Mobile was founded as the capital of colonial French Louisiana in 1702 and remained a part of New France for over 60 years. During 1720, when France warred with Spain, Mobile was on the battlefront, so the capital moved west to Biloxi. In 1763, Britain took control of the colony following their victory in the Seven Years' War. During the American Revolutionary War, the Spanish captured Mobile and retained it by the terms of the Treaty of Paris in 1783.
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. Finally on December 14, 1819, Mobile became part of the new 22nd state, Alabama, one of the earlier states of the U.S. Forty-one years later, Alabama left the Union and joined the Confederate States of America in 1861. It returned in 1865 after the American Civil War. The Seven Years' War (aka French and Indian War) began in 1756 and ended in 1763, with Mobile ceded to Britain, while land west of the Mississippi plus New Orleans had been ceded to Spain; see: Treaty of Paris (1763). Mobile had spent decades as French, then British, then Spanish, then American, spanning 160 years, up to the Civil War.
Conquistadors: 1519 to 1559 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). The area was explored in more detail in 1516 by Diego de Miruelo and in 1519 by Alonso Álvarez de Pineda. 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. This response was a prelude to the journeys of Hernando de Soto, more than eleven years later.
Hernando de Soto explored the area of Mobile Bay and beyond in 1540, finding the area inhabited by a Muscogee Native American people. During this expedition, his forces destroyed the fortified town of Mauvila, also spelled Maubila, from which the name Mobile was later derived. The battle with Chief Tuscaloosa and his warriors took place somewhere north of the current site of Mobile. 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.
Colonial period
French Louisiana: 1702 to 1763
Although 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. 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. 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. 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. The parish was the first established on the Gulf Coast of the United States. 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. Though most of the "casquette girls" recovered, a large number of the existing colonists and the neighboring Native Americans died from the illness. This early period also saw the arrival of the first African slaves aboard a French supply ship from Saint-Domingue. 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.
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. This site had previously been settled five years prior by Charles Rochon, Gilbert Dardenne, Pierre LeBœuf and Claude Parant. A new earth and palisade Fort Louis was constructed at the new site during this time."Other Locations: Historic Fort Conde" (history), Museum of Mobile, Mobile, Alabama, 2006, webpage:MoM-Other The colony was an economic loss, so in 1712, Antoine Crozat took over administration of the colony by royal charter for 15 years, pledging a share of profits to the King. The colony boasted a population of 400 persons. In 1713 a new governor was appointed by Crozat, Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac, founder of Detroit. He did not last long, due to allegations of mismanagement and a lack of growth in the colony, and he was recalled to France in 1716. Bienville again took the helm as governor, serving the office for less than a year until the new governor, Jean-Michel de Lepinay, arrived from France. Lepinay, however, did not last long either, due to Crozat's relinquishing control of the colony in 1717 (after just 5 of the 15 years). The administration shifted to John Law and his Company of the Indies. Bienville found himself once again governor of Louisiana. In 1719, France warred with Spain, and Mobile was on the battlefront, so Bienville decided to move the capital to Old Biloxi, further west.
The capital of Louisiana was moved to Biloxi, (now in Mississippi) in 1720, leaving Mobile relegated to the role of military and trading outpost. In 1723 the construction of a new brick fort with a stone foundation began and it was renamed Fort Condé in honor of Louis Henri, Duc de Bourbon and prince of Condé. Mobile remained a major trade center with the Native Americans throughout the French period, leading to the almost universal use of Mobilian Jargon as the simplified trade language with the Native Americans from present-day Florida to Texas.
British West Florida: 1763 to 1780
Mobile became a part of the "14th British colony", British West Florida, in 1763, when the Treaty of Paris was signed, ending the French and Indian War.
The treaty ceded the Mobile area to Great Britain, and under British rule the colony flourished as West Florida. The British renamed Fort Condé as Fort Charlotte after the queen consort and re-energized the port. Major exports included timber, naval stores, indigo, hides, rice, pecans, and cattle.
Spanish West Florida: 1780 to 1812
The Spanish captured Mobile during the American Revolutionary War during the Battle of Fort Charlotte in 1780, and retained Mobile by the terms of the war-ending Treaty of Paris in 1783. Mobile was then part of the colonial province Florida Occidental for thirty years, controlled from Pensacola until 1813 when it was captured by American forces (during the War of 1812) under James Wilkinson.
Republic of West Florida
The United States and Spain held long, inconclusive negotiations on the status of West Florida. In the meantime, American settlers, including Loyalists, had established a foothold in the area and resisted Spanish control, leading to a rebellion in 1810 and the establishment for three months of the Republic of West Florida. On September 23, 1810, after meetings beginning in June, rebels overcame the Spanish garrison at Baton Rouge and unfurled the Bonnie Blue Flag. The Republic of West Florida claimed boundaries that included all territory south of the 31st parallel, west of the Perdido River, and east of the Mississippi River, not including any territory that had been part of the Louisiana Purchase.
Spain retained its control of the Mobile District for a few more years, while the United States seized the former Baton Rouge District in December 1810.
Territorial period Mississippi Territory
Before the War of 1812, the Spaniards in Mobile allowed British merchants to sell arms and supplies to the Indians defend their lands against encroaching settlers who had begun to build on part of present-day Alabama. During the course of the war, General James Wilkinson took a force of American troops from New Orleans to capture Mobile. The Spanish capitulated in April 1813 and the Stars and Stripes of the United States was raised for the first time over the Mobile area as it was added to the existing Mississippi Territory.
A British attempt commanded by Captain Henry Percy in September 1814 to take Fort Bowyer on Mobile Bay was repulsed by American forces. A subsequent British attack in February 1815 was successful, resulting in the surrender of the fort. The War of 1812 ended before an attack on the settlement of Mobile, across the bay, could be conducted.
Alabama Territory: 1817 to 1819
Within 4 years, in March 1817, the U.S. state of Mississippi was formed, splitting the Mississippi Territory in half, and leaving Mobile, for the next 2 years, as part of the new Alabama Territory. In 1819, after two years as a territory, the US state of Alabama was formed, converting the Alabama Territory into a full American state.
After statehood
Antebellum: 1820 to 1860
The cotton boom of the early 19th century brought an explosion of commerce to what had been a sleepy frontier town. For almost the next half century, Mobile enjoyed prosperity as the second largest international seaport on the Gulf Coast, after New Orleans. Progress was based upon cotton, shipped downriver by flatboat or steamboat from plantation slave fields in Mississippi and Alabama. A fire in October 1827 destroyed most of the old city from the Mobile River to Saint Emanuel Street and from Saint Francis to Government Street. The city experienced another fire in 1839 that burned part of city between Conti and Government Street from Royal to Saint Emanuel Street and also both sides of Dauphin to Franklin Street. Despite these setbacks, Mobile was one of the four busiest ports in the US by the 1850s. The wealth created by this trade brought the city to a cultural high point. Mobile became known throughout the country and the world.
In another note of differentiation between the somewhat cosmopolitan port and the hinterlands of predominantly Protestant Alabama, Mobile was declared a diocese of the Roman Catholic Church in this same period. What would become known as McGill-Toolen Catholic High School was also established during this time. In 1830, Bishop Michael Portier founded Spring Hill College, one of the oldest Catholic schools in the country. Control of the college was assumed by the Jesuit Order in 1847.
In 1860, Clotilda, the last known ship to arrive in the Americas with a cargo of slaves, was abandoned by its captain near Mobile. A number of these slaves later formed their own community on the banks of the Mobile River after the American Civil War, which became known as Africatown. The inhabitants of this community retained their African customs and language well into the 20th century.
Civil War: 1861 to 1865
Mobile grew substantially in the period leading up to the Civil War, when the Confederates heavily fortified it. Union naval forces established a blockade under the command of Admiral David Farragut. The Confederates countered by constructing blockade-runners: fast, shallow-draft, low-slung ships that could either outrun or evade the blockaders, maintaining a trickle of trade in and out of Mobile. Also, the Hunley, the first submarine to sink an enemy vessel in combat, was built and tested in Mobile.