History of Alabama
This is the history of the State of
Colonization
Among Native American people living in present Alabama in
precontact times were Alabama (Alibamu), Chickasaw,
The first Europeans to enter the limits of the present state of
It is possible that a member of
The
The
The grant of Georgia to Oglethorpe and
his associates in 1732 included a portion of what is now northern Alabama. In 1739, Oglethorpe himself visited the
Creek Indians west of the
The 1763 Treaty of Paris, which ended the
By the Treaty of Versailles (1783),
By the Treaty of Madrid, in 1795, Spain ceded to the United States the lands east
of the Mississippi between 31 degrees and 32 degrees 28 minutes. Three years later, in 1798, Congress organized this district as
Mississippi Territory. A strip of land 12 or 14 miles wide near the present
northern boundary of Alabama and Mississippi was claimed by
In 1812, Congress added the
In 1817, the Mississippi Territory was divided; the western portion became the state of
Conflict between the Indians of Alabama and American settlers increased rapidly in the early 19th century. The great
The sudden extinguishment of Indian title to large areas of land, coupled with the development of new cotton hybrids that could be grown in Alabama, fueled a rush of settlement and development that became known as "Alabama Fever".
Early statehood
In 1819, Alabama was admitted as the 22nd state to the Union.
One of the first problems of the new commonwealth was that of finance. Since the amount of money in circulation was not
sufficient to meet the demands of the increasing population, a system of state banks was instituted. State bonds were issued and
public lands were sold to secure capital, and the notes of the banks, loaned on security, became a medium of exchange. Prospects
of an income from the banks led the legislature of 1836 to abolish all taxation for state purposes. This was hardly done,
however, before the
In 1830 the
The state became a prosperous center of slave plantations growing cotton in the Black Belt, with subsistence farmers (with few slaves) eking out a living on the poorer lands. These early Alabama settlers were noted for their spirit of frontier democracy and egalitarianism, and their fierce defense of the republican values of civic virtue and opposition to corruption. J. Mills Thornton (1978) argues that Whigs argued for positive state action to benefit society as a whole while the Democrats feared any increase of power in government or in such private institutions as state-chartered banks, railroads, and corporations. Fierce political battles raged in Alabama on issues ranging from banking to the removal of the Creek Indians, but Thornton suggests that there was one overarching issue in the state's politics: how to protect liberty and equality for white people. Fears that Northern agitators threatened their value system angered the voters and made them ready to secede when Abraham Lincoln was elected in 1860 (Thornton 1978).
Until 1832, there was only one party in the state, the Democratic, but the question of nullification caused a division that
year into the (Jackson) Democratic party and the State's Rights (Calhoun Democratic) party; about the same time an opposition
party emerged, the Whig party. It drew support from plantation owners and
townsmen, while the Democrats were strongest among poor farmers and Catholics in the Mobile area. For some time, the Whigs were
almost as numerous as the Democrats, but they never secured control of the state government. The State's Rights faction were in a
minority; nevertheless under their active and persistent leader, William L.
Yancey (1814-1863), they prevailed upon the Democrats in 1848 to adopt their most radical views. During the agitation over
the
Secession and Civil War, 1861-1865
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 "Alabama Platform"; when the "Alabama Platform" failed to
secure the formal approval of the Democratic National convention at
On
Alabama soon joined the Confederate States of America, whose government
was organized at
Governor Moore energetically supported the Confederate war effort. Even before hostilities began, he seized federal facilities, sent agents to buy rifles in the Northeast, and scoured the state for weapons. Despite some resistance in the northern part of the state, Alabama joined the Confederate States of America. Congressman Williamson R. W. Cobb was a Unionist and pleaded for compromise. When he ran for the Confederate congress in 1861, he was defeated, but in 1863, with the war weariness growing in Alabama, he was elected on a wave of antiwar sentiment. The new nation brushed Cobb aside and set up its temporary capital in Montgomery and selected Jefferson Davis as president. In May, the Confederate government abandoned Montgomery before the sickly season began, and relocated in Richmond. Virginia.
Some idea of the severe internal logistics problems the Confederacy faced can be seen by tracing Davis's journey from Mississippi, the next state over. From his plantation on the river, he took a steamboat down the Mississippi to Vicksburg, boarded a train to Jackson, where he took another train north to Grand Junction, then a third train east to Chattanooga, Tennessee, and a fourth train to Atlanta, Georgia. Yet another train took Davis to the Alabama border, where a final train took him to Montgomery. As the war proceeded, the Federals seized the Mississippi River, burned trestles and railroad bridges, and tore up track; the frail Confederate railroad system faltered and virtually collapsed for want of repairs and replacement parts.
In the early part of the
Thirty-nine Alabamians attained flag rank, most notably Lieutenant General James
Longstreet and Admiral
Alabama soldiers fought in hundreds of battles; the state's losses at Gettysburg were 1,750 dead plus even more captured or
wounded; the famed "Alabama Brigade" took 781 casualties. In 1863, the Federal forces secured a foothold in northern Alabama in
spite of the opposition of General
Reconstruction, 1865-1875
According to the presidential plan of reorganization, a provisional governor for Alabama was appointed in June 1865. A state
convention met in September of the same year, and declared the ordinance of secession null and void and slavery abolished. A
legislature and a governor were elected in November, and the legislature was at once recognized by President
The next two years are notable for legislative extravagance and corruption, according to white Alabamians. The state endorsed railway bonds at the rate of $12,000 and $16,000 a mile until the state debt had increased from eight million to seventeen million dollars, and similar corruption characterized 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 1870; but, as the new administration was largely a failure, in 1872, there was a reaction in favor of the Radicals, a local term applied to the Republican party. 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 1875, which omitted the guarantee of the previous constitution that no one should be denied suffrage on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude, and forbade the state to engage in internal improvements or to give its credit to any private enterprise.
After 1874, the Democratic party had constant control of the state administration. The Republicans were by now largely a Black party which held no local or state offices, but did have some federal patronage. It failed to make nominations for office in 1878 and 1880 and endorsed 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 was then merged into the Populist party. In 1894, the Republicans united with the Populists, elected three congressional representatives, 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 Democratic charges of corruption of the ignorant Black electorate were matched by Republican and Populist accusations of fraud and violence by Democrats. Consequently, after division on the subject among the Democrats themselves, as well as opposition of Republicans and Populists, a new constitution with restrictions on suffrage, disenfranchising blacks, was adopted in 1901.
Origins of New South 1876-1914
Birmingham was founded on June 1,
New South Alabama, 1914-1945
Feldman (1999) has shown that the Second KKK was not a mere hate group; it showed a genuine desire for political and social
reform. Alabama Klansmen were among the foremost advocates of better public schools, effective prohibition enforcement, expanded
road construction, and other "progressive" measures, benefiting whites. By 1925, the Klan was a powerful political force in the
state, as powerful figures like J. Thomas Heflin, David Bibb Graves, and
References
Overviews
- Rogers, William Warren, Robert David Ward, Leah Rawls Atkins, and Wayne Flynt. Alabama: The History of a Deep South State (1994)
- Flynt, Wayne. Alabama in the Twentieth Century (2004)
- Flynt, J. Wayne. "Alabama." in Religion in the Southern States: A Historical Study, edited by Samuel S. Hill. 1983
- Flynt, J. Wayne. Poor But Proud: Alabama's Poor Whites 1989.
- Flynt, J. Wayne. Alabama Baptists: Southern Baptists in the Heart of Dixie (1998)
- Holley, Howard L. A History of Medicine in Alabama. 1982.
- Owen Thomas M. History of Alabama and Dictionary of Alabama Biography 4 vols. 1921.
- Jackson, Harvey H. Inside Alabama: A Personal History of My State (2004)
- Thomas, Mary Martha. Stepping out of the Shadows: Alabama Women, 1819-1990 (1995)
- Williams, Benjamin Buford. A Literary History of Alabama: The Nineteenth Century 1979.
- WPA. Guide to Alabama (1939)
Pre 1900
- Abernethy, Thomas Perkins The Formative Period in Alabama, 1815-1828. reprint 1965.
- Barney, William L. The Secessionist Impulse: Alabama and Mississippi in 1860. 1974.
- Bethel, Elizabeth . "The Freedmen's Bureau in Alabama," Journal of Southern History Vol. 14, No. 1, Feb., 1948 pp. 49-92 online at JSTOR
- Bond, Horace Mann. “Social and Economic Forces in Alabama Reconstruction.” Journal of Negro History 23 (1938): 29 online at JSTOR
- Dupre, Daniel. "Ambivalent Capitalists on the Cotton Frontier: Settlement and Development in the Tennessee Valley of Alabama." Journal of Southern History 56 (May 1990): 215-40. Online at JSTOR
- Fitzgerald, Michael R. Urban Emancipation: Popular Politics in Reconstruction Mobile, 1860–1890. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2002. 301 pp. ISBN 0-8071-2837-6.)
- Fitzgerald, Michael R. "Radical Republicanism and the White Yeomanry During Alabama Reconstruction, 1865-1868." Journal of Southern History 54 ( November 1988): 565-96. Online at JSTOR
- Fleming, Walter L. Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama 1905. the most detailed study; Dunning School
- Going, Allen J. Bourbon Democracy in Alabama, 1874-1890. 1951.
- Hamilton, Peter Joseph. The Reconstruction Period (1906), full length history of era; Dunning School approach; 570 pp; ch 12 on Alabama
- Jordan, Weymouth T. Ante-Bellum Alabama: Town and Country. 1957.
- Kolchin, Peter. First Freedom: The Response of Alabama Blacks to Emancipation and Reconstruction. 1972.
- McWhiney, Grady. "Were the Whigs a Class Party in Alabama?" Journal of Southern History 23 (1957): 510-22. Online at JSTOR
- Rogers, William Warren. The One-Gallused Rebellion; Agrarianism in Alabama, 1865-1896 1970.
- Sellers, James B. Slavery in Alabama 1950.
- Sterkx, Henry Eugene. Partners in Rebellion: Alabama Women in the Civil War 1970.
- Thornton, J. Mills III. Politics and Power in a Slave Society: Alabama, 1800-1860 1978.
- Wiener, Jonathan M. Social Origins of the New South; Alabama, 1860-1885. 1978.
- Wiggins, Sarah Woolfolk. The Scalawag in Alabama Politics, 1865-1881 (1991)
- Wiggins, Sarah Woolfolk. "Alabama: Democratic Bulldozing and Republican Folly." in Reconstruction and Redemption in the South, edited by Otto H. Olson. 1980.
Since 1900
- Barnard, William D. Dixiecrats and Democrats: Alabama Politics, 1942-1950 (1974)
- Bond, Horace Mann. Negro Education in Alabama: A Study in Cotton and Steel 1939.
- Brownell, Blaine A. "Birmingham, Alabama: New South City in the 1920s." Journal of Southern History 38 (1972): 21-48. Online at JSTOR
- Feldman, Glenn. Politics, Society, and the Klan in Alabama, 1915-1949 (1999)
- Frady, Marshall. Wallace: The Classic Portrait of Alabama Governor George Wallace (1996)
- Grafton, Carl, and Anne Permaloff. Big Mules and Branchheads: James E. Folsom and Political Power in Alabama 1985.
- Hackney, Sheldon. Populism to Progressivism in Alabama 1969.
- Hamilton, Virginia. Lister Hill: Statesman from the South 1987.
- Harris, Carl V. Political Power in Birmingham, 1871-1921 1977.
- Key, V. O., Jr. Southern Politics in State and Nation. 1949.
- Lesher, Stephan. George Wallace: American Populist (1995)
- Norrell, Robert J. "Caste in Steel: Jim Crow Careers in Birmingham, Alabama." Journal of American History 73 (December 1986): 669-94. Online at JSTOR
- Norrell, Robert J. "Labor at the Ballot Box: Alabama Politics from the New Deal to the Dixiecrat Movement." Journal of Southern History 57 (May 1991): 201-34. Online at JSTOR
- Sellers, James B. The Prohibition Movement in Alabama, 1702-1943 1943.
- Thomas, Mary Martha. The New Women in Alabama: Social Reform and Suffrage, 1890-1920 1992.
- Thomas, Mary Martha. Riveting and Rationing in Dixie: Alabama Women and the Second World War (1987)
Primary sources
- Baldwin, Joseph Glover The Flush Times of Alabama and Mississippi (1853)
- Beidler, Philip D., ed. The Art of Fiction in the Heart of Dixie: An Anthology of Alabama Writers 1986.
- Griffith, Lucille, ed. Alabama: A Documentary History to 1900 1968.
- McMillan, Malcolm Cook The Alabama Confederate Reader 1963.
- Alabama Archives
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