The history of the Vine and Olive Colony in Demopolis, Alabama, has long been clouded by romantic myths. The notion that it was a doomed attempt by Napoleonic exiles in America to plant a wine- and olive-growing community in Alabama based on the ideals of the French Revolution, has long been bolstered by the images that have been proliferated in the popular imagination of French ladies (in Josephine-style gowns) and gentlemen (in officer s full dress uniforms) lounging in the breeze on the bluffs overlooking the Tombigbee River while sturdy French peasants plowed the rich soil of the Black...
The history of the Vine and Olive Colony in Demopolis, Alabama, has long been clouded by romantic myths. The notion that it was a doomed attempt by Na...
