Editing Mobile, Alabama (section)

===Colonial===
[[File:Mobile1725.jpg|thumb|right|Mobile and the pentagonal [[Fort Condé]] in 1725]]
[[File:Fort Condé 2.jpg|thumb|upright|A reconstructed bastion of the Fort Condé]]

The European settlement of Mobile began with French colonists, who in 1702 constructed ''[[Old Mobile Site|Fort Louis de la Louisiane]]'', at Twenty-seven Mile Bluff on the [[Mobile River]], as the first capital of the [[French colonial empires|French colony]] of [[Louisiana (New France)|La Louisiane]]. It was founded by [[French Canadian]] brothers [[Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville]] and [[Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville]], to establish control over France's claims to ''La Louisiane''. Bienville was appointed as royal governor of French Louisiana in 1701. Mobile's Roman Catholic parish was established on July 20, 1703, by [[Jean-Baptiste de la Croix de Chevrières de Saint-Vallier]], [[Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Quebec|Bishop of Quebec]].<ref name="oldmobile1">Higginbotham, Jay. ''Old Mobile: Fort Louis de la Louisiane, 1702–1711'', pages 106–107. Museum of the City of Mobile, 1977. {{ISBN|0-914334-03-4}}.</ref> The parish was the first French Catholic parish established on the [[Gulf Coast of the United States]].<ref name="oldmobile1"/>

In 1704, the ship [[French ship Pélican (1702)|''Pélican'']] delivered 23 Frenchwomen to the colony; passengers had contracted [[yellow fever]] at a stop in [[Havana]].<ref name="pelican">Thomason (2001), ''Mobile'', pp. 20–21.</ref> Though most of the "''Pélican'' girls" recovered, numerous colonists and neighboring Native Americans contracted the disease in turn and many died.<ref name="pelican"/> This early period was also the occasion of the importation of the first African [[slaves]], transported aboard a French supply ship from the French colony of [[Saint-Domingue]] in the [[Caribbean]], where they had first been held.<ref name="pelican"/> The population of the colony fluctuated over the next few years, growing to 279 persons by 1708, yet shrinking to 178 persons two years later due to disease.<ref name="oldmobile1"/>

These additional outbreaks of disease and a series of floods resulted in Bienville ordering in 1711 that the settlement be relocated several miles downriver to its present location at the confluence of the [[Mobile River]] and [[Mobile Bay]].<ref>Thomason, Michael. ''Mobile: The New History of Alabama's First City'', pp. 17–27. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2001. {{ISBN|0-8173-1065-7}}</ref> A new earth-and-palisade Fort Louis was constructed at the new site during this time.<ref name="MoMfort">{{Cite web|url=http://www.museumofmobile.com/html/other_museums.php|title=History Museum of Mobile|website=Museumofmobile.com|access-date=March 4, 2022}}</ref>

The capital of [[Louisiana (New France)|La Louisiane]] was moved in 1720 to [[Biloxi, Mississippi|Biloxi]],<ref name="MoMfort"/> leaving Mobile to serve as a regional military and trading center. In 1723 the construction of a new brick fort with a stone foundation began<ref name="MoMfort"/> and it was renamed Fort Condé in honor of [[Louis Henri, Duke of Bourbon]].<ref name="conde1">{{cite web |title=Historic Fort Conde |work=Museum of Mobile |url=http://www.museumofmobile.com/html/other_museums.php |access-date=October 18, 2007}}</ref>

In 1763, the [[Treaty of Paris (1763)|Treaty of Paris]] was signed, ending the [[Seven Years' War]], which Britain won, defeating France. By this treaty, France ceded its territories east of the Mississippi River to Britain. This area was made a part of the expanded British [[West Florida]] colony.<ref name="setmob1">{{cite web |title=Early European Conquests and the Settlement of Mobile |work=Alabama Department of Archives and History |url=http://www.alabamamoments.state.al.us/sec02qs.html |access-date=October 20, 2007 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110716172205/http://www.alabamamoments.state.al.us/sec02qs.html |archive-date=July 16, 2011 |df=mdy-all}}</ref> The British changed the name of Fort Condé to [[Fort Charlotte, Mobile|Fort Charlotte]], after [[Queen Charlotte]].<ref name="setmob2">{{cite web |title=Mobile: Alabama's Tricentennial City |work=Alabama Department of Archives and History |url=http://www.archives.state.al.us/mobile/mobile3.html |access-date=October 20, 2007 |archive-date=August 10, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070810204644/http://archives.state.al.us/mobile/mobile3.html |url-status=dead}}</ref>

The British were eager not to lose any useful inhabitants and promised religious tolerance to the French colonists; ultimately 112 French colonists remained in Mobile.<ref name="britmob1">Thomason (2001), ''Mobile'', pp. 44–45</ref> The first permanent Jewish settlers came to Mobile in 1763 as a result of the new British rule and religious tolerance. Jews had not been allowed to officially reside in colonial French Louisiana due to the [[Code Noir]], a decree passed by France's King Louis XIV in 1685 that forbade the exercise of any religion other than Roman Catholicism, and ordered all Jews out of France's colonies. Most of these colonial-era Jews in Mobile were merchants and traders from Sephardic Jewish communities in [[Savannah, Georgia]] and [[Charleston, South Carolina]]; they added to the commercial development of Mobile.<ref>Zietz, Robert (1994). ''The Gates of Heaven: Congregation Sha'arai Shomayim, the first 150 years, Mobile, Alabama, 1844–1994.'' Mobile, Alabama: Congregation Sha'arai Shomayim, pp. 7–39</ref> In 1766 the total population was estimated to be 860, though the town's borders were smaller than during the French colonial period.<ref name="britmob1"/> During the [[American Revolutionary War]], West Florida and Mobile became a refuge for [[Loyalist (American Revolution)|loyalists]] fleeing the other colonies.<ref name="storymobile1">Delaney, Caldwell. ''The Story of Mobile'', page 45. Mobile, Alabama: Gill Press, 1953. {{ISBN|0-940882-14-0}}</ref>

While the British were dealing with their rebellious colonists along the Atlantic coast, the [[Spain in the American Revolutionary War|Spanish entered the war]] in 1779 as an ally of France. They took the opportunity to order [[Bernardo de Gálvez y Madrid, Count of Gálvez|Bernardo de Galvez]], Governor of Louisiana, on an expedition east to retake West Florida.<ref name="barrancas">{{cite book |title=The Fort Barrancas Story |author=David P. Ogden |date=January 2005 |publisher=Eastern National Parks |isbn=978-1-888213-15-7 |page=2}}</ref> He captured Mobile during the [[Battle of Fort Charlotte]] in 1780, as part of this campaign. The Spanish wished to eliminate any British threat to their Louisiana colony west of the Mississippi River, which they had received from France in the 1763 Treaty of Paris.<ref name="storymobile1"/> Their actions were condoned by the revolting American colonies, partially evidenced by the presence of Oliver Pollack, representative of the American Continental Congress. Due to strong trade ties, many residents of Mobile and [[West Florida]] remained loyal to the [[British Crown]].<ref name="storymobile1"/><ref name="barrancas"/> The Spanish renamed the fort as Fortaleza Carlota, and held Mobile as a part of Spanish [[West Florida]] until 1813, when it was seized by United States General [[James Wilkinson]] during the [[War of 1812]].<ref name="wilkinson">{{cite web |title=James Wilkinson |work=War of 1812 |url=http://www.galafilm.com/1812/e/people/wilkinson.html |access-date=October 20, 2007 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071103184211/http://www.galafilm.com/1812/e/people/wilkinson.html |archive-date=November 3, 2007 |df=mdy-all}}</ref>