Colonial

European settlement of Mobile, then known as Fort Louis de la Louisiane, started in 1702, at Twenty-seven Mile Bluff on the Mobile River, as the first capital of the French colony of Louisiana. It was founded by French Canadian brothers Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville and Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, establish control over France's Louisiana claims. Bienville was made governor of French Louisiana in 1701. 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.^[14] The parish was the first established on the Gulf Coast of the United States.^[14] In 1704 the ship Pélican delivered 23 French women to the colony, along with yellow fever which passengers had contracted at a stop in Havana.^[15] Though most of the "Pélican girls" recovered, numerous colonists and neighboring Native Americans died from the illness.^[15] This early period was also the occasion of the arrival of the first African slaves, transported aboard a French supply ship from Saint-Domingue.^[15] 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.^[14]

Mobile and Fort Condé in 1725.

and 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 RiverMobile Bay in 1711.^[16] A new earth and palisade Fort Louis was constructed at the new site during this time.^[17] By 1712, when Antoine Crozat took over administration of the colony by royal appointment, the colony boasted a population of 400 persons. The capital of Louisiana was moved to Biloxi in 1720,^[17] leaving Mobile in the role of military and trading center. In 1723 the construction of a new brick fort with a stone foundation began^[17] and it was renamed Fort Condé in honor of Louis Henri, Duc de Bourbon and prince of Condé.