A casquette girl but also known historically as a casket girl or a Pelican girl, was a woman brought from France to the French colonies of Louisiana to marry. The name derives from the small chests, known as casquettes, in which they carried their clothes.
Contemporary engraving depicting the departure of "comfort girls" to the New World.
The King's Daughters is a term used to refer to the approximately 800 young French women who immigrated to New France between 1663 and 1673 as part of a program sponsored by King Louis XIV. The program was designed to boost New France's population both by encouraging Frenchmen to move to the New World, and by promoting marriage, family formation, and the birth of French children in the colony. The term refers to those women and girls who were recruited by the government and whose travel to the colony was paid for by the king. They were also occasionally known as the King's Wards.
Sign in Dieppe, France, commemorating the departure of many filles du roi from that port.