07/09/2026
Getting back into some history, today we look at one of the most important people in Alabama’s colonial history. This is the anniversary of the death of Pierre le Moyne d’Iberville, the founder of Mobile. His father Charles was born in Normandy, France in 1626 and immigrated to Canada in 1641 to work as an indentured employee of the Jesuits. After years of carving out a life in the frontier around the settlement of Ville-Marie (present-day Montréal) the elder le Moyne had built a comfortable life from the fur trade, which enabled him to build a sizable stone house for his wife and 14 children. Pierre, baptized on 20 July 1661, began his naval career in 1686 where he and two of his brothers joined an expedition against the English trading posts in the Hudson Bay region. He proved to be capable naval captain in the extreme cold of the north and tenacious in dealing with the enemies of France.
After several successful campaigns against the English in the 1690s, Iberville was given the most important command of his life: the Mississippi Expedition.
While France had created several small settlements in the St. Lawrence Valley region of Canada, with a few colonists edging down into the Illinois country, similar attempts in the southern part of continent had failed. Iberville was given the chance to take up where another French explorer had failed in creating a colony on the Gulf Coast. The idea was to locate the mouth of the Mississippi River and build a settlement that would trade with the local Indians. The other aim was to block the English colonists from further westward expansion. Iberville’s expedition included four vessels, but less than a hundred soldiers and naval craftsmen chosen to build a new outpost. They sailed from Brest in late October 1698 and made landfall in January 1699 near Pensacola Bay. After exploring the Gulf Coast for several months, Iberville decided to build a temporary fort at Biloxi Bay, assuming he would relocate the outpost once he had explored the Mississippi River for a better site.
In 1701, he orders the change of site to Massacre Island (now Dauphin Island) where a better harbor had been discovered. The island acted as staging ground while the capital was built up the Mobile River at Twenty-Seven Mile Bluff, not far from the Mobile tribe. After meeting with the local tribes of the Biloxi, Bayogoula, Mobile, Tohomé, Choctaws, and Chickasaws, the capital of the colony was poised to bring in large number of deerskins, as well as edging the English colonists out of the region.
Not long after Mobile had been founded in 1702, a new European conflicted had erupted, causing every capable French captain to be recalled for active service. Fortunately, Iberville had brough several of his relations with him, so he placed his trusted 22-year-old brother Jean-Baptiste le Moyne de Bienville in command of the colony until his return. Iberville never returned to his infant colony of Louisiana. He had fought several bouts of malaria and other illnesses during the years of 1702 and 1705, which occurred while he was fighting the English on the high seas. After several brilliant naval campaigns in the West Indies, and then promising to bring fire and sword to the English colonists on the eastern seaboard, Iberville had contracted his last illness and died in Havana on 9 July 1706.
Iberville’s legacy is, like many historical figures, complicated. He led the 1698 expedition with great success. Explored the upper Gulf Coast and corrected much of the bad information regarding the coastline, the rivers, and the people who lived in the region, but he was rarely in the colony due to his importance as naval captain. Indeed, his naval journals kept during his expeditions give us keen insights into the smaller tribes that lived on the Gulf Coast. The Biloxi were the first people he encountered. Interestingly, Iberville reveals a fascinating side to himself when he wrote about encountering an elderly Biloxi man who was too sick to stand and was left behind when his people fled after spotting the French. Iberville had a fire made for the poor man, fed him, and tried to care for him. The man died the next day, but his people came for him and saw what this stranger had done for one of their own; it made an impact. That afternoon three men and two women joined the French camp “to sing the calumet of peace to me,” as Iberville explained. That was the first part of diplomacy with the native tribesmen, and Iberville understood that better than most leaders. Today, we can remember him as the leader who built the foundation for colony of La Louisiane. Bienville would build on those well-laid plans and eventually establish Fort Toulouse as an extension of both Mobile and the larger plan Iberville had for the colony.
