![]() A new earth and palisade Fort Louis was constructed at the new site during this time. This site had previously been settled five years prior by Charles Rochon, Gilbert Dardenne, Pierre LeBœuf and Claude Parant. These additional outbreaks of disease and a series of floods caused Bienville to order the town relocated several miles downriver to its present location at the confluence of the Mobile River and Mobile Bay in 1711. The population of the colony fluctuated over the next few years, growing to 279 persons by 1708 yet descending to 178 persons two years later due to disease. This early period also saw the arrival of the first African slaves aboard a French supply ship from Saint-Domingue. Though most of the "casquette girls" recovered, a large number of the existing colonists and the neighboring Native Americans died from the illness. The year 1704 saw the arrival of 23 women, known to history as " casquette girls" to the colony aboard the Pélican, along with yellow fever introduced to the ship in Havana. The parish was the first established on the Gulf Coast of the United States. Mobile's Roman Catholic parish was established on 20 July 1703, by Jean-Baptiste de la Croix de Chevrières de Saint-Vallier, Bishop of Quebec. It was founded under the direction of d'Iberville by his brother, Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, to establish control over France's Louisiana claims with Bienville having been made governor of French Louisiana in 1701. The settlement, then known as Fort Louis de la Louisiane, was first established at Twenty-seven Mile Bluff as the first capital of the French colony of Louisiana. See also: Seven Years' War and French and Indian WarĪlthough Spain's presence in the area had been sporadic, the French, under Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville from his base at Fort Maurepas, established a settlement on the Mobile River in 1702. Colonial period French Louisiana: 1702 to 1763 The next large expedition was that of Tristán de Luna y Arellano, in his unsuccessful attempt to establish a permanent colony for Spain, nearby at Pensacola in 1559–1561. The battle with Chief Tuscaloosa and his warriors took place somewhere north of the current site of Mobile. During this expedition, his forces destroyed the fortified town of Mauvila, also spelled Maubila, from which the name Mobile was later derived. Hernando de Soto explored the area of Mobile Bay and beyond in 1540, finding the area inhabited by a Muscogee Native American people. This response was a prelude to the journeys of Hernando de Soto, more than eleven years later. In 1528, Pánfilo de Narváez traveled through what was likely the Mobile Bay area, encountering Native Americans who fled and burned their towns at the approach of the expedition. The area was explored in more detail in 1516 by Diego de Miruelo and in 1519 by Alonso Álvarez de Pineda. Spanish explorers were sailing into the area of Mobile Bay as early as 1500, with the bay being marked on early Spanish maps as the Bahía del Espíritu Santo (Bay of the Holy Spirit). Mobile had spent decades as French, then British, then Spanish, then American, spanning 160 years, up to the Civil War. ![]() It returned in 1865 after the American Civil War. Forty-one years later, Alabama left the Union and joined the Confederate States of America in 1861. Finally on December 14, 1819, Mobile became part of the new 22nd state, Alabama, one of the earlier states of the U.S. Mobile first became a part of the United States in 1813, when it was captured by American forces and added to the Mississippi Territory, then later re-zoned into the Alabama Territory in August 1817. During the American Revolutionary War, the Spanish captured Mobile and retained it by the terms of the Treaty of Paris in 1783. In 1763, Britain took control of the colony following their victory in the Seven Years' War. During 1720, when France warred with Spain, Mobile was on the battlefront, so the capital moved west to Biloxi. Mobile was founded as the capital of colonial French Louisiana in 1702 and remained a part of New France for over 60 years.
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