On the recommendations of his brother, Bienville moved the majority of the settlers to a new settlement in what is now
Alabama on the west side of the
Mobile River, called
Fort Louis de la Mobile (or "Mobille"). He also established a deepwater port nearby on
Dauphin Island for the colony, as
Mobile Bay and the
Mobile River were too shallow for seagoing vessels. The population of the colony fluctuated over the next few years. In 1704, in part due to fear that fraternization of French soldiers with native females might lead to conflict, Bienville arranged for the arrival of twenty-four young French women. By tradition the young ladies were selected from
convents, though most were likely from poor families. Because they traveled to the New World with their possessions in small trunks known as cassettes, they are known in local histories as
the casquette girls in early accounts and by the English translation of casket girls in later tradition. The young ladies were lodged in Bienville's home under the care of his housekeeper, a French-Canadian woman known as Madame Langlois. (By tradition she was a widowed cousin to Bienville and his brothers, but there is no confirmation of this.) Madame Langlois had learned from local
native tribes the arts of cooking local produce and imparted this knowledge to her charges in what is generally heralded as the origin of
Creole cuisine. The names and fates of most of the Casquette Girls is uncertain, but at least some remained in the colony and married French soldiers as intended, the first recorded birth of a white child occurring in 1705. The population of the colony fluctuated over the next generation, growing to 281 by 1708, but diminishing to 178 two years later due to disease. In 1709, a great flood overflowed
Fort Louis de la Mobile: because of this and the outbreaks of disease, Bienville ordered the settlement to move downriver to the present site of
Mobile, Alabama in 1711 where another wooden Fort Louis was built. By 1712, when
Antoine Crozat took over administration of Louisiana by royal appointment, the colony boasted a population of 400 persons. In 1713, a new governor arrived from France, and Bienville moved west where, in 1716, he established
Fort Rosalie on the present site of
Natchez, Mississippi. The new governor,
Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac, did not last long due to mismanagement and a lack of growth in the colony. He was recalled to France in 1716, and Bienville again took the helm as governor, serving the office for less than a year until the new governor,
Jean-Michel de Lepinay, arrived from France. Lepinay's tenure was short lived, however, as Crozat had relinquished control of the colony and its administration to
John Law and his
Company of the Indies. In 1718, Bienville found himself once again governor of Louisiana, and it was during this term that Bienville established the city of
New Orleans, Louisiana. ==Father of New Orleans==