Fort Tombecbe

Fort Tombecbe (Fort de Tombecbé), also spelled Tombecbee and Tombeché, was a stockade fort located on the Tombigbee River near the border of French Louisiana, in what is now Sumter County, Alabama. It was constructed under the leadership of Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville in 1736-37 as trading post about 270 mi upriver from Mobile, on an 80 ft limestone bluff. Fort Tombecbe was built in Choctaw lands and would play a major role in colonial France's efforts to stop English intrusions into the area. Bienville claimed that the new fort was to protect the Choctaw from the Chickasaw. Tombecbe was a major French outpost and trade depot among the Choctaw, the largest Native American group in the colony. Control passed to the British in 1763, who renamed it Fort York. In 1793 Spain acquired the site—by then the fort had been abandoned—from the Choctaw via the Treaty of Boukfouka and built a new fort, which was named Fort Confederacion. It is also known as Fort Confederation. After the United States took possession, via the 1802 Treaty of Fort Confederation, it continued to be used as a trading post with the Choctaws until its eventual abandonment in the 19th century.

The Fort Tombecbe site is currently owned by the University of West Alabama and the Archaeological Conservancy, and operated by the staff of the Black Belt Museum.