<P> Colonists were often young men, volunteers recruited in French ports or in Paris . Many served as indentured servants; they were required to remain in Louisiana for a length of time fixed by the contract of service to pay off their passage . During this time, they were "temporary semi-slaves". To increase the colonial population, the Crown sent filles à la cassette ("casket girls," referring to the small trunks they arrived with), young Frenchwomen, to marry the soldiers . They were given a dowry financed by the King . This practice built upon the 17th - century precedent when Louis XIV paid for transport and dowries for about 800 filles du roi (King's Daughters) to emigrate to New France to encourage marriage and formation of families in the colony . </P> <P> By contrast, comfort women were described as those women "of easy virtue", vagrants or outlaws, and those without family, who arrived in Louisiana with a lettre de cachet; they were sent by force to the colony, especially during the Régence period early in the reign of Louis XV . Their stories inspired the novel Story of the Knight Of Grieux and Manon Lescaut, written by Abbé Prévost in 1731 . In 1721, the ship La Baleine carried nearly 90 women of childbearing age to Louisiana; they were recruited from the Paris prison of La Salpetrière . Most quickly found husbands amongst the residents of the colony . These women, many of whom were most likely prostitutes or felons, were known as The Baleine Brides . </P> <P> While communities of Swiss and German peoples also settled in French Louisiana, royal authorities always referred to the population as "French". After the Seven Years' War, in which Britain defeated France, the settlement attracted a variety of groups: Spanish settlers, refugees from Saint Domingue (particularly after 1791 when the slave uprisings began), opponents of the French Revolution, and Acadians . In 1785, 1,633 people of Acadian origin were brought from France to New Orleans, 30 years after having been expelled from their homeland by the British . Other Acadians were transported there by the British after their expulsion from Acadia . About 4,000 are thought to have settled in Louisiana, gradually forming the Cajun community . </P> <P> Social mobility was easier in America than in France at the time . The seigneurial system was not imposed on the banks of the Mississippi, although the long lot land division scheme of the seigneurial system was adapted to some of the meandering rivers and bayous there . There were few corporations treated on a hierarchical basis and strictly regulated . Certain tradesmen managed to build fortunes rather quickly . The large planters of Louisiana were attached to the French way of life: they imported wigs and clothing fashionable in Paris . In the Country of Illinois, the wealthiest constructed stone - built houses and had several slaves . The largest traders mostly wound up settling in New Orleans . </P>

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