Black and White Paint Mare

Wetumpka was long settled by the Muscogee people, whose territory extended through present-day Georgia and Alabama. Their largest towns were on the banks of the Coosa and at its confluence with the Tallapoosa River, at Wetumpka and Talisi (now Tallassee), respectively. After moving the 1702 settlement of Mobile to Mobile Bay in 1711, Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville sent an expedition up the Alabama River to establish a fort in the interior of the colony, known as La Louisiane or New France, to stop the encroachment of British colonists and to foster trade and goodwill with the Creek. Bienville directed the construction of Fort Toulouse along the Coosa River in 1714, 4 miles (6 km) above the confluence of the Coosa and Tallapoosa rivers and the Creek village of Taskigi. Bienville selected this area as a strategic locale for a fortification.