In the 1700’s, there were lots of men and not enough women in France's Louisiana territory. So, King Louis XIV sent the “Casket Girls” thousands of miles away from their homes in France and transplanted to colonial America. They were provided with husbands and tasked with taming the men and domesticating the land. After enduring a long, arduous trip by boat, the girls arrived looking unnaturally pale and sickly, with red eyes and their skin blistered in the sunlight. Most were placed into unwanted marriages where they were mistreated by their husbands and some of the unwed were forced into prostitution. Hearing of their mistreatment, the king ordered that these young women be sent back to France.

Before they were scheduled to return home, the women and their cassettes (wooden luggage chests that looked like caskets), filled with all the young women’s possessions, were taken to a room on the third floor of the Ursuline convent, which was sealed off and the windows shuttered, so it was shocking to the nuns when they went to fetch the girls and their belongings, and the luggage was found empty and the girls were gone. Fearing something supernatural was going on, the shutters were nailed shut with nails blessed by a pope. The Casket Girls themselves were rumored to be vampires and their casquettes are thought to have been their method of carrying vampires across the sea to the New World. Could this be how the legend of vampires started in America?

On this episode of “A Glitch in the Matrix,” Jessica explores the Casket Girls and the current state of real-life vampires in New Orleans. 

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