Seasoned Rum: The Mistaken Slave Girl

Bertrand d’Ogeron, a Dutch merchant, felt confident his quadroon grand daughters, Scholastique Bigonesse and her sister Beauchance, would know a better life in Orleans territories of New France. Bertrand paid for their passage to New Orleans as free persons of color in 1818, under an outdated but effective “Placage” system. “Placage” was an important tool used by the French and Spanish to better legitimize girls of color or young "roon" women into freedom by selling them into servitude for a period of time before they could become free.

But especially caught in the tides of change during this period were the plantation owners and the slaves who serviced their needs. In New Orleans, mere blocks separate free blacks from their brothers and sisters, who toil under the abusive twists of power. With changing laws against slavery and the poor treatment of slaves, a black market of underground slave trading exploded among the elite, and Scholastique Bigonesse was caught in the middle.

Raised educated and free women of color, young Scholastique and her sister inherit a secret supply of rum, hidden by their powerful grandfather. But his death brings a riddle by way of a poem, and critical papers proving their legal statuses are missing.

Scholastique’s world flips upside down when she is kidnapped by a nefarious man who seeks to abuse her body and steal a fortune she doesn’t even know she has, buried at the bottom of the rum barrels. The adventures of Scholastique as she battles for her life and freedom, after being mistaken for a slave, involve her in a deeper understanding of the world, her true roots, and the volatility of the times. She seeks to recover her inheritance, become a woman of means, and stand up for her rights as a human being.