Plantation Archaeology at Riviere Aux Chiens, ca 1725-1848

When the French began colonizing the Mobile Bay area early in 1702, one of the first places they explored was a small estuary on the western shore, Riviere aux Chiens or Dog River. A patch of ground near the river's mouth, about twenty feet higher than the adjacent expansive marshes, attracted their attention. There, on the south bank. the expedition's leader, Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville, had his men construct a warehouse as a way station for the crews of small sailing craft that would ferry goods far upstream to the Louisiane colony's first capital at Twenty-seven Mile Buff on the Mobile River. That warehouse was short-lived, but by the mid-1720s that bluff attracted the Rochon family, who constructed a home there. For the next 125 years, the Rochons and their descendants operated a diversified, slave-labor plantation engaged in cattle raising, crop agriculture, and forest products, such as wood and tar. Extensive excavations from 1994 to 1998 investigated a large swath across the middle of this plantation site, in conjunction with state highway bridge replacement. The result is the most thoroughly investigated historic plantation site in the area of Mobile, Alabama

1702年初，法国殖民者着手开发莫比尔湾（Mobile Bay）区域时，他们最先探查的地点之一是西岸一处小型河口：狗河（Riviere aux Chiens，Dog River）。河口附近一处比周边广阔沼泽高出约20英尺的高地引起了他们的注意。在该河的南岸，探险队领袖皮埃尔·勒莫因·德·伊贝尔维尔（Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville）下令手下搭建一座仓库，作为小型帆船船员的中途补给站——这些帆船负责将货物运至上游深处，运往路易斯安那殖民地（Louisiane colony）的首个首府莫比尔河沿岸的二十七英里滩（Twenty-seven Mile Buff）。这座仓库并未长期留存，但到1720年代中期，这片陡岸高地吸引了罗雄家族（Rochon family），他们在此修建了一处宅邸。在随后的125年间，罗雄家族及其后代经营着一座多元化的奴隶种植园，业务涵盖畜牧养殖、作物种植以及木材、焦油等林产品生产。1994年至1998年间，配合州级公路桥梁更换工程，研究人员对该种植园遗址中部的大片区域开展了大规模考古发掘。此次发掘成果使该遗址成为阿拉巴马州（Alabama）莫比尔区域内研究最为深入的历史性种植园遗址。