THE CURSE OF KASKASKIA, by Lesley Barker

Historical Fiction for Intermediate Teen Readers

Cultures clashed in the Mid-Mississippi River Valley in the late seventeenth century when Auguste Chouteau arrived in Kaskaskia the evening of his 14th birthday

When the Council of New Orleans sent Pierre Laclede to enforce the Code Noir by evicting the Jesuits from their mission at Kaskaskia, Auguste Chouteau went with him, fearing, all the while, that his mother's husband might return to New Orleans to reclaim her while they were away. He did not expect to meet a woman whose story would echo and, at the same time, confront his own twisting feelings. Even more unexpected would be his new role as the builder of the new city, Saint Louis, fifty miles further up river from his mother and New Orleans. The Curse of Kaskaskia explores the multi-cultural, multi-lingual diversity of French Colonial America where Jews, Christians, Muslims, and Native Americans intermingled on a daily basis.