Beginning in 1816 , many impoverished Europeans immigrated to the United States as refugees from the crop failures of the Year Without a Summer , the wars of Napoleon , and other economic and social problems . Among the flood of refugees to Louisiana in 1818 were several families from Langensoultzbach in Alsace , on the lower Rhine , including Daniel Müller , a shoemaker ; his wife Dorothea , two sons , and their daughters Dorothea and Salomé . To fund their passage , Müller signed a " redemption " or indenture agreement , bartering the labor of him and his family for several years . His wife and infant son died on the voyage . ( Although this part of Alsace was then within French territory , and has been again since World War II , it was near the German border and had many ethnic German residents such as the Müllers , who spoke a German dialect . ) In March 1818 , the surviving Müllers arrived in New Orleans . Their indenture contracts were reportedly sold to John Fitz Miller of Attakapas Parish ( now St. Martin Parish ) , who had a sugar cane plantation . A few weeks after the family were taken to the Miller plantation , his friends and relatives in New Orleans learned that Daniel Müller and his older son Jacob , age 10 , had died of fever ; they were not able to discover what had happened to the two young girls : Dorothea , age 8 , and Salomé , age 4 , nor were they able to locate them
Year Without a Summer
Year Without a Summer
Sally Miller