Colonial history of the United States Lower Louisiana. This vast tract was first settled at Mobile and Biloxi around 1700, and continued to grow when 7,000 French immigrants founded New Orleans in 1718. Settlement proceeded very slowly; New Orleans became an important port as the gateway to the Mississippi River, but there was little other economic development because the city lacked a prosperous hinterland. In 1763, Louisiana was ceded to Spain around New Orleans and west of the Mississippi River. In the 1780s, the western border of the newly independent United States stretched to the Mississippi River. The United States reached an agreement with Spain for
Freemasonry in Spain of France]] or the Traditional and Symbolic Grand Lodge among others. [[File:GOI sello.jpg|thumb|200px | left | Seal of the Grand Orient of Iberia]] Similarly, in 2001, the Grand Orient of Iberia, a liberal obedience which, like the Symbolic Grand Lodge of Spain, welcomes male, female and mixed lodges and works mostly in the [[French Rite]] both in the Iberian peninsula and in Mexico and France. In 2010 it had thirteen lodges, with one in Mexico City and two in Paris. In 2007, the Iberian United Grand Lodge, an obedience which observed traditional regularity but not recognised by the United Grand