Mutinous Women by Joan DeJean

Author:Joan DeJean [DeJean, Joan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: book title
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 2022-04-19T00:00:00+00:00

The first half of 1721 was devastating to the colony, but the months of July and August were the most disastrous of all. Authorities discovered that their last resource, the hardtack or biscuit sent over with land grant settlers, hadn’t been properly baked and had all spoiled—as had the corned beef and lard included in their provisions. They learned about the meat only when inhabitants fell gravely ill after eating some.

This famine was so devastating that life came to a standstill. Sailors weren’t strong enough to sail. Workers didn’t have the strength to clear land for New Biloxi, so construction of the settlement ceased, before even the completion of the most basic structure: a storehouse to protect supplies. One of the rare boats in the colony was requisitioned to function as a temporary warehouse. Bienville offered this grim assessment: “What can be undertaken without sustenance?”21

And then the rains came. On August 10, 1721, authorities in Biloxi informed their counterparts in France that “it’s been raining heavily here for more than 40 days.” All over the Gulf Coast, flooding was massive. Crops had already been planted, and the harvest was washed out. Native Americans were just as badly hit, so colonists could not expect their help. “Famine will continue,” their report warned.22

This prediction proved correct. Even in a colony by then well accustomed to lethal shortages, the two years that followed, the moment when survivors were beginning new lives, were one of the worst periods of scarcity and want in the colony’s history.

In the midst of such havoc and desolation, little work on the new capital was accomplished. Fifteen months after its founding, in April 1722, the colony’s “capital place” consisted of two constructions: a storehouse and a hospital. Both were elementary structures, mere wood frames clad in shingles. New Biloxi’s fort had been planned but not built, and a palisade, still incomplete, indicated its outline. Then, in May 1722, word arrived that the seat of government was being moved to New Orleans.23

When viewed against the backdrop of the reality of Louisiana’s “capital place,” the image shown in Figure 7, advertising itself as a view of “John Law’s concession at ‘New Biloxi,’” is astounding. The scene is idyllic. Inhabitants are impeccably outfitted; not only do they have hats and shoes, but some even sport periwigs, as though ready to set off for an evening in a Parisian salon. A large quantity of land has been thoroughly cleared, so that workers have room to use the readily available, appropriate tools to fell trees and build fences. The lodgings are tentlike structures, but they are solid, clearly professionally built. In the background, there is even a sizeable construction, easily as fine as or finer than any in the colony at that time. The foreground depicts the preparation and the serving of food—these happy colonists know only abundance.

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