strategic points. La Salle did not live to accomplish this. He was assassinated in modern Texas, after missing the mouth of the Mississippi. But a worthy successor was found after a few years in the elder Lemoyne, better known as Iberville. In 1699, he was successful in finding the mouth of the great river, but realized that its swamps offered no site for a colony. He and his brother, Bienville, explored the tributaries and the adjacent coasts, and a fort was temporarily thrown up on what is now the east side of the Back Bay of Biloxi. On Iberville's return from France, in 1702, the permanent seat of the colony was placed at 27 Mile Bluff, on Mobile River, amid the friendly and industrious Indians. The Spaniards, who had themselves lately occupied Pensacola, vigorously remonstrated at this occupation of Florida, as they had at the building of Fort Maurepas at Biloxi. But Iberville was acting for Louis XIV., and soon had everything of value moved via Massacre (now Dauphine) Island and Mobile Bay to Fort Louis de la Mobile. A town was laid out and settled. Conferences with Choctaws and Chickasaws followed, and alliances were made. The establishment of what was even then popularly
