A 1719 Prison Ship Transported Dozens of Women Accused of Sex Crimes to New Orleans. They Became the Founding Mothers of the Gulf

History Unplugged Podcast · Apr 14, 2022 · 48m

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. They came from all walks of life: a disgraced noblewoman, a street vendor falsely accused of murder, a seamstress who became New Orleans’s first fashionista, and an illiterate laundress who became an Indian captive and eventual world traveler. Of the 132…