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Birmingham,
Mobile, Montgomery, Huntsville, Tuscaloosa, Anniston,
Gadsden, Decatur, Dothan, Florence, Athens, Bessemer,
Cullman, Jasper, Opelika, Phenix City, Atmore, Auburn,
Madison, Monroeville, Northport, Prattville, Selma, Troy,
Alexander City, Albertville, Boaz, Brewton, Clanton,
Enterprise |
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Agriculture was
practiced by Indians such as the Creeks and Cherokee in the
east, and the Choctaws and Chickasaws in the west when
Spanish explorers arrived. The first known European contact
with what would become Alabama occurred in 1519 when Alonso
Alvarez de Pineda sailed in Mobile Bay. Cabeza de Vaca (and
possibly Pánfilo de Narvaez) visited Alabama in 1528, and
the Spanish did not really explore the area for another two
decades, when Hernando de Soto led an expedition into the
region about 1540.
Conflict between the Spanish and local Indian tribes, as
well as French and English explorers, kept the Spanish from
establishing a colony. The first permanent European settlers
in Alabama were French. The LeMoyne brothers, Pierre LeMoyne,
Sieur d'Iberville, and Jean Baptiste LeMoyne, Sieur de
Bienville, sailed into Mobile Bay in 1699, and in 1702 the
French were established at Fort Louis de la Mobile, the
first permanent European presence, near present day Mobile.
The French and British contended for the furs gathered by
Native Americans. The British gained control of the area in
1763 by the Treaty of Paris after the French and Indian
Wars, but had to cede almost all the Alabama region to the
U.S. and Spain after the American Revolution. When Spain
declared war on Great Britain in 1779, the American
Revolution came to Alabama. In 1780, Bernardo Galvez
captured Mobile from the British. At the close of the
American Revolution, Great Britain ceded (1783) to the
United States all lands east of the Mississippi except the
Floridas (see West Florida Controversy). The Territory of
Mississippi, which included parts of present-day Alabama,
was set up in 1798, but the land was still largely a
wilderness with a considerable fur trade, centered at Saint
Stephens, and with only the beginnings of cotton
cultivation.
In 1795, the Treaty of San Lorenzo more specifically stated
that all Alabama lands below the 31st parallel belonged to
Spain, and lands above the 31st parallel belonged to the
United States and in turn to the Native Americans living
there. At the same time the Ellicott Line was being
surveyed, “squatters” (those having no legal claim to the
lands they settled) began to move into Alabama forcing the
various tribes off their lands. Washington, the first
Alabama county, was created in 1800 from Mississippi
Territory. The area below the 31st parallel was added to
Mississippi Territory in 1812.
Both the fur trade and cotton production were interrupted
during the War of 1812, when part of the Creek Confederacy
began attacking under William Weatherford. Andrew Jackson
defeated a group of Native Americans at Horseshoe Bend on
Mar. 27, 1814. That victory, coupled with the British demand
for cotton, ushered in a period of heavy settlement. New
settlers poured into the Alabama region, especially from
Georgia and Tennessee. The wealthy newcomers settled in the
fertile bottomlands and established large plantations based
on slave labor, which helped to produce cotton for the
markets of Southern ports. Poorer newcomers took over less
fertile uplands, where they eked out a living. The
population grew to such an extent that the Territory of
Alabama, taking Saint Stephens as its capital, was set up in
1817 with William W. Bibb as governor; two years later it
became a state, and, in 1835, the last native lands were
ceded.
During those early years of statehood the most significant
genealogical event was the opening of lands formerly held by
Native Americans to white settlers between 1802 and 1835.
Mary Elizabeth Young, Redskins, Ruffleshirts and Rednecks:
Indian Allotments in Alabama and Mississippi, 1830–1860
(Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 1961), details
these developments. By 1840 all but a few scattered tribes
had been moved west beyond the Mississippi River.
Alabama suffered economic and agricultural problems in the
1840s and 1850s. The financial panic and depression which
swept across the United States in 1837 resulted in banking
problems that caused many Alabamians to lose their savings.
Crops were ruined by drought, and several epidemics of
yellow fever brought added suffering.
In Alabama the slave-owning planters were dominant because
of the prosperous cotton crop, and as the Civil War loomed
closer, the support of Southern rights and secession
sentiment grew under the urging of “fire-eaters” such as
William L. Yancey. And it was there in Montgomery, which was
named the as the permanent state capital in 1846, that on 11
January 1861, that the Ordinance of Secession was passed,
forming the Confederate States of America.
The government of the Confederacy was organized at
Montgomery on Feb. 4, 1861. Montgomery was named as the
capital of the fledgling nation and Jefferson Davis became
the first president of the Confederacy.
One of the principal naval battles of the war was won by
Admiral D. G. Farragut in Mobile Bay in August of 1864,
coupled with Sherman's march to the sea in Georgia cut off
the two major seaports of the Confederacy and harkened the
end of the bloodiest conflict in American history.
However, most of the state was not occupied in force until
1865. When compared with other Confederate states, Alabama,
with the exception of the Mobile area, experienced
relatively little military action. However, the conflict
devastated the economic, political, and social life of the
state. Though the state was readmitted to the Union on 25
June 1868, the devastation continued through the
Reconstruction period. The deepening poverty experienced
resulted in mass migration. Alabama ratified the Thirteenth
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1865, but in 1867 it
refused to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment and was placed
under military rule. That rule ended the following year when
a new state legislature operating under a new constitution
approved the Fourteenth Amendment. However, federal troops
did not leave Alabama until 1876, and African Americans
continued to suffer enormous oppression for decades.
In the Reconstruction era Alabama's government was dominated
by the so-called carpetbaggers and scalawags, and corruption
was widespread. Few reforms emerged during the period; but
the mining of coal and iron was expanded by Daniel Pratt and
his successor, H. F. De Bardeleben, marking the rise of
industry in Alabama.
In the 1860s and 1870s, 10 to 15 percent of the entire white
population of Alabama migrated, with a third of these
migrants going to Texas. Railroads were completed across the
state in the 1870s, leading to the industry of mining of
Alabama's rich mineral deposits of coal, iron ore, and
limestone. By 1880, steel, iron, lumber, and textile
industries were rapidly expanding.
In 1915 the boll weevil devastated the state's one crop
cotton economy, forcing a diversification in agriculture.
FDR's New Deal touched the northern part of the state as the
creation of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) brought
work to the northern part of the state during the deepest
darkest hours of the Depression. The construction of locks
and dams along the Tennessee River brought commercial barge
navigation, as well as electricity, to the rural areas along
the river.
Alabama's industry and commerce grew with the United States'
entry into World War I. Agricultural production increased,
and a significant growth in Mobile's shipbuilding industry
led to increased foreign trade. During the Great Depression,
Alabamians suffered new financial hardships. The Tennessee
Valley Authority, established in 1933 by the federal
government, developed dams and power plants on the Tennessee
River for inexpensive electricity, boosting Alabama's
industrial growth.
World War II led to expansion of the state's agricultural
and industrial production, and installation of several
military training sites, including Redstone Arsenal in
Huntsville —which launched the United States into the space
age.
During the 1950s and 1960s, agriculture and industry became
more diversified, requiring fewer agricultural workers who
were forced to seek employment in urban areas outside the
state. Alabama faced serious racial questions during the
time period. When Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on
a Montgomery bus, the 381-day bus boycott brought the Civil
Rights movement to the front page of newspapers across the
country.
In 1954 the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a decision ruling
racial segregation in public elementary and secondary
schools unconstitutional, and the decision was followed by
an intensification of racial tension (see integration).
Alabama has witnessed many civil-rights protests, including
a year-long black boycott of public buses in Montgomery in
1955–56 to protest segregated seating and a Freedom March
from Montgomery to Selma led by Martin Luther King Jr. in
1965.
George C. Wallace, a Democrat elected governor in 1962,
fought the federally ordered integration of schools in
Alabama. He was reelected three times: 1970, 1974, and 1982,
the final time with substantial African-American support. In
1968 he entered the U.S. presidential race as the candidate
of the American Independent party. He ran for the presidency
twice more—in 1972 and 1976.
Since the late 1970s, public attention has largely shifted
to economic issues, and major efforts have been made to
achieve growth by encouraging further diversification of
manufacturing industries. A notable success in this campaign
was the building by Mercedes-Benz of auto assembly plant in
Alabama. The Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, a 254-mile
(682-km) canal connecting the port of Mobile with the
industries that have developed in N Alabama and elsewhere
along the Tennessee, opened in 1985. In 1995 Hurricane Opal
caused extensive damage in Alabama as far north as
Montgomery.
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