ALABAMA - HISTORY The first Europeans to enter the limits of the present state of Alabama were Spaniards, who claimed this region as a part of Florida. The first fully authenticated visit was that of Hernando de Soto, who journeyed along the Coosa, Alabama, and Tombig bee rivers in 1539-40. The English, too, claimed the region north of the Gulf of Mexico, and the territory of modern Alabama was included in the province of Carolina by the charters of 1663 and 1665. English traders from Carolina were frequenting the valley of the Alabama river as early as 1687. Fort Conde, the germ of the present city of Mobile, and the first permanent white settle ment in Alabama, was founded by the French in 1711. Later, on account of intrigues between English traders and the Indians, the French as a means of defence established several military posts. The grant of Georgia to Gen. J. E. Oglethorpe and his associates in 1732 included a portion of what is now northern Ala bama, and in 1739 Oglethorpe himself visited the Creek Indians west of the Chattahoochee river and made a treaty with them. The treaty of Paris, in 1763, terminated the French occupation, and England came into undisputed possession of the region be tween the Chattahoochee and the Mississippi. The portion of Alabama below the 31st parallel then became a part of West Florida, and the portion north of this line a part of the "Illinois country," set apart, by royal proclamation, for the use of the Indians. In 1767 the province of West Florida was extended northward to 32° 28' N., and a few years later, during the War of Independence, this region fell into the hands of Spain. By the treaty of Versailles, on Sept. 3, 1783, England ceded West Florida to Spain; but by the treaty of Paris, signed the same day, she ceded to the United States all of this province north of 35°, and thus laid the foundation for a long controversy. By the treaty of Madrid, in 1795, Spain ceded to the United States her claims to the lands east of the Mississippi between 31° and 32° 28'; and three years later (1798) this district was organized by Congress as the Mississippi territory. A strip of land 12 or 14m. wide near the present northern boundary of Alabama and Mississippi was claimed by South Carolina; but in 1787 she ceded this claim to the general Government. Georgia claimed all the lands between the 31st and 35th parallels from its present western boundary to the Mississippi river, a claim not surrendered until 1802 ; two years later the boundaries of the Mississippi territory were ex tended so as to include all of the Georgia cession. In 1812 Con gress annexed to the Mississippi territory the Mobile district of West Florida, claiming that it was included in the Louisiana pur chase; and in the following year Gen. J. Wilkinson occupied this district with a military force, the Spanish commandant offering no resistance. The whole area of the present state of Alabama then for the first time became subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. In 1817 the Mississippi territory was divided ; the western portion became the state of Mississippi, and the eastern the territory of Alabama, with St. Stephens, on the 'Tombigbee river, as the temporary seat of government. In 1819 Alabama was admitted to the Union as a state.
of the first problems of the new commonwealth was that of finance. Since the amount of money in circulation was insufficient to meet the demands of the increasing population, a system of state banks was instituted. State bonds were issued and public lands sold to secure capital. The notes of the banks, loaned on security, became a medium of exchange. Prospects of an income from the banks led the legis lature of 1836 to abolish all taxation for state purposes. This was hardly done, however, before the panic of 1837 wiped out a large portion of the banks' assets; next came revelations of careless and corrupt management, and in 1843 the banks were placed in liquidation. After disposing of all their available assets, the state assumed the remaining liabilities, for which it had pledged itself. The Indian Problem.—TheIndian problem was important. With the encroachment of the white settlers upon their hunting grounds the Creek Indians grew restless, and the great Shawnee chief Tecumseh, who visited them in 181r, fomented their dis content. When the outbreak of the second war with Great Britain in 1812 gave the Creeks assurance of British aid they rose in arms, massacred several hundred settlers who had taken refuge in Fort Mims, near the junction of the Alabama and Tombigbee ' rivers, and soon no white family in the Creek country was safe outside a palisade. The Chickasaw and Choctaw Indians, however, remained the faithful allies of the whites, and volunteers from Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee, and later United States troops under Gen. Andrew Jackson, broke forever the power of the Creek confederacy. By the treaty of Fort Jackson (Aug. 9, 1814) the Creeks ceded their claims to about one-half of the present state ; and cessions by the Cherokees, Chickasaws and Choctaws in 1816 left the Indians only about one-fourth of Ala bama. In 1832 the national Government provided for the removal of the Creeks ; but before the contract was effected, the state legislature formed the Indian lands into counties, and settlers flocked in. A disagreement ensued between Alabama and the United States authorities; although it was amicably settled, it engendered a feeling that the policy of the national Government might not be in harmony with the interests of the state—a feeling which, intensified by the slavery agitation, did much to cause secession in 1861.
Thepolitical history of Alabama may be divided into three periods—that prior to 1860, from 186o to 1876, and from 1876 onwards.
The first is the only period of altogether healthy political life. Until 1832 the democratic was the only party in the state, but the question of nullification caused a division that year into the (Jackson) democratic party and the States' rights (Calhoun dem ocratic) party; about the same time, the whig party was formed chiefly in counties where slaves were most numerous and the free men most aristocratic. For some time the whigs were nearly as numerous as the democrats, but they never controlled the state Government. The States' Rights men were in a minority; neverthe less, under their active and persistent leader, W. L. Yancey (1814-1863), they prevailed upon the democrats in 1848 to adopt their most radical views.
Duringthe agitation over the introduction of slavery into the territory acquired from Mexico, Yancey induced the democratic state convention of 1848 to adopt what is known as the "Alabama platform," which declared that neither Congress nor the government of a territory had the right to interfere with slavery in a territory, that those who held opposite views were not democrats, and that the democrats of Alabama would not support a candidate for the presidency if he did not agree with them on these questions. This platform was endorsed by conventions in Florida and Virginia and by the legis latures of Georgia and Alabama. Old party lines were broken by the compromise of 1850. The States' rights party, joined by many democrats, founded the southern rights party, which demanded the repeal of the compromise, advocated resistance to future encroachments, and prepared for secession, while the whigs, joined by the remaining democrats, formed the party known as the "unionists," which unwillingly accepted the compromise and denied the constitutional right of secession. The unionists were successful in the elections of 1851 and 1852, but the feeling of uncertainty engendered in the south by the passage of the Kansas Nebraska bill and the course of the slavery agitation after 1852 led the state democratic convention of 1856 to revive the Ala bama platform; and when the Alabama platform failed to secure the formal approval of the democratic national convention at Charleston, South Carolina, in 186o, the Alabama delegates, fol lowed by those of the other cotton states, withdrew. Upon the election of Abraham Lincoln, Governor Andrew B. Moore, in obedience to previous instructions of the legislature, called a state convention on Jan. 7, 186i. After long debate it adopted on Jan. 11 an ordinance of secession, and Alabama became one of the Confederate states of America, whose government was organ ized at Montgomery Feb. 4, 1861. Yet many prominent men opposed secession, and in northern Alabama, where there were very few slaves, an attempt was made to organize a neutral state, Nickajack ; but with President Lincoln's call to arms all opposition to secession ended.
Inthe early part of the Civil War, Alabama was not the scene of military operations, yet the state contrib uted about 120,000 men to the Confederate service, practically all her white population capable of bearing arms; 39 of these attained the rank of general. In 1863 the Federal forces secured a foothold in northern Alabama in spite of the opposition of Gen. N. B. Forrest, one of the ablest Confederate cavalry leaders. In 1864 the defences of Mobile were taken by a Federal fleet, but the city held out until April 1865 ; in the same month Selma fell.
Accordingto the presidential plan of reorganization, a provisional governor for Alabama was appointed in June 1865; a state convention met in September and declared the ordinance of secession null and void and slavery abolished ; a legislature and a governor were elected in November; the legislature was at once recognized by the na tional Government, and the inauguration of the governor-elect was permitted after the legislature had, in December, ratified the 13th amendment. But the passage, by the legislature, of vagrancy and apprenticeship laws designed to control the negroes flocking from the plantations to the cities, and its rejection of the 14th amendment, so intensified the congressional hostility to the presi dential plan that the Alabama senators and representatives were denied their seats in Congress. In 1867 the congressional plan of reconstruction was completed and Alabama placed under military government. Negroes were now enrolled as voters and large numbers of white citizens disfranchised. A black man's party, composed of negroes and political adventurers known as "carpet baggers," was formed, which co-operated with the republican party. A constitutional convention, controlled by this element, met in Nov. 1867 and framed a constitution which conferred suffrage on negroes and disfranchised a large class of whites. As the whites stayed away from the polls, thus preventing the required majority of legal voters, Congress enacted that a majority of the votes cast should be sufficient, and thus the constitution went into effect, the state was admitted to the Union in June 1868, and a new governor and legislature elected.
The next two years are notable for legislature extravagance and corruption. The state endorsed railway bonds at the rate of $12,00o and $16,000 a mile until the state debt had increased from $8,000,000 to $17,000,000, and similar corruption charac terized local government. The native white people united, formed a conservative party, and elected a governor and a majority of the lower house of the legislature in 18 70 ; but, as the new ad ministration was largely a failure, in 1872 there was a reaction in favour of the radicals, as the republicans were locally known. Affairs went from bad to worse. In 1874, however, the power of the radicals was finally broken, the conservative democrats electing all state officials. A commission appointed to examine the state debt found it to be $25, 503,000 ; by compromise it was reduced to $15,000,000. A new constitution was adopted in
which omitted the guaranty of the previous constitution that no one should be denied suffrage on account of race, colour or previous condition of servitude, and forbade the state to engage in internal improvements or to give its credit to private enter prise.
The Effects of Industrial
Development.—Since18 74, the
democratic party has controlled
the state administration, the
republicans failing to make
nations for office in 1878 and
188o, and endorsing the ticket of the greenback party in 1882.
The development of mining and manufacturing was accompanied
by economic distress among the farming classes, which found
expression in the Jeffersonian democratic party, organized in
1892. The regular democratic ticket was elected and the new
party merged with the populist party. In 1894 the republicans
united with the populists, elected three congressional
tives, and secured control of many of the counties, but failed to
carry the state and continued their opposition with less success in the next campaigns. Partisanship became intense and charges of corruption of the negro electorate were made. Consequently, after division on the subject among the democrats themselves, as well as opposition from republicans and populists, a new con stitution with restrictions on suffrage was adopted in 1901. The new restrictions resulted in the virtual elimination of the negro vote and therefore in a reduction of the republican vote. The republican party, which had polled 54,737 votes in the presidential election of 1896 and 55,634 votes in the election of 1900, polled only 22,472 votes in the election of 1904. Its vote remained at about that level until 1920, when the effects of economic changes began to appear in elections. In the presidential election of that year the republican vote was 74,69o, or 31.9% of the vote cast- more than enough to secure the privilege of a primary for the nomination of candidates in the next election, at the expense of the state Government. The gains of the republican party were registered chiefly in the growing industrial districts, such as Chil ton, DeKalb, St. Clair and Winston counties, in which the party polled majorities, and in Blount, Clay, Cullman, Jefferson, Mar shall, Shelby and Walker counties, in which it polled strong minorities. Although its vote fell off to 45,005 in 1924, the strik ing increase in the republican vote from 1904 to 1924 and the appearance of a socialist vote are considered by many the normal result of industrial development and by some as a sign of the future break-up of the "solid-south." The threatening poll of 120,724 for Hoover in 1928 was due largely to sectarian hostility to Smith, who yet carried the State. Roosevelt won easily in 1932 by 207,910 to 34,674 and in 1936 by 238,195 to 35,358.
Two important amendments were added to the constitution of 1901 : one provided for local option by counties and school dis tricts as to increased taxation for public schools; the other au thorized the issue of state bonds to the amount of $25,000,00o for the construction of a complete system of highways, thus securing for the state the national appropriations in aid of that policy, and in 1927 an additional $25,000,00o was authorized, for the con tinuance of the work. The problems of the depression in the early thirties compelled several emergency measures and permanent re forms. A special convention voted for repeal of the federal pro hibition amendment ; a special legislature passed a measure to validate some $17,000,00o in outstanding state warrants largely held by teachers, and another providing a state income tax; both of these measures were ratified by popular vote.
an elaborate bibliography of Alabama, see T. Bibliography.--For an elaborate bibliography of Alabama, see T. M. Owen, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for 1897 (1898) . Information regarding the resources, climate, population and industries of Alabama may be found in the reports of the United States Census ; the publications of the United States Department of Agriculture and the United States Geological Survey ; the bulletins of the Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station
Auburn, from 1888) ; the bulletins and reports of the Alabama Geological Sur vey (published at Tuscaloosa and Montgomery) • and the following works: Alabama Handbook : Agricultural and Industrial Resources and Opportunities (Montgomery, 1919) ; R. M. Harper, Resources of Southern Alabama (192o). The history of the state may be found in J. A. Pickett, A History of Alabama (Charleston, I85I) ; W. R. Smith, Debates in the Secession Convention of Alabama (Montgomery, 1861) ; W. Brower, Alabama (Montgomery, 1872) • W. Garrett, Reminiscences of Public Men in Alabama (Atlanta, 1872) ; P. J. Hamilton, Colonial Mobile (1897) ; Publications of the Alabama Historical Society (Mont gomery) ; J. C. DeBose, Alabama History (Richmond, 1908) ; T. M. Owen, History of Alabama and Dictionary of Alabama Biography (1920, the first two volumes devoted to an exhaustive topical treat ment of the history of the state and the last two to biography. See also W. L. Fleming, Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama (19o5) ; T. P. Abernethy, The Formative Period in Alabama, 1815-1828 (Mont gomery, 1922). The biennial Alabama Official and Statistical Register (Montgomery), published by the state department of archives and history, gives the names of all officials, the election statistics, etc. For government see H. L. McBain and J. W. Hill, How We are Governed in Alabama and the Nation (1914) .
