In 1702, the French explorer Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville established the settlement of La Mobile, within the future Mississippi territory and the present day state of Alabama, as the first European settlement in the area. Some of the lands within Alabama would go into British control, and later into Spanish control during the American Revolutionary War. After President Thomas Jefferson negotiated the Louisiana Purchase with the French government, the Mississippi Territory was planned to be formed into two separate states. On December 14, 1819, Alabama was entered as a state.
