The following article is part two of a series which examines our modern relationship with the history of Baldwin County.

Whether we like it or not or even accept it at times, we are products of our past and the past of our ancestors. The world in which we live today is a testament to our past. What we have become is directly linked to what we were as individuals and as a community. And, for Baldwin County, this means a uniqueness unlike most other regions of the country, as the people of Baldwin County come from such a diverse past: one with many contributing people and events. With that said, let’s continue our look back at who we were.

The French landed in Mobile Bay in February 1699, under the charge of Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville. From there the French expanded their claim as far east as Perdido Bay, due to the inability of the Spanish to mount an effective protest. While most of the French attention was placed on settlement of the western shore of the Bay, a presence along the Eastern Shore was also maintained as a destination to escape the summer heat and the associated illnesses that befell Mobile each year. Lands in Baldwin County were also essential in the supply of food and naval stores for the growing French enclave in Mobile.

Following d’Iberville’s direction, the French remained very aware of the importance of a workable relationship between themselves and the Indians, for safety and for trade. As a result, the French cultivated a bond with the Choctaw and the Creek, but failed to convince the Alabamu of their good intensions. So even though the French departed from the heavy handed approach of their predecessors, they never gained the complete trust of the Gulf Coast Indians.

Throughout the 18th century, French settlers established themselves along the expanse of the Eastern Shore of Mobile Bay. Around 1700, Jacques Cook founded a community in Bon Secour named for the Montreal Cathedral Notre Dame de Bon-Secour. In 1715, Joseph Simon de la Pointe settled a parcel along the mouth of Weeks Bay, while later on, Augustin Rochan carved out a plantation in the Spanish Fort area. Many of the French settlers that carved out homes in the wilds of Baldwin, remained to protect their interests after the British influence along the Gulf Coast gained strength. They worked alongside inhabitants such as British Major Robert Farmar, whose Farm Hall plantation dominated the Tensaw River in Stockton.

The close of the French and Indian War in 1763, brought an end to French control in Baldwin and elsewhere in North America and ushered in the reign of the British. And while they established control of Mobile, the English political emphasis became focused on Pensacola. Major Robert Farmar entrenched British military and political control in Mobile with immediate enhancements to the viability of the French Fort Charlotte. Even though British Governor for West Florida, George Johnstone, made Pensacola his capitol, Mobile remained an important element in the control of the region, especially in the realm of the complex political and economic affairs associated local Indian leaders. And, as such, Farmar remained integral in strengthening the English presence in the region.

Farmar, like his French counterparts before him, was intrigued with the potential for land acquisition in Baldwin County. And, much like many other officers along the frontier of North America, he saw an opportunity to make a place for himself and his family for his post military life. In the end, he purchased property in the future Stockton community which he named Farm Hall and there built a large home on the Tensaw River.

The British affiliation with the Choctaw and Creek distanced them from the tarnished relationship left by decades of abuse and mistrust associated with the Spanish. Farmar insisted on highlighting the differences between his command and that of his predecessors in an October 1763 memorandum to his officers:

You are to use your utmost endeavours to Cultivate, and preserve a good understanding with the Indians, obliging all that Trade with them, to deal Justly, take care that they give full, and just weight, and measure, such as shall attempt in any respect to defraud them, seize their persons, and Effects, and after satisfying the Indians (which I take for granted will be the injured party) oblige the aggressors to leave the Country, that by these acts of Strict Justice, the Indians may receive a good impression of the English Nation, which their late Masters have endeavoured by every artifice to figure to them in the worst Light.

The American Revolution wrought even more change on the Alabama Gulf Coast as the British grudgingly left their Mobile and Pensacola strongholds once again in the hands of the Spanish. The end of the war also steered more American settlers toward Baldwin. During the eight year conflict, however, numerous British Tories made their way into the region to escape the conflict along the eastern seaboard, and to hopefully find a more welcoming environment among the people of the Mobile Bay region. Instead what they found was the increasing tensions between white settlers and the Indians in conjunction with a split in the Creek Nation as how to manage this influx of pioneers.

Violent upheaval in 1813, signaled a turning point in the development of Baldwin County. Militarized bands of Creek Indians (Red Sticks) raided a makeshift fort (Fort Mims) in North Baldwin County and killed nearly 250 of the settlers that had sought safety at the Mims farm. That bloody affair in August 1813, condemned all Creeks and a way of life that had spanned generations.

Driven by the desire for vengeance, whites in the territory called on Andrew Jackson to remove the Indian threat. He did so, and with the Battle at Horseshoe Bend, the dominance of the Native American, at least in the southeastern United States, was over. Jackson extended his mandate as he marched on New Orleans to face the British who sought to regain their foothold in North America. With his striking victory over the British in January 1815, the United States could lay claim to the lands of West Florida that remained in the feeble control of the Spanish. Thus, by 1819, the vast lands of the Florida panhandle and beyond were officially turned over to the United States in the Adams-Onis Treaty--incorporating a large portion of the future Baldwin County into the Union.

Settlement in Baldwin County along the rivers and Mobile Bay came first with the prehistoric Indians that built mounds, hunted the swamps and nurtured the fields of the upper river delta. The arrival of Europeans forever changed the life of the indigenous population, revolutionized the history of the region and provided the social underpinning for those who chose to settle there. While many current residents of the county can trace their heritage to a second wave of immigration that took place in the late 19th and early 20th century, the foundation of Baldwin County was laid by the efforts of these early settlers, both Indian and European. The synthesis of these varied peoples makes Baldwin County unique, and its heritage rich.