Dauphin Island and the History of North America's Colonization in Miniature

Dauphin Island, Alabama is a barrier island at the Mouththe name "Massacre Island".
of Mobile Bay. It is a tourist attraction, the home ofBones or no bones, d'Iberville liked what he saw. Under
around 1,200 people, the site of the Estuarium marinethe French Massacre Island became a settlement,
sciences laboratory and a164-acre Audubon Birdtrading-post and, for a time, the capitol of the Louisiana
Sanctuary. It's a pleasant, pretty and useful place thatTerritory, a.k.a. 2/3rd's of the continental United States.
receives most of its income from tourism. On the faceAs such, "Massacre Island" began to seem an
of it one could hardly guess that Dauphin Island boreinappropriate name. In 1707 the island was renamed
the name "Massacre Island" for 8 years, or that it wasDauphin Island in honor of the "Dauphin" of France, the
occupied by every major European power intitle given to the prince who is the heir to the French
American history at one time or another.throne.
The earliest records of human activity on DauphinLatter events would suggest "Massacre Island" was a
Island are the burial sites of the Native Americansmore appropriate name after all. In 1711 pirates raided
known as the Mound Builders. The Serpentine shellDauphin Island, with all the attendant murder, rape and
middens on Dauphin's northern shore suggest that thispillage one might expect. In 1717 a massive Hurricane
culture had been using the island for 1,000 yearsvery nearly leveled every structure on the island. Then,
before the 1st Europeans arrived in the Americas,horror of horrors, the British arrived.
possibly occupying it on a seasonal basis, and definitelyFor the better part of 100 years Dauphin Island was a
using it as sacred ground for the honored dead.microcosm of colonial European conflict in the Gulf of
Spain got the jump on the rest of the Old World whenMexico. Great Britain took it from France. Spain took it
in came to the America's. Since we attribute theback from Great Britain. Virtually the only players on
continents "discovery" to that country (even ifthe North American field who didn't reclaim it were the
Columbus is to be taken at his word that he was, inIndians. Back and forth it went until 1813, when a still
fact, Italian) it is only fitting that Spanish explorer Alonzogreen United States acquired the entirety of Mobile
Pineda was the 1st European to map the DauphinBay, Dauphin included. The British took the Island one
Island in 1519. By standards of the time his work islast time, for old times sake, during the War of 1812 (or
considered incredibly detailed and accurate.actually a few month after; communications were very
It wasn't until 80 years after Pineda made his map thatslow in the early 19th century), but after that Dauphin
the next great European colonial power arrived onIsland has remained thoroughly Alabaman until the
Dauphin's shores. In 1699 French explorer Pierre Lepresent.
Moyne, sier d'Iberville, future architect of FrenchDauphin has seen a great deal of American history
Louisiana, was beginning his exploration of the mouthunfold, from cultures of the 1st immigrants who came
of the Mississippi. He and his men anchored on Dauphinvia the Bering Straight, to the earliest efforts of the
Island and, in a text-book European misreading ofconquistadors, to the western European scrum over
Native American culture, mistook the human remainsvaluable New World real estate. All in all, that's not too
he found there as the aftermath of some savage (orshabby for a little strip of land off the edge of
savages') battle or atrocity. Thus the Island receivedAlabama.