In the 17th century, rivalry among the French, Spanish, and English for supremacy in North America led King Louis XIV of France to authorize an expedition to the Gulf of Mexico in 1698 under Canadian-born Pierre LeMoyne d'Iberville. Recognized as Canada's first hero after military exploits against the British during the War of the League of Augsburg and its American extension, the first of the French and Indian wars, Iberville was ordered to locate the mouth of the Mississippi River from the Gulf and build fortifications against Spanish and English advance while reinforcing France's claim to the Louisiana Territory first asserted by René LaSalle in 1682. On February 10, 1699, Iberville's frigates Marin and Badine anchored in the deep natural harbor on the northwestern lee of Ship Island, and three days later he came ashore on the Biloxi peninsula. In his journal, Iberville recounted crossing four leagues north from the ships in a Biscayne with eleven men while his brother Jean Baptist de Bienville followed in a bark canoe with two men, then trekking two leagues east along an Indian trail and camping overnight. He recorded muddy water between the ships and land, a shallow approach to shore, and a landscape of blooming plum trees, tracks of turkeys, partridges, hares like those in France, and good oysters. This initial landing on the Biloxi peninsula began the process of colonization and settlement of the Mississippi Gulf Coast and Louisiana Territory.
