Two or more French ships sailed from the port of La Rochelle, in western France on the Atlantic during the French Colonial period in Louisiana (1718-1763). They landed in Senegal at Isle Gorée at the mouth of the Senegal River, Isle St. Louis or at Judah (Ouidah, Whydah) to purchase captifs, often Wolofs (Jolofs, Diaulaufs) and Bambara from their Mandingo captors. Ships would then sail to Isle Dauphine at the foot of Mobile Bay, Nouveau Biloxi on the Mississppi Sound or La Balise near the foot of the Mississippi River where the captifs disembarked. Some were used at the brickworks at La Balise, as carpenters, to load and unload ships, to row pirogues and boats, even as sailors. Others were brought to New Orleans to the Plantation of the Company of the Indies on the West Bank of the Mississippi as agricultural workers for rice, indigo, tobacco, sugar and much later cotton.