USA Alabama - The History : USA  

USA Alabama - The History - Travel guide

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USA Alabama - The History

The History

Spanish explorer Alonzo Alvarez de Piñeda of Spain explored Mobile Bay in 1519. In 1540 the Southeast territory was visited explored by Spandard, Hernando de Soto. The first permanent European settlement in Alabama was founded by the French at Fort Louis de la Mobile in 1702 and was the French Louisiana capital until it was moved from Mobile west to Biloxi in 1720.

In 1724 the French Code Noir extended from the French West Indies to the North American colonies, institutionalizing slavery in Mobile area.

The British gained control of the area in 1763 by the Treaty of Paris, but had to cede almost all the Alabama region to the U.S. after the American Revolution.

The capture of Mobile in 1780 by the Spanish during American Revolution retained the West and East Floridas as part of a war-ending treaty.

Nineteen years later (1799) The U.S. captured Fort St. Stephens from the Spanish.

From 1805 to 1806, Indian cessions ( Choctaw, Chichasaw, Cherokee) are opened up to white settlement and by 1810 West Florida, from Pearl River to the Mississippi is annexed by U.S. from Spain. The Spanish surrender Mobile to American in 1813 then a year later, a failed British forces attack on Fort Bowyer (Mobile Point) abandons plans to capture Mobile, a second attempt in 1815 succeeds. However, learning that the War is over, the British pack up and go home.

The Alabama Territory was created when Congress passes the enabling act allowing the division of the Mississippi Territory and the admission of Mississippi into the union as a state. Alabama became the 22nd State to Unite under America on December 14, 1819.