[2][3] Following the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, Spain's power began to wane, allowing France to play an increasingly dominant role in Continental Europe while England became more active in the New World.

Under Louis XIV and his brilliant ministers, France created an army which intimidated Continental Europe and a navy which was strong enough to support the exploration and settlement of Canada.

René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle floated down the river in 1682 and claimed the entire Mississippi basin for France in the name of Louis XIV.

France soon realized that in order to counter English and Spanish influence in the region and to protect Louisiana and the Mississippi River they needed a fort on the Gulf of Mexico.

[3] Shortly after King William's War had ended, Iberville sailed from Brest, France, with orders to establish a fort at the mouth of the Mississippi River.

The accounts of André Pénicaut, a carpenter traveling with Iberville, reveal that "illnesses were becoming frequent" in the summer heat necessitating a move to higher ground.

Pénicaut was with a scouting party that discovered a "spot on high ground" near an Indian village approximately 20 miles (32 km) up the Mobile River.

[8] The structures identified in the census comprised a guardhouse, a forge, a gunsmith shop, a brick kiln, and eighty one-story wooden houses.

The occupants included 180 men, 27 families with ten children, eleven Native American slave boys and girls, and numerous farm animals.

[6] He subsequently recommended to the French government that one hundred "young and well-bred" women be sent to Mobile to marry the Canadians and increase the population by bearing children.

The hierarchy of French society remained present, as social prejudices in the settlement, and prevented development of the cooperative spirit necessary for success under the conditions of the colony.

Missing the luxuries of France (such as French bread) and resenting the realities of the colony (such as cornbread[5]), the women engaged in a "Petticoat Revolution" that "taxed Bienville's patience and ingenuity".

Although he had only spent a total of 25 days in the settlement, the death of Iberville was a blow to the colony since he had represented the concerns of Louisiana in Europe and was able to win concessions for the struggling town from the French court.

[8][10] Based on the accusations, Pontchartrain appointed Nicolas Daneau, sieur de Muy as the new governor of Louisiana and Jean-Baptiste-Martin D'artaguiette d'Iron as a special commissioner to investigate the charges.

[10] In 1710, an English privateer from Jamaica captured Port Dauphin, confiscated the supplies, food, and deer skins, looted the citizens, burned the houses and sailed away.

Due to the damp conditions of the site, wooden structures rotted quickly necessitating replacement of the bastion timbers and palisade posts at approximately five-year intervals.

Based on maps from the Archives nationales and local probate records, Peter Hamilton, author of Colonial Mobile (1910), concluded correctly that the site was located at Twenty-Seven Mile Bluff.

Based on the maps and the claims of Butt, the Iberville Historical Society erected a monument at the site in 1902 during the celebration of the 200th anniversary of the founding of Mobile.

James C. "Buddy" Parnell formed the group with friends and fellow employees of Courtaulds Fibers, a company which owned a portion of the suspected Old Mobile site.

The house, believed to have been occupied by French Canadians, was a long narrow building consisting of a parlor flanked by two bedrooms with a fenced garden or animal pen at one end.

[9][22] During the 1990 field survey, the location of a blacksmith shop was identified by the discovery of large quantities of iron scrap, slag, coal, and charcoal.

[3] The town was constructed on a grid pattern, with each block representing anywhere from 2 to 10 individual lots, separated by dirt streets approximately 12 m (40 ft) wide.

[25] Accidental fires and natural disasters often led to widespread and common destruction of houses; these would be either abandoned or repaired depending on the degree of damage.

However, due to the structures likely being burned down when the site was abandoned in 1711, climatic conditions, and the high acidity of the soil (avg 5.5), bone preservation is poor.

[27] Of the bones which could be identified to a specific taxon, the biomass indicates that 93% belonged to the following mammals: white-tailed deer, pig, black bear, opossum, muskrat, beaver, squirrel, and dog (not as a food).

This would suggest that, due to the unreliability of French shipments, colonists relied heavily on wild game which they either hunted themselves, or was provided by the local Native American tribes.

[30] While Indian slaves did exist in the colony, their number gradually diminished as more casket girls came to the settlement from France to increase the female population.

While most of the artifact evidence points to a great relationship to the Apalachees (evidenced in Lamar Complicated Stamped and Marsh Island Incised pottery styles as well as Spanish Glass Beads), historical evidence points to a greater relationship with the local Mobilian peoples (evidenced by trade reports, the trade language, the site name, and Port Dauphin Incised pottery).

[25] In fact, 64% of pottery on the site came from Native craftsmen and historical documents mention frequent and mutually beneficial trade deals struck with the nearby tribes.

While some tribes were not as friendly as others, the Old Mobile site (and the associated Structure 1MB147) is good evidence of positive relations and a type of cultural syncretism within early French colonial societies in North America.