Fort Tombecbe

Fort Tombecbe
A portion of La Lousiane et Pays Voisins, Bellin's 1764 map of the Louisiana colony, indicating the location of Fort Tombecbe (near top center).
Location Epes, Alabama
Coordinates 32°41′54″N 88°7′4″W / 32.69833°N 88.11778°W / 32.69833; -88.11778Coordinates: 32°41′54″N 88°7′4″W / 32.69833°N 88.11778°W / 32.69833; -88.11778
Built 1736
NRHP Reference #

73000373

[1]
Added to NRHP October 02, 1973

Fort Tombecbe (Fort de Tombecbé), also spelled Tombecbee and Tombeché, was a stockade fort located on the Tombigbee River near the border of French Louisiana, in what is now Sumter County, Alabama.[2] It was constructed under the leadership of Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville in 1736-37 as trading post about 270 miles (430 km) upriver from Mobile, on an 80-foot (24 m) limestone bluff.[3] Fort Tombecbe was built in Choctaw lands and would play a major role in colonial France's efforts to stop British intrusions into the area. Bienville claimed that the new fort was to protect the Choctaw from the Chickasaw.[4] Tombecbe was a major French outpost and trade depot among the Choctaw, the largest Native American group in the colony.

Control passed to the British in 1763, who renamed it Fort York. In 1793 Spain acquired the site—by then the fort had been abandoned—from the Choctaw via the Treaty of Boukfouka and built a new fort, which was named Fort Confederación.[5] It is also known as Fort Confederation.[6] After the United States took possession, via the 1802 Treaty of Fort Confederation, it continued to be used as a trading post with the Choctaws until its eventual abandonment in the 19th century.[2]

The Fort Tombecbe site is currently owned by the University of West Alabama and the Archaeological Conservancy, and operated by the staff of the Black Belt Museum.[7]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Staff (2008-04-15). "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service.
  2. 1 2 "Fort Tombecbe". Dr. Joe Wilkins. alabamacanebrake.org. Retrieved 2 December 2008.
  3. ↑ "Le Moyne Brothers". Encyclopedia of Alabama. Retrieved 2 December 2008.
  4. ↑ "Tombigbee History". RiversofAlabama.org. Retrieved 2 December 2008.
  5. ↑ Wells, Mary Ann (1994). Native land: Mississippi, 1540-1798. University Press of Mississippi. p. 196. ISBN 978-0-87805-734-4. Retrieved 25 March 2011.
  6. ↑ Hudson, Charles M. (December 2007). Four Centuries of Southern Indians. University of Georgia Press. p. 71. ISBN 978-0-8203-3132-4. Retrieved 25 March 2011.
  7. ↑ "Fort Tombecbe". Encyclopedia of Alabama. Retrieved 14 October 2011.


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