text: While part of the same large language family, the Muskogee tribes developed distinct cultures and languages.European settlement The Spanish were the first Europeans to reach Alabama during their exploration of North America in the 16th century.The expedition of Hernando de Soto passed through Mabila and other parts of the state in 1540.More than 160 years later, the French founded the region's first European settlement at Old Mobile in 1702.The city was moved to the current site of Mobile in 1711.This area was claimed by the French from 1702 to 1763 as part of La Louisiane.After the French lost to the British in the Seven Years' War, it became part of British West Florida from 1763 to 1783.After the United States victory in the American Revolutionary War, the territory was divided between the United States and Spain.The latter retained control of this western territory from 1783 until the surrender of the Spanish garrison at Mobile to U.S.forces on April 13, 1813.Thomas Bassett, a loyalist to the British monarchy during the Revolutionary era, was one of the earliest white settlers in the state outside Mobile.He settled in the Tombigbee District during the early 1770s.The district's boundaries were roughly limited to the area within a few miles of the Tombigbee River and included portions of what is today southern Clarke County, northernmost Mobile County, and most of Washington County.What is now the counties of Baldwin and Mobile became part of Spanish West Florida in 1783, part of the independent Republic of West Florida in 1810, and was finally added to the Mississippi Territory in 1812.Most of what is now the northern two-thirds of Alabama was known as the Yazoo lands beginning during the British colonial period.It was claimed by the Province of Georgia from 1767 onwards.Following the Revolutionary War, it remained a part of Georgia, although heavily disputed.