At New York, Iberville sold 9000 pelts acquired from trappers in the Mississippi Valley.įebruary 6 th, the French establish Fort de La Boulaye (Fort Mississippi) on the Lower Mississippi, near Phoenix, thirty miles below New Orleans. He departed Ship Island for New York and France in late May 1700. Iberville returned from France and anchored at Ship Island on January 8 th aboard Renommee. He left a garrison of seventy-six men and ten officers under Sauvolle at Fort Maurepas. Iberville aboard La Badine and his fleet departed Ship Island for France in May. Deer are killed everywhere in the vicinity of the fort.” Iberville also visited here and commented: “I found it very beautiful with pine woods, mixed with trees of other kinds in spots, many prairies, light sandy soil everywhere I saw a good many deer. In late April, Bienville explored the area of present day D’Iberville and found it to be fine for a settlement. He left a garrison of seventy-six men and ten officers under Sauvolle Fort Maurepas. Iberville and fleet departed Ship Island for France in May.

The Fort Maurepas settlement was also called Biloxi for the local Siouxan Indian tribe which lived on the Pascagoula River. Several locales in North America bear the name Maurepas or Pontchartrain: Lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain in southeastern Louisiana and Point Maurepas on the island of Michipicoten (Ontario) in Lake Superior. Fort Maurepas was named to honor the French Minister of the Marine (Navy), Jerome Phelypeaux de Maurepas, Comte (Earl) de Pontchartrain. Some French strategist feared that if the English controlled the mouth of the Mississippi River that their holdings and commercial enterprises, including the lucrative fur trade of interior North America were doomed.įrench soldiers led by Iberville in the service of King Louis XIV of France, commenced the construction of Fort Maurepas, at present day Ocean Springs, Mississippi, in early April. Pierre Le Moyne (1661-1706), Sieur d'Iberville, French Canadian soldier of fortune, departed Brest, France aboard La Badine on October 24, 1698 to locate the mouth of the Mississippi River from the Mexican Gulf and establish a French presence on the Gulf Coast to discourage Spanish and English incursions into the area claimed by LaSalle for France. La Salle called the Great River, Colbert, in honor of the French Minister of Marine. We know this territory as Louisiana, i.e. He claimed for France the vast area between the Rocky Mountains and the Alleghenies drained by the Mississippi and all of its tributaries. Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle (1643-1687) reconnoitered the Mississippi River from the Great Lakes locating its deltaic mouth on the Gulf of Mexico in April 1682.

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