Young, marriageable girls sent from France with a small trunk (casket) filled with clothing and goods needed to establish a household.

A grant of land given by the French proprietary government to a concessionaire-a person who agreed to clear land for the cultivation of food and cash crops.

A ceremonial pipe used by Native Americans.

The officer in command of the French Louisiana colony.

The business manager of the French Louisiana colony.

An early form of the modern corporation in which many people invested by buying stock. Ex. Similar to the modern stock market.

The expansion, then collapse, of the Company of the Indies, a French company that invested in the Louisiana colony. Ex. Similar to a stock market crash.

A plant that is used to make blue dye.

The system of letting an individual businessman take control of a colony in the hopes that he could make it profitable. More modernly used to describe a person who owns a business.

The place where a stream, like the Mississippi River, enters a larger body of water, like the Gulf of Mexico.