Iberville, Pierre Le Moyne d'

Iberville, Pierre Le Moyne d'

(baptized July 20, 1661, Ville-Marie de Montréal—died July 9, 1706, Havana, Cuba, Spanish empire) French Canadian naval hero and explorer. As a young man he led raids on English fur-trading posts on Hudson Bay. He commanded expeditions against British settlements that by 1697 had expanded the area controlled by New France. He then ventured south to fortify the Mississippi River delta and secure the claim made on Louisiana by La Salle. The settlement Iberville founded on Biloxi Bay (1699) and the forts he built below present-day New Orleans (1700) and on the Mobile River (1702) led to the later colonization of Louisiana.