Editing Mobile, Alabama (section)

===Etymology===
{{Further|Alabama Creole people}}
The city gained its name from the Mobile tribe that the French colonists encountered living in the area of [[Mobile Bay]].<ref>Thomason, Michael. ''Mobile: The New History of Alabama's First City'', pp. 17–20. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2001. {{ISBN|0-8173-1065-7}}</ref> Although it is debated by Alabama historians, they may have been descendants of the Native American tribe whose small fortress town, [[Mabila]], was used to conceal several thousand native warriors before an attack in 1540 on the expedition of Spanish explorer [[Hernando de Soto]].<ref>Thomason (2001), ''Mobile'', pp. 12–13.</ref> About seven years after the founding of the French Mobile settlement, the Mobile tribe, along with the Tohomé, gained permission from the colonists to settle near the fort.<ref>Thomason (2001), ''Mobile'', pp. 20 and 24</ref><ref name="maubilianind">{{cite web |title=The Old Mobile Project Newsletter |publisher =University of South Alabama Center for Archaeological Studies |url=http://www.usouthal.edu/archaeology/pdf/issue-17.pdf |access-date=November 19, 2007}}</ref>