This post is my attempt to show that it is intellectually impossible to be dismissive of Dauphin Island's strategic importance in North American history. If fact, the entire history of civilization in the Gulf South began on Dauphin Island.

The first sentence of R.G. McWilliams' essay, DRAMATIC HISTORY OF DAUPHIN ISLAND:
"With the exception of Cuba, Dauphin is, historically, the most prominent and interesting island in the Gulf of Mexico."

The purpose of Iberville's first successful colonizing expedition to the northern Gulf of Mexico in 1699 was to discover and secure the mouth of the Mississippi River for France. Of course, the French intended to occupy the entire Mississippi River area, but their ultimate goal was to follow this river west to find the Northwest Passage, a non-existent waterway that could provide a short cut to China and Japan.

After finding that the Spanish had recently occupied and armed Pensacola Bay, Iberville's convoy sailed west and dropped anchor at Dauphin Island on January 31, 1699. This was the beginning of the French colony of Louisiana.

After discovering the mouth of the Mississippi in March of 1699, Iberville's first efforts to secure this strategic position was to build Fort Maurepas near present-day Ocean Springs. The translater of IBERVILLE'S GULF JOURNALS considered this to be one of Iberville's greatest failures.  "This was the day (February  4, 1699) of the best weather for sounding that Iberville had had at Mobile Bay; yet in sounding the waters from Sand Island to Dauphin Island, he made the biggest mistake of his first voyage to the Gulf.  He must have taken soundings on a straight line toward the east end of Dauphin, for he failed to locate the deep water between Pelican Island and Dauphin- a tight little harbor that three years later was to become the port when the French abandoned Fort Maurepas on Biloxi Bay and moved to Twenty-Seven-Mile Bluff. Pelican Bay would have been a far better anchorage than the Ship Island anchorage."

The French on Dauphin Island may have given up on finding a Northwest Passage to China but they continued to desire the products of the Far East. For this they attempted to establish trade with Veracruz. From Shorter's PORT DAUPHIN:
 "Chinese porcelain reached the New World predominantly via the trans-Pacific Manila galleon route to Acapulco, then across Spanish Mexico through Puebla to Veracruz, where goods were loaded back onto ships for the voyage to Spain..."

 "The most likely source [of Chinese porcelain] is Veracruz, which was visited at least 11 times by French colonists from Mobile during the first decade of the 18th century. In 1711, however, Spanish officials confiscated French merchandise arriving at Veracruz and effectively closed that important trade connection to Louisiana. Conveniently, this date coincides with the relocation of Mobile to its present site down river and with the building of the stockade on Dauphin Island."

For over 200 years, Europeans sailing toward the mouth of Mississippi River generally followed the northern coast of Cuba until they reached the west end at Cape San Antonio where they set course for Dauphin Island.
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