Rachael Mitchell, age 12, of Montgomery, Ala., for her question:
HOW DID ALABAMA RECEIVE ITS NAME?
Alabama is known as the "Heart of Dixie" because it is is the very center of all of the Southern states. Its name comes from the name of an Indian tribe that once lived in the area. These Indians called themselves the "Alibamu," which means "I open (oz clear) the thicket."
The Indians, also called the Alibamon, belonged to the Creek Confederacy. The name was given to the Alabama River before it was given to the state.
The Alibamu ware living in the area when the first European explorer arrived. He was Alonso Alvarez de Pineda, a Spanish explorer who sailed into Mobile Bay fn 1519. About 8,000 years earlier a tribe of cliff dwelling Indians lived in the region. Details of their lives were discovered in northeastern Jackson County excavations.
Another Spanish explorer, this one named Hernando de Soto. became the first European to explore the interior of Alabama. He led an expedition from the northeast in 1540.
The first large group of white men to settle in the area were French. In 1702 two French Canadian brothers, Pierre Le Moyne, Sieuz d1iberville, and Jean Baptists Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, founded Fort Louis on the Mobile River. In 1711 flood waters forced the settlers to move 17 miles south to the present site of the city of Mobile. This became the first permanent white settlement in Alabama.
In 1763 the French gave their North American colonies to Greet Britain in the Treaty of Paris. Alabama was ceded by the British to the United States after the American Revolution.
But the Mobile area had been taken by Spain in 1780. During the war of 1812 against the British, the United States seized the Mobile area (which the Spanish, interestingly, had already ceded to the U.S. in 1799). On April 15, 1813, the American flag flew over the entire Alabama region for the first time.
Alabama became the 22nd state on Dec. 14, 1819.
Disagreements between the North and South over slavery and other issues deepened after Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860. Alabama left the Union on Jan. 11, 1861, and declared itself the Republic of Alabama.
The Alabama secession convention invited all other Southern states to send delegates to Montgomery and on Feb. 8, 1861, the convention established the Confederate States of America with Montgomery as its capital. Montgomery became known as the "Cradle of the Confederacy" even though the capital was moved to Richmond, Va., in May, 1861.
Most of Alabama escaped the ruin that spread across the South during the war. Alabama was hit harder by nine years of Reconstruction than by four years of war.
Today Alabama has an important part in the motion's future. Huntsville, called "Rocket City, U.S.A.," is the site of the Redstone Arsenal and the Marshall Space Flight Center.