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DeJean (Univ. of Pennsylvania) examines 132 French women who were jailed in 1719 based on trumped-up charges ranging from sedition to counterfeiting, theft, murder, and prostitution. Primarily, these working-class and poor women were imprisoned to supply labor to John Law's proprietary scheme surrounding the multiple follies during the early years of French colonization of the central Gulf Coast. DeJean uncovers an elaborate conspiracy involving the Parisian police, the French government, and Law's company in an attempt to supply the Louisiana colony with cheap labor. Ultimately, Law's company's demand for labor to support the Louisiana colony compelled the criminalization of these women. Banished to the fledgling colony aboard the ships La Mutine and Les Deux Freres, only 62 women managed to survive, helping to build nascent communities in New Orleans and Natchitoches, LA, and Mobile, AL. This book assembles an array of impressive primary sources from various archives and research facilities along the Gulf Coast and in France. The author's efforts to redeem and historically pardon these women 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.Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers through faculty.