In 1704 the ship Pélican delivered 23 French women to the colony. Passengers had contracted yellow fever at a stop in Havana, and though most of the "Pélican girls" recovered, numerous colonists and neighboring Native Americans contracted the disease in turn and many died.

Alabama's only saltwater port, Mobile is located on the Mobile River at the head of the Mobile Bay and the north-central Gulf Coast.

The red imported fire ant (Solenopsis invicta) first arrived in the seaport of Mobile by cargo ship between 1933 and 1945. The population of these ants exploded by the 1950s, spreading throughout the southern states and northeastern Mexico, negatively affecting wildlife and causing economic damage.

The last slaves to enter the United States from the African trade were brought to Mobile on the slave ship Clotilda. Among them was Cudjoe Lewis, who in the 1920s became the last survivor of the slave trade.