Mobile

The Mobile, also called Mobila or Mauvilla, were a Muskogean-speaking people whose fortified town of Mabila stood on the Alabama River southwest of Selma. In 1540 their chief Tuskaloosa lured Hernando de Soto's Spanish expedition into an ambush at Mabila, but the Spaniards burned the town and killed most of its estimated 2,500 to 3,000 warriors.

The survivors drifted south toward Mobile Bay, where the French found them around 1700. Seeking protection from their enemies, the Mobile were allowed in about 1708 to settle beside Fort Louis together with the Tohome; a raid that year destroyed only a few of their houses.

Most of the Mobile converted to Christianity and allied with the French, numbering together with the Tohome about 350 families. Church registers mention them until 1761, after which they disappear as a distinct tribe.