Casket Girls of New Orleans by Ye Olde Crime

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[00:04:26] Terrebonne parish library article. I think I said that right. I don't know it looked French. hope you'll understand when I say that in this case, fact is not nearly as upsetting as the fiction. I mean, it's still upsetting, but not. It's not nearly as dramatizing. Dramatizing? Dramatizing.

[00:05:40] Dramatizing?

[00:05:41] Dramatizing?

[00:05:42] Dramatizing?

[00:05:43] Dramatizing?

[00:05:44] Dramatizing?

[00:05:45] Dramatizing?

[00:05:46] Dramatizing?

[00:05:47] Dramatizing?

[00:05:48] Dramatizing? and months and I'm the first woman they've seen. Yeah. Not safe. Originally in 1699 Pierre wrote to King Louis XIV and asked if his men could marry the local women. So the First Nations people. Do they want that? Did you ask them? Did you ask the king first?

[00:08:02] No. The answer is no.

[00:08:03] Kind of gross.

[00:08:05] That sounds horrible.

[00:08:08] Very pre and self before it's

[00:08:11] Yeah.

[00:08:13] Yeah.

[00:08:16] We have we develop we made land for you. So you need to give us a good

[00:08:19] women.

[00:08:21] Good clean women for making the

[00:08:23] babies and so making babies making

[00:08:25] all of the babies.

[00:08:27] All of the good French Catholic The Intendent of New France, a man named Jean-Talaam, wrote to King Louis XIV asking for women. He agreed, and it wasn't long before women were being recruited and submitted to a strict screening process. They had to be between the ages of 12 and 25, gross, healthy, and provide a letter from

[00:09:42] their parish priests recommending course of the journey some didn't even get on the boat changing their mind at the last second. Yeah Which girl same I just got money. Thank you by Peace out

[00:11:01] Harry

[00:11:03] I can learn German I hear Italy's nice

[00:12:07] of the night started soon after. Of course, why not? Of the women that were sent to live in New France, only one woman was ever formally charged as being a sex worker.

[00:12:13] Yeah, because I wonder if they didn't start out that way. We're really planning on it.

[00:12:20] Catherine G. Schulon had been forced to turn to sex work after her Canadian husband decided His Majesty sends by that ship 20 girls to be married to the Canadians and others who have begun habitations at Mao Biel in order that this colony can firmly establish itself. Each of these girls was raised in virtue and piety and know how to work, which will render them useful in the colony by showing the Indian girls what they can do.

[00:13:42] For this there being no point in sending other than a virtue known and without reproach." of their ragtag group of explorers, he was desperate to provide female companions for his men. This was just one of the three encampments they established along the Mississippi. There was Malbeel, or Mobile, Alabama, Biloxi, Mississippi, and New Orleans, Louisiana.

[00:15:01] I feel so bad for those women. Yeah. entire culture of Indigenous people that were either forced to acclimate or trying to acclimate for survival. That would be horrific. That would be. And now back to this episode of Ye Old Crime. So of the women who were sent over, only 23 survived along with two nuns from the Sisters of Charity. What was meant to be a three-month journey ended up being five.

[00:17:43] They get lost? stretched over the windows and quote, with their husbands not much better, as many of them were described as quote unquote half-wild. Yeah, yep. They were very far removed from the society they were born in and they had to survive. So that's their new normal.

[00:19:02] So them asking for fine ladies was not a good idea for anybody involved. On the one hand, many of the men they married were fur trappers and traitors, so they would be away from home for long stretches of time collecting the merchandise they needed to sell. This left the women to run the house and raise children mainly by themselves. Sometimes while their husbands were off entertaining their native pyramores. I'm sure. Are they really pyramores or were they forced second, third wives?

[00:20:25] Yeah. Yeah, isn't France normally pretty?

[00:22:45] had enough of their living conditions and staged a petty coat rebellion. Essentially, refusing their husbands, quote unquote, bed and board until their homes were improved

[00:22:50] and more food was grown. Unsurprisingly, things worked and the men didn't seem to mind except

[00:22:57] for governor beyond veal.

[00:22:59] He sounds fun.

[00:23:01] He thought they were spoiled. This is the king I'd be like okay, so You're telling me a bunch people died And you want me to bring more women that might die from the same thing again? Yeah, no and like for me to pay for it. Mm-hmm. You want me to pay for more people today. Yep

[00:24:21] No

[00:25:22] They're not a skeleton yet. But they will be.

[00:25:24] Wait until you eat the acorns.

[00:25:26] Yeah.

[00:25:27] See, he specifically chose the words good and virtuous

[00:25:31] because there were, in fact, women in New Orleans,

[00:25:34] but not the kind that you would marry.

[00:25:38] According to Beyond Veal,

[00:25:41] his men were enjoying illicit relations

[00:25:43] with First Nation women and those of African descent, anymore, we figured it out. You can retire. Well the king agreed, but word of the rough-loathing conditions and unfair treatment of the previous women who had been sent over had reached France. So it probably won't surprise you to learn that ladies weren't lining up to head across the Atlantic. Yeah. Yep. I would just be only 1,300 actually made it alive to the colonies, which really sucks. That does suck. Because that's a lot that died. That's... Wow, that's like 90%. But you know, the ones that were left over had to have been super scrappy.

[00:28:20] Yeah, they're just climbing on top of the bodies and they're like, let's go!

[00:28:25] I hear their say chords!

[00:28:27] I love that shit! Years later, Beyond Veal tried again, but as you can imagine, expectations were just a little bit tainted. What? It's mine. What? It worked so well the last time. That was great. What are you talking about? Everyone wins. In 1728, a group of women arrived via the, 22 and a half inches long and 10 inches wide. So roughly the size of like an overnight bag today. I'm just gonna say like a carry on. Yeah. As you can imagine, they weren't able to pack much that would allow them to start life anew in the colony.

[00:31:02] Could you imagine six months with just a carry on?

[00:31:06] Oh my God.

[00:31:07] No target, no one might. with a suitable husband taking their caskets with them. The girls, according to one myth, slept on the third floor of the convent where the windows and doors were sealed shut. Like they were used to. Yep. Trying to acclimate. The story goes that when the nuns went to retrieve the women's meager belongings from their chests,

[00:32:20] all were empty, leading the nuns to believe that I'm like, do you have bread? Why is it all goats blood? I don't understand. And just, yeah, some cream cheese.

[00:33:40] So let's ignore the fact that Pope John Paul II,

[00:33:42] who was the first pope to ever visit New Orleans,

[00:33:45] which didn't happen until 1987. in this invisible floor. And now there's nails. Nobody else is sailing. Holy nails, sealing them in this invisible prison of emotion. Yeah. If you look at it from the woman's perspective, I highly doubt that they had happened prior to this actually. Mm-mm. You're listening to an episode of Ye Olde Crime on True Crime by Indie Drop-in Network. We're going to take a quick break. And now back to this episode of Ye Olde Crime.

[00:36:20] Many of the women found themselves walking down the aisle six months after landing in

[00:36:25] the Louisiana Territory while others weren't so lucky. know, being vampires, it's been, you know, a thousand years since they've seen a man. So it's been a hot second. Need a refresher, I think. Yeah. The first convent was built years later in 1734 with a building being replaced in 1751. The old Ursuline convent holds the distinction of being the oldest building in the Mississippi

[00:37:42] Valley and still stands today after surviving two in five of the people living in northwestern Louisiana were descendants of the Casket Girls. If we want to jump back into the hole, they were vampires legend. The shutters on the third floor of 1100, Ch, quote, "'I'm told those are fully functional hurricane shutters "'that weren't installed until a century "'after the Casket Girls arrival." End quote. Yeah, it's reinforced with vampire strength. And holy nails. Yes, so that's how it survived.

[00:40:22] Yeah.

[00:40:22] But hurricanes.

[00:40:23] Pope John Paul was like,

[00:40:25] "'I brought you some holy nails from Rome. I'll give you the best we have. Like these ones that are going to beat the living shit out of you. If you treat them wrong. If you look at them funny. Sure you have the best man of France. If you're interested in ad-free content, consider supporting us with a one-time donation either

[00:41:41] over on Buy Me a Coffee or our Ben L'Hleil page, both of which are in our link tree and

[00:41:47] in the show notes. gone from this world or we just don't even know what happened to them, we want to keep them talked about. And that is our singular goal. My name is Tracy and I'm the primary host and creator of Cause of Crime. I created this podcast for this reason and one reason only to keep talking about people that need to be talked about,

[00:43:02] to keep doing this and using my voice to make sure I'm making some kind of

[00:43:06] difference.

[00:44:02] comes from our friend Kiryann. And she wants to know, if you were trapped in the past,

[00:44:04] like medieval times, would you endure their cures,

[00:44:08] or would you show how to make proper medication?

[00:44:11] Yeah, it depends on how swiftly you want to die,

[00:44:17] because as a woman, if I were to endure their cures,

[00:44:24] I would die, because them how to fix something knowing that they're probably going to think I'm a witch. In which case, I might just be like, you know what, I'm just going to jump in this body of water. I don't know how to swim anyway, and I'm just going to let this happen because I'd rather

[00:45:41] just be with it on my own terms and be like, ah, no, he died off this super rocky cliff that's, it's old. I bought it, I got it for a sweet deal. It was like 25 bucks on eBay, like unopened. And I was like sold. Deal. So I bought a new case for it. I bought new straps from my Galaxy Watch.

[00:48:21] Nice.

[00:48:22] You're just re-existurizing.

[00:48:24] Mm-hmm. Apple Podcasts, Pod Chaser, GoodPods, Podcast Addict. You can do it on Audible. I'm sure there are some other players that I'm unaware of. If you want a playlist of all our episodes on YouTube, click the link in our show notes or in our link tree and subscribe today for not only a list of our full catalog, but

[00:49:40] a separate list as well just of our can you crack the cramp word segments.

[00:49:45] And on that note, as always, I'm Lindsay.

[00:49:47] And I'm Madison.