Mutinous Women: How French Convicts Became Founding Mothers of the Gulf Coast by Joan DeJean

Abstract

Reviewed by: Mutinous Women: How French Convicts Became Founding Mothers of the Gulf Coast by Joan DeJean Celina Vargas DeJean, Joan. Mutinous Women: How French Convicts Became Founding Mothers of the Gulf Coast. Basic Books, 2022. ISBN 978-1-5416-0058-4. Pp. 448. A dense tangle of stories awaits in the pages recounting the hardships endured by women falsely accused, then condemned by French authorities to live far-flung from their homes. DeJean goes to great lengths to contextualize the histories of those deported on the ships Les Deux Frères and La Mutine in horrific conditions that would take the lives of many both during the voyage and certainly afterward. These women were no strangers to adversity even before their passage in chains across the Atlantic. The scarcity of resources in France during the Great Winter and the years following devastated indigent populations. Declining interest rates on governmental annuities hindered countless individuals relying on payments for cost of living. Women were at their most vulnerable and those willing to benefit from a corrupted and weakened system, such as Lieutenant Jean Huron and Inspector Jean Bourlon, exercised their power to arrest women on false pretenses with no evidence and sent many to the prison known as the Salpêtrière. There was no respite from tribulations as the prison warden Marguerite Pancatelin took no pity, and worked her inmates from dawn until night as they dealt with cold, malnutrition, overcrowding, and forced manual labor. As DeJean explains, during the stock frenzy orchestrated by Scotsman John Law, Pancatelin took a leading role in naming those fit for "deportation" to the Gulf Coast and in contrast to those she persecuted, her "absolute authority appears to have gone unchallenged" (28). Disastrous leadership over the colony, passed from the Crown to Antoine Crozat, to John Law, to the Indie's Company and then back to the Crown, ensured failure to provide for the colony referred to as "the Mississippi." DeJean makes it clear that the colony was viewed as a cash cow, and investors at first believed that the tobacco industry set up within this new territory would soon compete with Virginia's production. However, the lack of infrastructure and appropriate climate made it nearly impossible to grow the crops, much less contest another exporter. DeJean recounts the areas today known as Biloxi, Mobile, New Orleans, and Natchez being ravaged by famine, disease, natural disasters, crumbling economic structures, and armed conflict. These were the incredibly harsh conditions awaiting the women deported "de force," or against their wills. As DeJean follows these women in a chronological and geographical manner, many of their stories start to sound similar. As much as she attempts to individualize them, names, dates, and places run together in a way that the reader only recognizes perhaps a few women who survived their ordeals such as Manon Fontaine, Anne Françoise Rolland, and Marie Baron. Although they were deemed unfit for life in France, those transported de force soon were able to repurpose the phrase more so as a "badge of honor" (255). They went on to establish their lives and families in what would soon become part of the new United States, overcoming adversity and in some cases, establishing a legacy still visible today for those who seek it. [End Page 210] Celina Vargas University of California, Davis Copyright © 2023 American Association of Teachers of French