History of Alabama

Alabama became a state of the United States of America on December 14, 1819. After the Indian Wars and removals of the early 19th century forced most Native Americans out of the state, white settlers arrived in large numbers. To protect slavery and its honor from Northern enemies, Alabama declared its secession in January 1861 and joined the Confederate States of America in February. The ensuing American Civil War saw moderate levels of action in Alabama, and the population suffered economic losses and hardships as a result of the war. All the slaves were freed by Lincoln's Emancipation proclamation. The Southern capitulation in 1865 ended the Confederacy, and began a controversial and difficult decade of Reconstruction. With the election of Guy Hunt as governor in 1986, the state became a Republican stronghold in presidential elections and leaned Republican in statewide elections, while the Democratic Party still dominated local and legislative offices. Democratic dominance has ended;[7] in terms of organization, the parties are about evenly matched. At least 12,000 years ago, Native Americans or Paleo-Indians appeared in what is today referred to as "The South".[14] Paleo-Indians in the Southeast were hunter-gatherers who pursued a wide range of animals, including the megafauna, which became extinct following the end of the Pleistocene age.[14] The Woodland period from 1000 BCE to 1000 CE was marked by the development of pottery and the small-scale horticulture of the Eastern Agricultural Complex.

The Mississippian culture arose as the cultivation of Mesoamerican crops of corn and beans led to population growth. Increased population density gave rise of urban centers and regional chiefdoms, of which the greatest was the settlement known as Cahokia, in present-day Illinois. Stratified societies developed, with hereditary religious and political elites, and flourished in what is now the Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from 800 to 1500 C.E.

The...