, corruption and misogyny—that permitted the rapid roundup of another 96 or so female prisoners to be transported in the dank hold of La Mutine. The horrific conditions of the women’s journey and the will to survive that must have sustained them when they were set down, largely without resources, in a barren, swampy, inhospitable land, are evoked in vivid detail.” ―New York Times Book Review
“Their lives became early examples of the American dream, and of its violence… In their previously little-known stories is a concise picture of all that makes U.S. history remarkable and troubling.”― The Atlantic
“An array of impressive primary sources… guide the overarching theme of this groundbreaking study, revealing the importance of these women in the early years of French colonization of the Third Coast.” ― CHOICE
“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….Readers will come away fascinated and inspired by this relatively unknown tale of strength and the human spirit.”― Kirkus
“DeJean skillfully reads between the lines of the existing police and prison documentation to bring context and nuance to these women’s stories…. This scrupulous account restores a group of remarkable women to their rightful place in French and American history.”― Publishers Weekly
“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 gives the women who settled Louisiana, and their lost stories, a long-overdue historical reckoning.”― Booklist
“DeJean… 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. … A fascinating book for history lovers, not just academics.” ― Library Journal
We’ve had several History Camp Author Discussions as well as History Camp Boston presentations related to women who played important roles in history.
- An Unladylike Profession: American Women War Correspondents in World War I — Chris Dubbs
- Poor Richard’s Women: Deborah Read Franklin and the Other Women Behind the Founding Father and Defiant Brides: The Untold Story of Two Revolutionary-Era Women and the Radical Men They Married, both from Nancy Rubin Stuart
- More than Women’s Work: Redefining Gender Roles in the Armed Forces— Mel Bloom
- Spitfires: The American Women Who Flew in the Face of Danger During World War II — Becky Aikman
[Broadcast on September 29, 2022 and rebroadcast on December 4, 2025; recorded earlier.]
Joan DeJean (1948 – 2023) was a Trustee Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. She previously taught at Yale and at Princeton. She authored twelve books on French literature, history, and material culture of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, including The Invention of Paris: Making the City Modern (2014); The Age of Comfort: When Paris Discovered Casual and the Modern Home Began (2009); The Essence of Style: How the French Invented High Fashion, Fine Food, Chic Cafés, Style, Sophistication, and Glamour (2005).
She grew up in southwest Louisiana, in a family and a town in which Louisiana’s French past was the stuff of daily life. For over thirty years, she divided her time between Philadelphia and Paris, where she worked in the very archives in which, in 2016, she happened upon the story of the women banished/deported to Louisiana in 1719.
Our discussion with her was recorded on September 29, 2022.
