Duthan, leading city of southeastern Alabama, is located in a rich farming area. The main crop is peanuts. Industries in the city manufacture such products as peanut oil, hosiery, and cigars.
GOVERNMENT
The legislative department of the state government is made up of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The members of both bodies serve 4-year terms. An amendment to the state constitution, adopted in 1975, provided for annual legislative sessions, beginning in 1976. Before that, regular sessions had been held every other year.
The chief executive is the governor, who is elected by the people. The people also elect a lieutenant governor, secretary of state, attorney general, treasurer, auditor, and commissioner of agriculture and industry, as well as the members of the state board of education.
The highest state court is the supreme court. It consists of a chief justice and eight associate justices elected statewide for 6-year terms. The court of appeals is divided into two courts, one to hear civil appeals and one to hear criminal appeals. The major trial courts in Alabama are its numerous circuit courts.
GOVERNMENT
Capital—Montgomery. Number of counties—67. Representation in Congress—U.S. senators, 2; U.S. representatives, 7. State Legislature—Senate, 35 members; House of Representatives, 105 members;
all 4-year terms. Governor—4-year term. Elections— Primary elections to select candidates, first Tuesday in May; general and state elections, Tuesday after first Monday in November
The state is divided into 67 counties. Each county is governed by a board of commissioners, known as the county commission.
FAMOUS PEOPLE
Alabama claims many persons who did important work in government, education, the law, military affairs, business, and the arts. The following are some of the honored names:
William Wyatt Bibb (1781-1820) was Alabama's only territorial governor and the first governor of the state. He was born in Georgia.
Josiah Gorgas (1818-83), born in Pennsylvania, was a teacher and an army officer. He became an Alabamian after his marriage to Amelia Gayle, daughter of John Gayle, governor of Alabama from 1831 to 1835. During the Civil War, Josiah Gorgas was chief of military supplies, and eventually a brigadier general, in the Confederate Army. Later he served for a year as president of the University of Alabama. His son, William C. Gorgas (1854-1920), who was born near Mobile, is world famous as the U.S. Army surgeon and sanitation expert who stamped out yellow fever in the Canal Zone and made possible the building of the Panama Canal.
Julia Strudwick Tufwiler (1841-1916) was born in Greene County. She established several girls' vocational schools and secured admission of women to the University of Alabama. She was also active in prison reform. She wrote the words of "Alabama," the state song.
Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) is known throughout the world as the founder of Tuskegec Institute and as an educator, author, and lecturer. He was born in Virginia and was educated at Hampton Institute. His biography is included in Volume W.
George Washington Carver (1864-1943), botanist and agricultural scientist, gained international fame for his work in agricultural research at Tuskegee Institute. He taught improvement of the soil and developed hundreds of products from the peanut, sweet potato, and soybean. A biography of George Washington Carver, who was born in Missouri and educated in Iowa, is included in Volume C.
William Brockman Bankhead (1874-1940) was born in Moscow (now Sulligent), Alabama. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1917 to 1940. He was speaker of the House from 1936 to 1940. His daughter, Tallulah Brockman Bankhead, became one of America's best-known actresses. His father, John H. Bank-head, and his brother, John H. Bankhead, Jr., were both U.S. senators.
Helen Adams Keller, who was born in Tus-cumbia in 1880, lost both sight and hearing before she was 2 years old. Because she could not hear, she also lost the ability to speak. In spite of her disabilities, she gained an education, learned to speak, and then spent her life lecturing and writing to raise money for the training of other disabled persons. Her biography is included in Volume K.
George Corley Wallace (1919- ) was born in Clio, Alabama. He was a judge and state legislator before his election in 1962 as governor of Alabama. He was re-elected to that office in 1970, 1974, and 1982. He was also a presidential candidate in 1964, 1968, 1972, and 1976. A bullet from an assassination attempt during the 1972 campaign left him disabled.
Three Alabamians have become justices of the U.S. Supreme Court. Justices John McKinley and John A. Campbell, who served during the I 800's, were born in other states. Hugo L. Black, who became a justice in 1937, was born in Clay County, Alabama.
Writers, musicians, and entertainers who were born in Alabama include novelists Nelle Harper Lee (Monroeville) and Bordcn Deal(Tuscaloosa), composer William C. Handy (Florence), and singer Nat "King" Cole (Montgomery).
Famous names in sports include heavyweight champion Joe Louis (born Joe Louis Barrow, Lafayette); baseball players Henry "Hank" Aaron (Mobile), Frank Lary (North-port), and Willie Mays (Fairfield); and sports announcer Mel Alien (born Melvin Alien Israel, Birmingham).
At the time of Columbus, Alabama was inhabited by four main groups of Indians. They were the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws. Sometimes there were skirmishes resulting from border disputes. But usually the Indians lived in peace, hunting, fishing, and raising corn and vegetables on small plots of land.
Exploration and Settlement
During the early 1500's Spanish explorers sailed along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. But Europeans were not seen in the interior of Alabama until 1540, when Hernando de Soto passed through with a band of well-armed soldiers. De Soto forced the peaceful Indians to provide him with food and servants, and his harsh methods stirred up resentment. When he reached the land governed by the gigantic Choctaw chieftain, Tuskaloosa, he ran into trouble. De Soto captured the chief and took him to the tribe's strongly fortified village. Here the Indians rose up to free their chief. For many hours the bloody battle raged. The Spanish soldiers slaughtered Indian men, women, and children alike. When the battle was over, the village was in ruins and its population was destroyed. De Soto's troops also suffered heavy losses. Later, in 1559, Spanish colonists started a settlement on Mobile Bay, but storms and other troubles caused the settlers to leave.
English traders from the Carolinas and Georgia traded with the Indians during the late 1600's, but the English made no permanent settlements in Alabama at that time. In 1702 the French established Fort Louis on Mobile Bay. This settlement was moved, in 1711, to the present site of Mobile. It became the first permanent white settlement in what is now Alabama.
During the 1700's the French and the British fought over the territory of which Alabama was a part. After the French and Indian War, the Treaty of Paris, in 1763, gave the territory to England. Spain, Georgia, and the Carolinas still argued over who owned the land. It was not until 1813 that all of what is now Alabama passed into undisputed possession of the United States and became part of the Mississippi Territory.
After 1800 more and more settlers came into Alabama from the states on the Atlantic Coast. The invention of the cotton gin and the growth of the cotton textile industry in England made cotton a valuable crop. The settlers grew cotton on most of the land that they cleared. But settling the territory was not without its perils. Much of the good farmland was already being used by the Indians, whose ways of living easily adapted to the settlers' ways. The Indians resisted the theft of their lands. The Creeks, who held more than half the land in the
| IMPORTANT DATES 1540 Hernando de Soto marched across Alabama, exploring and searching for gold. 1559 Tristan de Luna, Spanish colonizer, started a temporary settlement on Mobile Bay. 1699 An expedition under the. French explorer Pierre Lemoyne, Sieur d'lberville, explored the coast and claimed the area for France. 1702 Pierre Lemoyne's brother, Jean Baptiste Lemoyne, Sieur de Bienville, founded Fort Louis de la Mobile. 1711 The French moved Fort Louis to the present site of Mobile. 1763 At the end of the French and Indian War, France gave the area east of the Mississippi River, including Alabama, to Great Britain. 1783 After the Revolutionary War, Great Britain gave the Mobile area to Spain and the rest of Alabama to the United States. 1813 United States captured Mobile and added it to the Mississippi Territory. 1814 General Andrew Jackson defeated the Creek Indians. 1817 Congress created the Alabama Territory. 1819 Alabama admitted to Union December 14, as 22nd state. 1847 Montgomery became state capital. 1861 Alabama seceded from the Union January 11 and formed the Republic of Alabama, which lasted until February 8, when Alabama joined the Confederacy. 1868 Alabama re-admitted to the Union. 1875 A new constitution adopted, ending the period of Reconstruction. 1888 First steel produced in Birmingham. 1901 Present state constitution adopted. 1944 First petroleum produced near Gilbertown. 1949 Redstone Arsenal, at Huntsville, became a center for rocket and missile research. 1970 Black Alabamians won seats (two) In the state legislature for the first time since Reconstruction. 1981 Tuskegee Institute celebrated its 100th anniversary. |
territory,were
especially bitter. They sided with the British in the War of 1812. The Indians raided Fort Mims and killed several hundred settlers. In a final battle at Horseshoe Bend, the Creeks were defeated, and before long they were moved out of the territory. The Cherokees, who had remained neutral in the war, were later moved from their lands. They were the most progressive of the Indian tribes. They lived in brick houses, grew cotton, raised rattle, and even had a written language.
Alabama Becomes a State
When Mississippi became a state in 1817, the eastern half of the Mississippi Territory was removed and made the Alabama Territory. Its capital was St. Stephens, a small town lo the north of Mobile. At that time settlers were found mainly in three regions—in the Tennessee Valley, around Huntsville; along Ihc Tombigbee and Black Warrior rivers, with centers at St. Stephens and Tusca-loosa; and along the Alabama and Coosa rivers, near such towns as Wetumpka and Montgomery.
Alabama was not a territory very long. With the approval of Congress, leading citi-/cns met at Huntsville on July 5, 1819, and drafted Alabama's first constitution. Soon after, on December 14, 1819, Alabama became a state. The capital was situated at Ca-haba, a town built for just this purpose at the junction of the Cahaba and the Alabama rivers. The choice of this town was bad. It lay in low, swampy land that flooded regularly. In 1825 the session of the legislature could be held only on the second floor of the capital, and the legislators had to get there by row-boat. Because of this situation the state capital was moved in 1827 to Tuscaloosa, where it stayed for 20 years. In 1847 the increase in wealth and political strength of the cotton planters of the Black Belt caused another move of the state capital—this time to Montgomery, where it is today.
King Cotton, Slavery, and the Civil War
Between 1820 and 1860 Alabama's economy was closely tied to slavery. The large cotton plantations could not be worked profitably without slaves. In the 1840's Alabama was one of the wealthiest states in the Union. In 1860 forces in the North moved toward
the abolition of slavery. The leaders of Alabama opposed federal interference in the affairs of their state. They proposed secession. After a special election among the people, a convention was held in Montgomery on January 7, 1861. On January 11 a resolution of secession was adopted, and Alabama invited all the other southern states to meet in Montgomery to form a new union.
On February 4, 1861, the convention met and drew up the constitution for the Confederate States of America. Jefferson Davis was sworn in as the president on February 18, 1861.
During the Civil War there were many minor battles in the state. No major battles took place within its borders, but the state was badly hurt by the fighting. When the war was over, Alabama's economy was destroyed.
Between 1865 and 1875 Alabama lived under a partly military government called the Reconstruction. These were harsh times— times of agricultural failures, general poverty, and great political confusion. In 1875 a new constitution was adopted and approved by Congress. Between 1875 and 1900 Alabama went through a period of economic recovery. Cotton was still king, but industry grew.
Modern Times and the Future
After the Reconstruction era, blacks in Alabama were stripped of their newly won civil rights, including the right to vote. They had to attend different schools from whites. Racial segregation of many kinds was the law in Alabama for a long time.
In the 1960's, however, federal legislation enabled blacks in Alabama to vote in large numbers. Progress has also been made against many forms of racial segregation. Much of this progress in Alabama resulted from peaceful protest conducted under the leadership of Martin Luther King.
Alabama has undergone many other. changes recently. Industry has grown rapidly. The state's waterways are being enlarged and improved. With its abundance of raw mate-trials, and its vital people, Alabama should continue to be the industrial heart of the New South.