Ibervilledetails

In 1699 Pierre Le Moyne, Sieur d’Iberville, sailed into the Gulf of Mexico to resume France’s quest for a transcontinental empire. his party reached the mouth of the Mississippi on Shrove Tuesday and celebrated Mardi Gras with a Mass and Te Deum Over the next few months Iberville’s expedition continued up the Mississippi past Baton Rouge and Pointe Coupée, and then returned through the lakes and into the Gulf.

Iberville’s men constructed the first French settlement in Louisiana on the eastern shore of the Bay of Biloxi. Convinced that large ships would get stuck coming into the mouth of the Mississippi River, Iberville chose to establish a permanent site on the Gulf Coast rather than on the river.