HISTORY

The Indians The earliest and longest established inhabitants of the present-day state of Alabama were Indians. Visible traces of their occupancy, which spanned almost 10,000 years, may be seen in the great mounds that snake across the landscape near the river valleys. Many placenames in the state also indicate an Indian origin. The name Alabama itself derives from an Indian word meaning thicket clearers. The principal Indian groups at the time of the initial European exploration of the region were the Chickasaw, in the northwest; the Cherokee, in the northeastern uplands; the Upper Creek, or Muskogee, in the centre and southeast; and the Choctaw, in the southwest. European rivalry, settlement, and growth The first known European explorers were of Spanish descent and arrived at Mobile Bay in 1519. The main thrust of exploration came in 1540, when Hernando de Soto and his army of about 500 men entered the interior from the valley of the Tennessee River to search for gold. His expedition, which extensively crisscrossed the area, was important because of his discovery of the Mississippi River, the knowledge he gained of a wide band of southern Indian cultures, and his role in opening up the whole region to European settlement. A battle with the ill-equipped warriors of the Indian chief Tuscaloosa, however, resulted in the slaughter of several thousand Indians; it may have been the bloodiest single encounter between whites and Indians in North America. De Soto found no gold, and subsequent Spaniards failed to establish settlements in Alabama. The ensuing 250 years were characterized by struggles among the French, British, and Spanish for control of the region, often in shifting alliances with the Indians of the area. In 1702 the French founded the first permanent European settlement in Alabama at Fort Louis, north of present-day Mobile. The British had also made a number of trips to the region from the Carolinas, but the French settlementspart of a string of forts arcing down from Canada and designed to contain the Britishwere more numerous. Port Dauphin, on Dauphin Island, received the first Africans when a slave ship landed there in 1719. The Treaty of Paris (1763) gave to Britain what was then the only settled part of Alabama, the Mobile area. In another Treaty of Paris (1783), which officially ended the American Revolution, Spain gained Mobile, and the new United States received the rest of the present-day state. Then in 1813 the United States, claiming Mobile as a part of the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, drove the Spanish out of the area and established authority throughout the state. As for the Indians, the Cherokee, Chickasaw, and Choctaw had ceded some land by 1806. In 1814 General Andrew Jackson inflicted a decisive defeat on the Creek at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. The influx of white population following these actions and the institution of the cotton economy caused a rapid removal of the Indians to the west. The Creek cession of 1832 virtually ended the Indian claims to territorial rights in Alabama. Most descendants of Alabama Indians live in Oklahoma; only a few hundred Creek remain in the southern part of Alabama.