Introduction to History of Alabama
Archeological findings indicate that Indians inhabited parts of Alabama as early as 6000 B.C. Mound-building Indians began to appear some 2,000 years ago. They were displaced by the ancestors of the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws—the principal tribes in Alabama at the time of European settlement in the 18th century.
Important dates in Alabama1519 Alonso Alvarez de Pineda sailed into Mobile Bay.1540 Hernando de Soto explored much of what is now Alabama.1559 Tristan de Luna established several temporary settlements in what is now Alabama.1702 French Canadians founded Fort Louis on the Mobile River. In 1711, the colony moved to what is now Mobile.1763 France gave the Alabama region to Britain.1783 Britain gave the United States much of what is now Alabama. It gave the Mobile region to Spain.1795 The United States and Spain signed the Treaty of San Lorenzo, setting the southern boundary of the United States at the 31st parallel, across Alabama.1813 The United States captured Mobile Bay from Spain.1814 The Creek Indians surrendered nearly half the present state of Alabama to the United States.1817 The Alabama Territory was created.1819 Alabama became the 22nd state on Dec. 14.1861 Alabama seceded from the Union on Jan. 11 and became the Republic of Alabama until Feb. 8, when it joined the Confederacy.1868 Alabama was readmitted to the Union on June 25.1880 The state's first blast furnace began operating in Birmingham.1901 The present state constitution was adopted.1933 The federal government created the Tennessee Valley Authority.1940's The Redstone Arsenal at Huntsville became a center of rocket and spacecraft research.1956 A federal court ordered Montgomery to desegregate its public bus system.1960 The George C. Marshall Space Flight Center was established in Huntsville.1965 Civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., led a march from Selma to Montgomery to demonstrate the demands of blacks for an end to discrimination in voter registration.1974 George C. Wallace became the first Alabama governor to be elected to a third term. He won a fourth term in 1982.1985 Completion of the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway linked the Alabama port of Mobile with ports on the Tennessee and Ohio rivers.European Exploration and Settlement
The first Europeans to explore the territory were Spaniards under the command of Alonso de Piñeda in 1519. In 1540 Hernando de Soto claimed Alabama for Spain while leading an expedition in search of gold and silver. In October, in a bloody battle near what is now Selma, de Soto defeated Indians (ancestors of the Choctaws and Creeks) under Chief Tuscaloosa. Although Spain nominally held possession of the area for more than 150 years, few Spaniards entered Alabama. A colony founded by Tristán de Luna near Mobile Bay in 1559 was abandoned three years later.
France claimed Alabama as part of French Louisiana after the Sieur de La Salle's exploration of the Mississippi, 1681–82. In 1702 a settlement was founded by the Sieur de Bienville at Fort Louis on the Mobile River and designated the capital of Louisiana. In 1711 the colony was moved to the present site of Mobile. Trade was carried on with the Indians. However, the French, like the Spanish before them, found little in Alabama to reward their efforts.
Great Britain gained possession of the area in 1763 as a result of its victory in the French and Indian War. British settlers came to the territory in increasing numbers. Twenty years later, the greater part of present-day Alabama was ceded to the United States by the Treaty of Paris, which ended the Revolutionary War. The coastal region, however, was ceded to Spain as part of West Florida.
Statehood
Most of Alabama was included in Mississippi Territory, organized in 1798. A dispute between Georgia and South Carolina over a section of northern Alabama was resolved in 1804, when the land was added to Mississippi Territory.
Since much of Alabama remained in the hands of the Indians, white settlements centered around Mobile in West Florida. The United States claimed this area in 1803 as part of the Louisiana Purchase, but not until the War of 1812 were American forces able to capture Mobile (1813). The Creek Indians, who had allied themselves with the British, were decisively defeated by Andrew Jackson's troops at the battle of Horseshoe Bend in 1814. They were forced to give up all but a small part of their land.
In 1817 Mississippi Territory was divided into the state of Mississippi and the Territory of Alabama. On December 14, 1819, Alabama became a state, with its capital at Cahaba. The capital was later moved to Tuscaloosa and in 1846 to Montgomery.
From 1800 to 1830, population increased from about 1,250 to nearly 310,000. This surge of people to Alabama had several causes—the end of the War of 1812, the defeat of the Indians, and a substantial rise in the British demand for cotton. Cotton culture was thriving in the bottomlands and the Black Belt. The first cotton gin in the state had been built in 1802; by the 1830's, cotton mills were being constructed. During the 1830's, the Indian tribes of Alabama were removed by the federal government to the Indian Territory (now Oklahoma).
Alabama developed economic, social, and political structures based on the plantation system and slavery. It strongly favored the expansion of slavery and supported the Mexican War (1846–48) in the hope that more slave territory would be gained. As the conflict between North and South intensified in the 1850's, Alabama moved toward secession.
Civil War and Reconstruction
In January, 1861, Alabama seceded from the Union and declared itself an independent republic. In February, Alabama joined the Confederacy; Montgomery became the first Confederate capital. During the Civil War, Union forces penetrated the Tennessee Valley in 1862. At Mobile Bay in 1864, Admiral David G. Farragut destroyed the Confederate fleet and seized the forts around Mobile. The state was occupied by Union troops in 1865.
The Reconstruction period following the Civil War was a decade of continued upheaval. Alabama was ruled first by the military and then by a Republican coalition that included blacks, recently arrived Northerners (derisively called carpetbaggers), and local whites who supported Reconstruction (called scalawags). .) Inflation and inefficiency and corruption in government brought bankruptcy to the state's war-ravaged economy. However, some beneficial social services were effected, particularly in education. In the election of 1874, conservative Democrats, running on a platform of economy and honesty in government and white supremacy, were restored to power, and Reconstruction in Alabama came to an end.
The political aftermath of Reconstruction was one-party rule by the Democratic party and determined efforts to maintain white supremacy. Alabama's industrialization began in the late 19th century with the opening of some steel and cotton mills and the expansion of coal and iron mining. The state, however, remained predominantly agricultural. Cotton continued to be the predominant crop, and Alabama's prosperity depended on the demand for that commodity.
20th and 21st Centuries
Agitation by white farmers in the 1890's for improved economic and social conditions eventually led to a number of reforms and gained them a degree of political power. In 1901 a new constitution was adopted. Among its provisions was the virtual disenfranchisement of blacks, whose voting power was viewed by whites as a threat to their control of the state.
Early in the century, diversified farming began. This change was brought about by soil depletion, the ravages of the boll weevil, and the demand for food crops during World War I. Rapid industrialization began in the 1930's and 1940's, when expansion was spurred by hydroelectric power from the Tennessee Valley Authority and by World War II production demands. After the war, industrial growth continued. In 1949 a rocket research center was built at Huntsville.
Racial tension was high after the U.S. Supreme Court's 1954 decision on school desegregation. During 1955–56, the modern civil rights movement began in Montgomery, when blacks led by Martin Luther King, Jr., ended segregated seating on municipal buses. In the 1950's and 1960's, Alabama was the scene of widespread civil rights demonstrations and determined resistance by segregationists. In 1965 Selma was the site of violence when police attacked demonstrators, led by King, who were protesting discrimination in voter registration. This incident led to the passage of the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Ongoing financial problems came to a head in 2003, when the state government's general fund had a $675 million shortage. When an attempt to increase taxes was defeated by voters, Governor Bob Riley cut state agency budgets. By 2006, the unemployment rate was the lowest in the history of the state. That same year, Alabama voters elected a woman, Sue Bell Cobb, as the first female justice of the state Supreme Court.