Jeanette Forchet

How this work helped shape America

Born enslaved around 1736, Jeanette Forchet gained her freedom and established an independent economic life in the developing settlement of St. Louis. She earned a living through her own labor and acquired land granted by St. Louis founder Pierre Laclède, holding property both within the town and in its common agricultural fields. Forchet maintained her freedom, accumulated property and ultimately transferred property to her daughter, establishing an early documented example of Black American women's landownership and intergenerational property transfer in the Mississippi Valley.