<P> New Orleans was founded in Spring of 1718 by the French as Nouvelle - Orléans , under the direction of Jean - Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville . After considering several alternatives , Bienville selected the site for several strategic reasons and practical considerations , including : it was relatively high ground , along a sharp bend of the flood - prone Mississippi River , which thus created a natural levee ( previously chosen as the site of an abandoned Quinipissa village ) ; it was adjacent to the trading route and portage between the Mississippi and Lake Pontchartrain via Bayou St. John , offering access to the Gulf of Mexico port of Biloxi without going downriver 100 miles ; and it offered control of the entire Mississippi River Valley , at a safe distance from Spanish and English colonial settlements . From its founding , the French intended it to be an important colonial city . The city was named in honor of the then Regent of France , Philip II , Duke of Orléans . The priest - chronicler Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix described it in 1721 as a place of a hundred wretched hovels in a malarious wet thicket of willows and dwarf palmettos , infested by serpents and alligators ; he seems to have been the first , however , to predict for it an imperial future . In 1722 , Nouvelle - Orléans was made the capital of French Louisiana , replacing Biloxi in that role . </P>
<P> New Orleans was founded in Spring of 1718 by the French as Nouvelle - Orléans , under the direction of Jean - Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville . After considering several alternatives , Bienville selected the site for several strategic reasons and practical considerations , including : it was relatively high ground , along a sharp bend of the flood - prone Mississippi River , which thus created a natural levee ( previously chosen as the site of an abandoned Quinipissa village ) ; it was adjacent to the trading route and portage between the Mississippi and Lake Pontchartrain via Bayou St. John , offering access to the Gulf of Mexico port of Biloxi without going downriver 100 miles ; and it offered control of the entire Mississippi River Valley , at a safe distance from Spanish and English colonial settlements . From its founding , the French intended it to be an important colonial city . The city was named in honor of the then Regent of France , Philip II , Duke of Orléans . The priest - chronicler Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix described it in 1721 as a place of a hundred wretched hovels in a malarious wet thicket of willows and dwarf palmettos , infested by serpents and alligators ; he seems to have been the first , however , to predict for it an imperial future . In 1722 , Nouvelle - Orléans was made the capital of French Louisiana , replacing Biloxi in that role . </P>
when did the french settle in new orleans
when did the french settle in new orleans
1718
1718