The Casket Girls
Content Warning: This resource references sexual exploitation.
Chest
Chest, 17th Century. Courtesy of the Canadian Museum of History.
Background
In the early 1700s the new French colony of Louisiana was facing a population crisis. There were not enough white women to marry all of the eligible French settlers in Louisiana. This problem was not new in the French colonies in North America. Between 1662 and 1673 the French government sent about 800 women to the colony of New France to marry the men there. These women were called the Filles du Roi, “daughters of the king,” because the king paid their dowry in exchange for their willingness to immigrate. The opportunity drew young women of good breeding who did not have enough money to make good marriages in France. The program was a resounding success.
Knowing this history, the Governor of Louisiana asked the French government to send eligible women to Louisiana to marry the French settlers and grow the French population. He was probably expecting that the government would send women like the Filles du Roi. Instead, the French government sent women gathered from some of the grimmest institutions in France. Two hundred and fifty-eight women were shipped to Louisiana between 1719 and 1721. Twenty-nine were from orphanages, thirty-five were from poor houses, and 194 were from the infamous prison La Force. Colonists nicknamed the women the Casket Girls after the cassettes, or small trunks, they were given to pack their few possessions. Louisiana’s officials were appalled at the women’s histories and complained about their behavior. Some men refused to marry them.
It is unlikely that the Casket Girls were given a choice about immigrating to Louisiana. The French officials who organized their transport called them “women without futures.” The youngest was only twelve years old and had been a sex worker in Paris since the age of six. Some of the women’s families actually demanded they be shipped to the colonies so they could be rid of them. The trip across the Atlantic was nightmarish. The women were chained together and kept in the ship’s hold. Those that survived the journey were moved to warehouses in New Orleans, Biloxi, and Mobile so they could be examined by any man looking for a wife. Most were married within six months of their arrival.
Over time, the Casket Girls were able to become part of the fabric of Louisiana society. But their success does not erase the fact that they were trafficked to the colony to serve the sexual and procreative needs of the men who lived there.
About the Resource
The Casket Girls got their name from trunks like this one. They used them to transport their belongings to the Louisiana colony. The trunks were only 9½” high x 22½” long x 10” wide. They did not provide enough space to pack everything a person might need to start a new life in an unfamiliar land.
Vocabulary
- dowry: Property a woman brought with her into marriage.
- Filles du Roi (“Daughters of the King”): Women who agreed to move to New France and marry colonists in exchange for passage across the Atlantic and a dowry.
- hold: The cargo area on a ship, without windows or comfortable accommodations.
- Louisiana: Founded in 1682, this colony was the second North American colony claimed by the French. The territory stretched from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, between the Appalachian and Rocky Mountains.
- poor house: An institution where people who could not support themselves could live and work. Living conditions in poor houses were often terrible.
- cassette: A trunk.
Discussion Questions
- What does the size of this trunk tell us about the status of the Casket Girls?
- How does this story complicate our understanding of the reasons people chose to immigrate to the Americas?
- What does this episode reveal about the role of women in early colonial Louisiana?
Suggested Activities
- Measure the size of the cassette, then challenge students to decide what they would pack in the limited space it provides. What does this exercise reveal about the circumstances of the Casket Girls’ immigration? Does their treatment feel fair? Why or why not?
- Pair this resource with the Marrying into the New World for a larger lesson on the French colonial government’s attempts to populate their territories. Compare the way the two groups were treated. Why was one revered while the other was reviled? How are these women remembered today?
- For a larger discussion of the role sexual exploitation of women played in the development of the colonial Americas, pair this resource with any or all of the following:
Themes
IMMIGRATION, MIGRATION, AND SETTLEMENT
