Mobile County, Alabama: History
This area was occupied for thousands of years by various indigenous peoples. At the time of Spanish expeditions in the early 16th century, its inhabitants were the creators of the Mississippian Bottle Creek material culture, which was south of the Pafalaya, centered at Moundville, and west of Apalachee Province. The Choctaw tribe emerged somewhat later from Pafalaya. In the 1700s, they lived along what French colonists called the Mobile River. The Choctaw tribe also founded the town of Mobile on the river and bay in the early 18th century.
The British took over the French claim to the territory in 1763 (along with other French territories east of the Mississippi River) after defeating the French in the Seven Years' War. During the American Revolutionary War, the claim passed to the Spanish as part of their colony called Spanish Florida. Spain ceded the territory to the United States after the War of 1812.
In the 1830s, the United States forced the removal of the Choctaw tribe, who owned the area. The order was issued under President Andrew Jackson's policy and an act of Congress to deport them to Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River to make way for European settlers.
After more than a century of European settlement, beginning with French colonists, Mobile County was organized by the state legislature and the proclamation of Governor Holmes of the Mississippi Territory on December 18, 1812.
When Mississippi was separated and admitted as a state on December 10, 1817, after adopting its constitution on August 15, 1817, Mobile County became part of what was called the Alabama Territory. Two years later, the county became part of the state of Alabama, granted statehood on December 14, 1819.
The city of Mobile, first settled by French colonists in the early 18th century as part of La Louisiane, was designated as the county seat from the early days of the county. Both the county and city derive their name from Fort Louis de la Mobile, a French fortification established (near present-day Axis, Alabama) in 1702. The word "Mobile" is believed to stem from a Choctaw word for "paddlers". The area was occupied by French colonists from 1702 to 1763, and their influence has been strong in the city. It was ruled by the British from 1763 to 1780, when more American colonists began to enter the territory; and controlled by the Spanish from 1780 to 1813.
At the end of the War of 1812, the United States took over the territory. At that time, new settlers were being attracted to the land, eager to develop short-staple cotton in the uplands area. Invention of the cotton gin made processing of this type of cotton profitable, stimulating wholesale development of new cotton plantations in the Black Belt during the antebellum years. Mobile developed as a major deepwater port; in the nineteenth century, cotton was its major export.
There were nine documented lynchings in Mobile from 1891 to 1981.
March 31, 1891 — Zachariah Graham
October 2, 1906 — Roy Hoyle
October 2, 1906 — Willie Thompson
October 2, 1906 — Corneilius Robinson
September 22, 1907 — Mose Dossett
January 23, 1909 — Richard Robertson
July 31, 1910 — Bill Walker
June 6, 1919 — James E. Lewis
March 21, 1981 — Michael Donald
Courthouse fires occurred in the years 1823, 1840, and 1872.