Welcome to Rainbow City Alabama

• Rainbow City Overview
• Etowah County overview
• The history of Alabama
• Alabama Government

The history of Alabama This is the history of the State of demanded the repeal of the Compromise, Alabama, in the United States of advocated resistance to future America. Alabama became a state in 1819; encroachments and prepared for the economy of the central "black belt" secession, while the Whigs, joined by had large rich slave plantations that the remaining Democrats, formed the grew cotton. Elsewhere poor whites were party known as the "Unionists," which subsistence farmers. Alabama seceded and unwillingly accepted the Compromise and joined the Confederate States of denied the "constitutional" right of America, 1861-65. It suffered greatly in secession. the American Civil War; all the slaves Secession 1861 were freed by 1865. After a period of The "Unionists" were successful in the Reconstruction it emerged as a poor elections of 1851 and 1852, but the rural state, still tied to cotton, with feeling of uncertainty engendered in the high racial tensions between the ruling south by the passage of the whites and the recently emancipated Kansas-Nebraska Bill and the course of African Americans; many of the latter the slavery agitation after 1852 led the migrated north after 1917. Politically State Democratic convention of 1856 to the state was one-party Democratic, and revive the "Alabama Platform"; when the produced a number of national leaders. "Alabama Platform" failed to secure the World War II brought prosperity. Cotton formal approval of the Democratic faded in importance as the state National convention at Charleston, South developed a manufacturing and service Carolina, in 1860, the Alabama base. After 1980 the state became a delegates, followed by those of the Republican stronghold in presidential other cotton "states," withdrew. Upon elections, and leans Republican in the election of Abraham Lincoln, statewide elections, while the Governor Andrew B. Moore, according to Democratic Party still dominates local previous instructions of the and legislative offices. legislature, called a state convention. Among Native American people living in Secession had been opposed by many present Alabama in precontact times were prominent men, and in North Alabama an Alabama (Alibamu), Chickasaw, Choctaw, attempt was made to organize a neutral Creek, Koasati, and Mobile. state to be called Nickajack; but with The first Europeans to enter the limits President Lincoln's call to arms most of the present state of Alabama were opposition to secession ended. Spaniards, who claimed this region as a On January 11, 1861 The State of Alabama part of Florida. adopted the ordinances of secession from It is possible that a member of the Union (by a vote of 61-39). Until Pánfilo de Narváez's February 18, 1861 Alabama was informally expedition of 1528 entered what is now called the Alabama Republic. It never southern Alabama, but the first fully changed its formal name which always has authenticated visit was that of Hernando been "State of Alabama." de Soto, who made an arduous but Alabama soon joined the Confederate fruitless journey along the Coosa, States of America, whose government was Alabama and Tombigbee rivers in 1539. organized at Montgomery on February 4, The English, too, claimed the region 1861. north of the Gulf of Mexico, and the Civil War 1861-1865 territory of modern Alabama was included Governor Moore energetically supported in the province of Carolina, granted by the Confederate war effort. Even before Charles II of England to certain of his hostilities began he seized federal favorites by the charters of 1663 and facilities, sent agents to buy rifles in 1665. English traders of Carolina were the Northeast, and scoured the state for frequenting the valley of the Alabama weapons. Despite some resistance in the river as early as 1687. northern part of the state, Alabama Disregarding these claims, however, the joined the Confederate States of French in 1702 settled on the Mobile America. Congressman Williamson R. W. river and there erected Fort Louis, Cobb was a Unionist and pleaded for which for the next nine years was the compromise. When he ran for the seat of government of Louisiana. In 1711 Confederate congress in 1861, he was Fort Louis was abandoned to the floods defeated, but in 1863, with the war of the river, and on higher ground was weariness growing in Alabama, he was built Fort Conde, the gem of the present elected on a wave of antiwar sentiment. city of Mobile, and the first permanent The new nation brushed Cobb aside and white settlement in Alabama. Later, on set up its temporary capital in account of the intrigues of the English Montgomery and selected Jefferson Davis traders with the Indians, the French as as president. In May the Confederate a means of defense established the government abandoned Montgomery before military posts of Fort Toulouse, near the sickly season began, and relocated the junction of the Coosa and Tallapoosa in Richmond. Virginia. rivers, and Fort Tombecbe on the Some idea of the severe internal Tombigbee River. logistics problems the Confederacy faced The grant of Georgia to Oglethorpe and can be seen by tracing Davis's journey his associates in 1732 included a from Mississippi, the next state over. portion of what is now northern Alabama, From his plantation on the river he took and in 1739 Oglethorpe himself visited a steamboat down the Mississippi to the Creek Indians west of the Vicksburg, boarded a train to Jackson, Chattahoochee River and made a treaty where he took another train north to with them. Grand Junction, then a third train east The peace of Paris, in 1763, terminated to Chattanooga, Tennessee, and a fourth the French occupation, and Great Britain train to Atlanta, Georgia. Yet another came into undisputed possession of the train took Davis to the Alabama border, region between the Chattahoochee and the where a final train took him to Mississippi Rivers. The portion of Montgomery. As the war proceeded the Alabama below the 31st parallel then Federals seized the Mississippi River, became a part of West Florida, and the burned trestles and railroad bridges, portion north of this line a part of the and tore up track; the frail Confederate Illinois Country," set apart, by royal railroad system faltered and virtually proclamation, for the use of the collapsed for want of repairs and Indians. In 1767 the province of West replacement parts. Florida was extended northward to 32 In the early part of the Civil War degrees 28' N. lat., and a few years Alabama was not the scene of military later, during the American Revolutionary operations, yet the state contributed War, this region fell into the hands of about 120,000 men to the Confederate Spain. service, practically all her white By the Treaty of Versailles (1783), on population capable of bearing arms. Most September 3, 1783, Great Britain ceded were recruited locally and served with West Florida to Spain; but by the Treaty men they knew, which built esprit and of Paris (1783), signed the same day, strengthened ties to home. Medical she ceded to the United States all of conditions were severe; about 15% died this province north of 31 degrees, and of disease, and 10% from battle. Alabama thus laid the foundation for a long had few well-equipped hospitals but it controversy. had many women who volunteered to nurse By the Treaty of Madrid, in 1795, Spain the sick and wounded. Soldiers were ceded to the United States her claims to poorly equipped, especially after 1863, the lands east of the Mississippi and often resorted to pillaging the dead between 31 degrees and 32 degrees 28'; for boots, belts, canteens, blankets, and three years later (1798) this hats, shirts and pants. Uncounted district was organized by Congress as thousands of slaves worked with the Mississippi Territory. A strip of Confederate troops; they took care of land 12 or 14 m. wide near the present horses and equipment, cooked and did northern boundary of Alabama and laundry, hauled supplies, and helped in Mississippi was claimed by South field hospitals. Other slaves built Carolina; but in 1787 that state ceded defensive installations, especially this claim to the general government. those around Mobile. They graded roads, Georgia likewise claimed all the lands repaired railroads, drove supply wagons, between the 31st and 35th parallels from and labored in iron mines, iron its present western boundary to the foundries and even in the munitions Mississippi river, and did not surrender factories. The service of slaves was its claim until 1802; two years later involuntary, their unpaid labor was the boundaries of the Mississippi impressed from their unpaid masters. Territory were extended so as to include About 10,000 slaves escaped and joined all of the Georgia cession. the Union army, along with 2,700 white In 1812 Congress annexed to the men. Mississippi Territory the Mobile Thirty-nine Alabamians attained flag District of West Florida, claiming that rank, most notably Lieutenant General it was included in the Louisiana James Longstreet and Admiral Raphael Purchase; and in the following year Semmes. Josiah Gorgas who came to General James Wilkinson occupied this Alabama from Pennsylvania, was the chief district with a military force, the of ordnance for the Confederacy. He Spanish commandant offering no located new munitions plants in Selma, resistance. The whole area of the which employed 10,000 workers until the present state of Alabama then for the Union raiders in 1865 burned the first time became subject to the factories down. Selma Arsenal made most jurisdiction of the United States. of the Confederacy's ammunition. The In 1817 the Mississippi Territory was Selma Naval Ordnance Works made divided; the western portion became the artillery, turning out a cannon every state of Mississippi, and the eastern five days. The Confederate Naval Yard portion became the Alabama Territory, built ships and was noted for launching with St. Stephens, on the Tombigbee the CSS Tennessee in 1863 to defend River, as the temporary seat of Mobile Bay. Selma's Confederate Nitre government. Works procured niter, for gunpowder, The Indian problem was important. With from limestone caves. When supplies were the encroachment of the white settlers low, it advertised for housewives to upon their hunting-grounds the Creek save the contents of their chamber Indians began to grow restless, and the pots--urine, a rich source of nitrogen. great Shawnee chief Tecumseh, who Alabama soldiers fought in hundreds of visited them in 1811, fomented their battles; the state's losses at discontent. When the outbreak of the Gettysburg were 1,750 dead plus even second war with Britain in 1812 gave the more captured or wounded; the famed Creeks assurance of British aid they "Alabama Brigade" took 781 casualties. rose in arms, massacred several hundred In 1863 the Federal forces secured a settlers who had taken refuge in Fort foothold in northern Alabama in spite of Mims, near the junction of the Alabama the opposition of General Nathan B. and Tombigbee rivers, and in a short Forrest. From 1861 the federal blockade time no white family in the Creek shut Mobile, and in 1864 the outer country was safe outside a palisade. The defenses of Mobile were taken by a Chickasaw and Choctaw Indians, however, Federal fleet; the city itself held out remained the faithful allies of the until April 1865. [Rogers, ch 12] whites, and volunteers from Georgia, Reconstruction, 1865-1875 South Carolina and Tennessee, and later According to the presidential plan of United States troops, marched to the reorganization, a provisional governor rescue of the threatened settlements. In for Alabama was appointed in June 1865; the campaign that followed the most a state convention met in September of distinguished services were rendered by the same year, and declared the General Andrew Jackson, whose vigorous ordinance of secession null and void and measures broke for ever the power of the slavery abolished; a legislature and a Creek Confederacy. By the treaty of Fort governor were elected in November, the Jackson (August 9, 1814) the Creeks legislature was at once recognized by ceded their claims to about one-half of President Andrew Johnson, but not by the present state; and cessions by the Congress, which refused to seat the Cherokees, Chickasaws and Choctaws in delegation. Johnson ordered the Army to 1816 left only about one-fourth of allow the inauguration of the governor Alabama to the Indians. after the legislature ratified the A State in the Union thirteenth amendment in December, 1865. In 1819 Alabama was regularly admitted But the passage, by the legislature, of as the 22nd state to the Union. Black Codes or vagrancy and One of the first problems of the new apprenticeship laws designed to control commonwealth was that of finance. Since the Freedmen who were flocking from the the amount of money in circulation was plantations to the towns, and its not sufficient to meet the demands of rejection of the fourteenth amendment, the increasing population, a system of intensified the congressional hostility state banks was instituted. State bonds to the presidential plan. In 1867 the were issued and public lands were sold congressional plan of Reconstruction was to secure capital, and the notes of the completed and Alabama was placed under banks, loaned on security, became a military government. The Freedmen were medium of exchange. Prospects of an now enrolled as voters and large numbers income from the banks led the of white citizens were disfranchised. legislature of 1836 to abolish all The new Republican party, comprised of taxation for state purposes. This was Freedmen, Scalawags and Carpetbaggers hardly done, however, before the panic now took control, two years after the of 1837 wiped out a large portion of the war ended. A constitutional convention, banks' assets; next came revelations of controlled by this element, met in grossly careless and even of corrupt November 1867, and framed a constitution management, and in 1843 the banks were which conferred universal manhood placed in liquidation. After disposing suffrage. Whites who had fought for the of all their available assets, the state Confederacy were disfranchised. The assumed the remaining liabilities, for Reconstruction Acts of Congress required which it had pledged its faith and every new constitution to be ratified by credit. a majority of the legal voters of the In 1832 the national government provided state. The whites of Alabama largely for the removal of the Creeks; but stayed away from the polls, and, after before the terms of the contract were five days of voting, the constitution effected, the state legislature formed wanted 13,550 to secure a majority. the Indian lands into counties, and Congress then enacted that a majority of settlers flocked in. the votes cast should be sufficient, and The state became a prosperous center of thus the constitution went into effect, slave plantations growing cotton in the the state was readmitted to the Union in Black Belt, with subsistence farmers June 1868, and a new governor and (with few slaves) eking out a living on legislature were elected. the poorer lands. All the whites were The next two years are notable for committed to a spirit of frontier legislative extravagance and corruption, democracy and egalitarianism, and a according to white Alabamians. The state fierce defense of their republican endorsed railway bonds at the rate of values of civic virtue and opposition to $12,000 and $16,000 a mile until the corruption. J. Mills Thornton (1978) state debt had increased from eight argues that Whigs argued for positive millions to seventeen millions of state action to benefit society as a dollars, and similar corruption whole while the Democrats feared any characterized local government. The increase of power in government or in native white people united, formed a such private institutions as Conservative party and elected a state-chartered banks, railroads and governor and a majority of the lower corporations. Fierce political battles house of the legislature in 1870; but, raged in Alabama on issues ranging from as the new administration was largely a banking to the removal of the Creek failure, in 1872 there was a reaction in Indians, but Thornton suggests that favor of the Radicals, a local term there was actually only one issue in the applied to the Republican party. In state's politics: how to protect liberty 1874, however, the power of the Radicals and white equality, or, to put the was finally broken, the Conservative matter another way, how to avoid Democrats electing all state officials. slavery. Fears that Northern agitators A commission appointed to examine the threatened their value system angered state debt found it to be $25,503,000; the voters and made them ready to secede by compromise it was reduced to when Abraham Lincoln was elected in $15,000,000. A new constitution was 1860. [Thornton 1978] adopted in 1875, which omitted the Until 1832 there was only one party in guarantee of the previous constitution the state, the Democratic, but the that no one should be denied suffrage on question of nullification caused a account of race, color or previous division that year into the (Jackson) condition of servitude, and forbade the Democratic party and the State's Rights state to engage in internal improvements (Calhoun Democratic) party; about the or to give its credit to any private same time an opposition party emerged, enterprise. the Whig party. It drew support from After 1874 the Democratic party had plantation owners and townsmen, while constant control of the state the Democrats were strongest among poor administration. The Republicans were by farmers and Catholics in the Mobile now largely a Black party which held no area. For some time the Whigs were local or state offices, but did have almost as numerous as the Democrats, but some federal patronage. It failed to they never secured control of the state make nominations for office in 1878 and government. The State's Rights faction 1880 and endorsed the ticket of the were in a minority; nevertheless under Greenback party in 1882. The development their active and persistent leader, of mining and manufacturing was William L. Yancey (1814-1863), they accompanied by economic distress among prevailed upon the Democrats in 1848 to the farming classes, which found adopt their most radical views. During expression in the Jeffersonian the agitation over the Wilmot Proviso Democratic party, organized in 1892. The which would bar slavery from territory regular Democratic ticket was elected acquired from Mexico, Yancey induced the and the new party was then merged into Democratic State Convention of 1848 to the Populist party. In 1894 the adopt what is known as the "Alabama Republicans united with the Populists, Platform." It declared that neither elected three congressional Congress nor the government of a representatives, secured control of many territory had the right to interfere of the counties, but failed to carry the with slavery in a territory, that those state, and continued their opposition who held opposite views were not with less success in the next campaigns. Democrats, and that the Democrats of Partisanship became intense, and Alabama would not support a candidate Democratic charges of corruption of the for the presidency if he did not agree ignorant Black electorate were matched with them on these questions. This by Republican and Populist accusations platform was endorsed by conventions in of fraud and violence by Democrats. Florida and Virginia and by the Consequently, after division on the legislatures of Georgia and Alabama. Old subject among the Democrats themselves, party lines were broken by the as well as opposition of Republicans and Compromise of 1850. The State's Rights Populists, a new constitution with faction, joined by many Democrats, restrictions on suffrage was adopted in founded the Southern Rights party, which 1901. 1 A B C D E F 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134