USA > Alabama > Memorial record of Alabama. A concise account of the state's political, military, professional and industrial progress, together with the personal memoirs of many of its people. Volume I > Part 4
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MEMORIAL RECORD OF ALABAMA.
cessor, arrived at New Orleans, Bienville took his last leave for France where he died in 1768 at the advanced age of eighty-eight years. Noth- ing specially memorable marks the administration of Vaudreuil who, upon his advancement in 1753 to the governor-generalship of Canada, was succeeded by M. Kerlerec, who continued in the governorship of Louisi- ana down to 1763, when the peace of Paris put an end to the French dominion. After the transfer by that treaty of Florida to the English, its territory was divided, as heretofore explained, into East and West Florida. Pensacola became the capital of the western district, and in 1764 Captain George Johnston became its first governor, with James Macpher- son, already the author of "Ossian," as his secretary. Johnston was soon succeeded by Elliott, whose early death made way for Montefort Brown, whose administration continued until the coming of Peter Chester, who was governor down to 1781, when the victorious arms of Galvez ended the British dominion in Florida, and transferred the province to Spain, a con- dition of things which was fully recognized in the treaty of 1783, whereby the war of the revolution was terminated. As a province of Spain West Florida, with the Mobile settlement in the heart of it, continued to be gov- erned down to the organization of the Mississippi territory. At that time the only other settlement of importance within the present limits of Ala- bama was that upon the Tombigbee and Mobile rivers, located within a small district to which the Indian title had been extinguished by the French and English, and consisting of about eight hundred souls. Far to the northwest of this Tombigbee settlement, with a trackless waste lying between, was the Natchez district to which reference has been made already. Such was the nature of the country, and such the character and extent of the three settlements now about to be bound together in a ter- ritorial government under the authority of the United States.
THE MISSISSIPPI TERRITORY, 1798-1817.
By an act of congress, approved April 7th, 1798, entitled, "an act for the amicable settlement of limits within the state of Georgia, and author- izing the establishment of a government in the Mississippi territory," the district of country between the Mississippi and Chattahoochee rivers, and extending from the line 31 degrees to that of 32º 28', was organized into a territorial government of the first grade, as defined in the famous ordinance of July 13th, 1787. The sixth section of the organizing act expressly provided "that from and after the establishment of said gov- ernment, the aforesaid territory shall be entitled to and enjoy all and singular the rights, privileges, and advantages granted to the people of the United States northwest of the Ohio river, in and by the aforesaid ordinance of July 13th, 1787, in as full and complete a manner as the same are possessed and enjoyed by the said last mentioned territory." Under the terms of the ordinance, in a territorial government of the first grade,
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POLITICAL HISTORY OF THE STATE.
until such time as there should be in the territory five thousand free male inhabitants of full age, the administration was vested in a governor, secre- tary and three judges to be appointed by the federal executive. President Adams therefore appointed Winthrop Sargent, as governor, John Steel, as secretary, and Thomas Rodney and Daniel Tilton, as territorial judges of the supreme court, to put the wheels of government in motion. The governor and judges arrived at Natchez, the seat of government, in August, 1798, and in a short time such inferior officers as the governor had the right to name were appointed, and due provision was made for the preservation of order and the administration of justice. The powers of the governor, acting with his advisers, were broad and far-reaching. He could exercise supreme executive jurisdiction; he could appoint all magistrates, inferior judges, and all other civil officers, and all militia 'officers below the rank of general; he could by proclamation lay off coun- ties and sub-divide them; and with the advice of the judges, he could ordain laws, which it was the duty of the latter to execute in their respect- ive districts. The statement has heretofore been made that, in the south, the work of the state building has generally proceeded by the sub-divi- sion of a large area of territory into counties as the growth of population demanded their organization. Of this process the history of the Missis- sippi territory affords a striking illustration. Beginning in the most most populous region Governor Sargent, by proclamation dated April 2d, 1798, divided the Natchez district into the counties of Adams and Picker- ing, and on the 4th June, 1800, he provided for the local government of the Tombigbee settlement by laying off the county of Washington, whose original limits were the territorial boundaires on the north and south, the Chattahoochee on the east and the Mississippi on the west. Washington county, the first to be organized within the limits of Alabama, like the famous Augusta county of Virginia, has been the fruitful mother out of which a long list of other counties have been born. Out of its original domain sixteen counties in Mississippi and twenty-nine in Alabama have been formed wholly or in part. Owing to an increase in population, and to the dissatisfaction which arose of the exercise of the despotic powers vested in the governor, under a territorial system of the first grade, con- gress was induced, in 1800, and before the free white males numbered five thousand, to authorize the organization of a territorial system of the second grade, which guaranteed to the people the benefits of representative government. At that date the territory embraced only the three counties of Adams, Pickering and Washington. and from them were elected the members who were to compose the house of representatives-four from Adams, four from Pickering, and one from Washington, apportioned in the ratio of one representative to every five hundred free white males. This body with the council, consisting of five appointed members, com- posed the general assembly which convened for business at Natchez, in December. the time fixed for its annual meetings thereafter. No bill
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MEMORIAL RECORD OF ALABAMA.
enacted by the two houses could become a law until approved by the governor, who possessed the power to veto all acts which he deemed either unwise or unconstitutional. As soon as the new system went into effect Governor Sargent retired from office and William C. Claiborne succeeded him. In the year of his appointment, 1801, the new governor by the authority of the legislature removed the capital from Natchez to a village six miles to the east of it, called Washington; and in the next year Pickering county was sub-divided into Jefferson and Claiborne, while out of a part of Adams was organized the county of Wilkinson, in honor of the federal commander-in-chief. During the legislative session of 1801-2 it was that the first regular code of jurisprudence and judicial proceedings. was adopted for the use of the territory, and in the spring of 1802, the first newspaper, the Natchez Gazette, was published. Before the end of this eventful year the compromise with the state of Georgia was fully carried out by the commissioners, and all claims set up by her to lands within the territory were relinquished in favor of the United States. The immigration induced by this settlement soon made necessary the act of March 3d, 1803, entitled, "An act regulating grants of land, and provid- *ing for the disposal of the lands of the United States south of the state of Tennessee," under which was established two distinct land-offices, for the record and sale of all lands duly surveyed. One of these was established at Fort Stoddart in Washington county for the district east of Pearl river, while the other was fixed at Washington, in Adams county, for the district west of that river. In December, 1803, Governor Claiborne accepted the formal surrender of the province of Louisiana, over which he had been appointed governor-general; and yet, despite the new duties which thus devolved upon him, he continued as the actual governor of the Mississippi territory until the arrival of his successor, Robert Will- iams, in January, 1805. In the year preceding, owing to the increase in judicial work in the settlements upon the Tombigbee and Mobile rivers, it was deemed expedient to erect the county of Washington into a judicial district; and to this end an act of congress, approved March 27th, 1804, was passed providing for the appointment of an additional judge, who was required to reside in or near the principal settlements of Washington county, where he was to hold two regular terms of the superior court annually on the first Mondays of May and September. To the new judge- ship Mr. Jefferson appointed the Hon. Harry Toulmin, a gentleman of character and culture, born in Taunton, England, who was soon employed by the state "to compile a digest of the statutes now in force," together with a "set of forms and brief general principles for the information of justices of the peace and inferior courts," a task which he completed in 1806. With the appointment of Judge Toulmin, who was justly regarded by all as one of the most useful and accomplished men of his time, the judicial history of Alabama really begins. It is a coincidence no less pleasing than striking that, after the lapse of three-quarters of a century,
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POLITICAL HISTORY OF THE STATE.
the increase in judicial work in the same section of the state should have made it necessary for congress to create a new judgeship, and that to the new office another Harry Toulmin should have been appointed by the president who renews the recollection of his grandfather's virtues as he illustrates in the daily administration of justice, the all important fact that the model judge must be the model gentleman.
The settlements upon the Tombigbee and Mobile rivers, which were fast growing into importance, were hampered with many difficulties. As the advance guard into the Indian territory, they were not only surrounded and cut off by powerful tribes from the other American settlements, but they were also cut off from the sea by the territory of Spain to the south of them, through which they could not pass with the produce of their lands until they had first paid upon it a duty of twelve and a half per cent. ad valorem to a foreign power. Every boat and vessel had to pass under the guns of Fort Charlotte, and submit to this oppression, which became so burdensome that Governor Claiborne, of New Orleans, in his despatches, in 1805, declared "that the settlements will be abandoned unless this exaction terminates." While these southern communities were thus struggling on, oppressed by the Spaniard and threatened by the savage, a new settlement was founded in the north which was des- tined to grow into importance. In 1305 a treaty was made between the federal government and the Chickasaws whereby the latter ceded the eastern portion of their country lying north of the "Great Bend" of the Tennessee river, comprising over three hundred thousand acres in the vicinity of Huntsville, upon which grew up the settlement which was organized as Madison county by a proclamation issued by Governor Williams in 1808. The town of Huntsville was founded in 1806 by John Hunt of Tennessee, after whom it was named; and in 1811 it was the first town in the state to receive the dignity of incorporation. So rapidly had the population of the territory increased that, as early as 1805, congress assented to the election of a delegate under the pro- visions of the ordinance of 1787, and in May of that year Dr. William Lattimore, of Wilkinson county, was chosen the first delegate. In 1809 the first joint stock bank in the territory was chartered under the name of "The President, Directors, and Company of the Bank of Mississippi," the directors being made liable in their individual capacity for any emission of notes or bills over three times the amount of their capital stock during their administration While the work of political and financial organization was thus progressing, the territory became greatly excited by Burr's strange and mysterious military movements upon the Mississippi, which finally led to his arrest in 1807 by Captain E. P. Gaines, commanding at Fort Stoddart, while he was making his way down the Tombigbee in the hope of reaching Pensacola, where he expected to find protection upon an English vessel in that · harbor. Governor Williams, whose administration had given great dissatisfac-
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MEMORIAL RECORD OF ALABAMA.
tion, and who was suspected of conniving at Burr's escape, was in 1809 superseded by David Holmes of Virginia, who continued in the governor -. ship until 1817. He it was who, in 1810, when the western parishes of West Florida renounced the dominion of Spain, ordered out a detachment of militia from Adams and Wilkinson counties, and, under instructions from Washington, took possession of the country in the name of the United States. An explanation has already been made of the subsequent action taken by congress, by the act approved February 12th, 1813, under which General Wilkinson was instructed by the president to take forcible possession of the remaining portion of the territory held by the Spaniards between the Pascagoula and Perdido rivers, including the bay and port of Mobile. Not many months after this vitally important acquisition began the great Indian war, incited by the English, encouraged by the Spaniards and waged by the Creeks.
The time had now come when the government of the United States, which had expelled all foreign dominion from the soil of the Mississippi territory, was to be called upon to break once for all the power of the Indian tribes by whom its three isolated settlements were surrounded and menaced. The powerlessness of the territory to defend itself against Indian attack grew out of the fact that its three great centers of popu- lation were so remote from each other as to render concert of action impracticable. The vast and tractless wilderness upon whose borders the three settlements were situated interposed such a barrier to any- thing like commercial or social inercourse as to render them practically strangers to each other. Until that condition of things was brought to end, there was no opportunity for anything like vigorous and healthy expansion. Such was to be the happy consummation of a war which was set on foot with a very different intention. Although the Creeks, the most powerful tribe with which the settlers were brought into contact, had since the end of the Revolution shown a hostile disposition to the Ameri- can people, when instigated by Spanish influence, their enmity had been greatly mitigated by the temperate policy of the federal government, which had made with them formal treaties of peace and friendship. That condition of things would no doubt have continued had it not been the policy of Great Britain, after the beginning of the war of 1812, to incite both the northern and southern Indians to wage war against the whole southern and western frontier of the United States. The most powerful agent employed by the English was the revengeful Tecumseh who, with his brother, the "Prophet," came among the Creeks to incite them to commence hostilities against the border settlements of Georgia, Tennessee and the Mississippi territory. In 1813 the torch was lighted and the war began in earnest with the fearful massacre at Fort Mimms, a stockade into which large numbers from the settlements on the Tombigbee and the Alabama had gathered for safety. This shocking catastrophe, in which neither women nor children were spared by the ferocious Weatherford
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POLITICAL HISTORY OF THE STATE.
was a bugle call to arms which soon brought the volunteers from Georgia and Tennessee to the rescue. The splendid victories won under the leadership of Major-General Jackson in the battles of Tallushatches and Talladega in the campaign of 1813 were followed in the next year by a series of successes which culminated in the terrible battle of Tohopeka, wherein the power of the Creeks was broken forever. The important practical outcome of this victory over the Creek confederacy, which had so long hindered the growth of the Mississippi settlements, was the treaty, concluded on the 9th of August, 1814, at Fort Jackson on the Talla- poosa, between the American commissioners and the chiefs of the Creek nation, whereby the latter ceded to the United States all the Creek terri- tory lying east of the Tombigbee and west of the Coosa river. While this happy consummation was being reached, the British emissaries were actively engaged in arousing the Creeks and Seminoles in Florida to renew hostilities. In the very month in which the treaty of Fort Jackson was signed the British brig Orpheus landed officers and men in East Florida, who were to organize and lead an Indian force against Mobile for the avowed purpose of restoring to Spain that portion of country which the United States had seized west of the Perdido. General Jackson, who had been appointed commander-in-chief of the seventh military district in place of General Flournoy, early in the fall of 1814, undertook to secure the gulf coast from British invasion. He at once strengthened the defense at Mobile Point known as Fort Bowyer, which was placed in command of Major Lawrence, who in September successfully defended it against a combined attack made by the British and the Indians from land and sea. Thus repulsed the British fell back upon Pensacola, upon which General Jackson advanced not as a menace to Spain but to dislodge an enemny which was making Spanish territory a base of operations against the United States. After carrying the defenses at Pensacola at the point of the bayonet in November the general returned with his army to Mobile, whence he proceeded westward to Louisiana to superintend the defense of New Orleans.
During the year which followed the conclusion of the peace which secured the people of the Mississippi territory against the aggressions of both the British and the Indians, several important treaties were made with the latter which greatly facilitated the extension of population into the Indian country. By the treaty made at Fort Jackson in 1814 the vast area of territory lying east of the Tombigbee and west of the Coosa rivers, equal to nearly half the present area of the state, had been acquired from the Creeks, and out of this acquisition Governor Holmes had by proclamation, in June, 1815, created the county of Monroe, which formed a connecting link between the eastern settlements on the upper and lower Tombigbee, and those further north, contiguous to Madison county. The advancing population upon the headwaters of the Tom- bigbee and Black Warrior rivers. which was now fast encroaching upon
1
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MEMORIAL RECORD OF ALABAMA.
the contiguous territories of the Choctaws, Chickasaws and Cherokees, next made it necessary for the United States to obtain relinquishments from these co-terminous nations with which they were in friendly alliance. Commissioners were therefore appointed on the part of the federal govern- ment who, in the fall of the year 1816, concluded three several treaties for the cession of all the territory from the head waters of the Coosa, west- ward to Cotton-gin Port on the Tombigbee, and to a line running thence direct to the mouth of Caney creek, on the Tennessee river. Immedi- ately after the making of these treaties, which were the last for the relinquishment of Indian lands within the territory prior to its division, the white population began to press forward from the Tennessee valley into the beautiful region thus made available for settlement. Thus, before the end of the 'year 1816 the civilized inhabitants of the territory, includ- ing slaves, had increased to more than seventy-five thousand, of which about forty-six thousand were distributed through the counties west of Pearl river, while the remainder were divided between the settlements upon the Mobile and Tombigbee rivers, and in the valley of the Tennes- see. The growth which had thus taken place, coupled with the great inconvenience which the eastern settlements suffered in being so far removed from the capital, now made it highly desirable that the territory should be divided into two distinct governments-a wish which had been expressed, before the close of 1815, in a memorial laid before congress from the general assembly, as well as from the people upon the Tom- bigbee and the Alabama. To this memorial congress made a favorable response through appropriate legislation passed early in 1817.
1
ALABAMA TERRITORY, 1817-19.
By an act of congress, approved March 1st, 1817, the Mississippi terri- tory was divided, and the people of the western portion of it were author- ized to form a state government, preparatory to their admission into the union as a separate state. Delegates were duly elected to a convention which met on the first Monday of July; on the 15th of August a constitu- tion was adopted; and on the 10th of December, 1817, the "State of Mis- sissippi" was admitted into the sisterhood of states. The eastern limit of the new state was "a line to be drawn direct from the mouth of Bear creek, on the Tennessee river, to the northwest corner of Washington county, on the Tombigbee river, thence due south with the eastern limit of said county to the sea." By another act, approved March 3d, 1817. the remaining portion of the Mississippi territory east of the line just indi- cated was erected into a separate territorial government to be known and designated as the "Alabama Territory," a name taken from the principal river within its limits. The organizing act declared that St. Stephens should be the seat of government of the new territory, until otherwise provided; and that the president should appoint a governor with authority
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POLITICAL HISTORY OF THE STATE.
to there convene such members of the legislative council and house of representatives of the Mississippi territory as should reside after the division within the Alabama territory. William Wyatt Bibb, of Georgia, was appointed governor, and the first session of the territorial legislature began at St. Stephens, January 19, 1818, when the fact appeared that Mr. James Titus, of Madison, was the only member of the old leg- islative council who resided within the limits of Alabama. Nothing daunted by this strange condition of things, he sat during the entire session in a separate chamber, and adopted or rejected the measures from the lower house with all the formalities usual in parliamentary bodies. The seven organized counties remaining in Alabama after the division were Washington (June 4th, 1800), Madison (December 13, 1808), Baldwin, (December 21, 1800), Clarke (December 10, 1812), Mobile (April, 1813), Monroe (June 5, 1815), and Montgomery (December 6, 1816); and in them remained all the powers and duties with which they were clothed before the division, it being provided in the act of March 3d, "that all the offices which may exist, and all the laws which may be in force within said . boundaries, shall continue to exist and be in force until otherwise pro- vided by law." From these counties came the represenatives who met together in the first session of the territorial legislature at St. Stephens under the chairmanship of Gabriel Moore of Madison. During that session the following counties were created: Blount, Conecuh, Cotaco, Cahawba, Dallas, Franklin, Lauderdale, Lawrence, Limestone, Marengo, Marion, Shelby, and Tuscaloosa. At the second and last session of the territorial legislature held at St. Stephens in November, 1818, Cahawba was designated as the future seat of government, and Huntsville selected as the temporary capital, until the town of Cahawba could be laid out and the public buildings erected. At that session were created the counties of Autauga and St. Clair. In order to facilitate the survey and sale of lands in the "Northern Land District," a new land office was organized which was located at Huntsville; and on February 27th, 1819, a treaty was signed between the federal government and the Cherokees, whereby the latter parted with their lands north and west of the Tennessee river. That portion of this cession which fell within the limits of Alabama is now embraced in the counties of Jackson, Madison and Marshall. The Alabama territory, which at the time of the division contained not many more than thirty-three thousand souls, exclusive of the native tribes, had before the end of the year 1818, increased to more than seventy thousand; the seven counties which existed at the time of the organiza- tion had increased since that time to twenty-two. Under this changed condition of things it was not strange that an application should now be made to congress for the admission of Alabama as a state of the union.
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