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Settlement
Although
inhabited by
Native
Americans in prehistoric times, when explorers and
settlers began entering Kentucky in the mid-1700s, there
were no permanent Native American settlements in the region.
Instead, the country was used as hunting grounds by
Shawnees from the north and
Cherokees from the south. The first
documented exploration of the area that would become
Kentucky was made in 1750 by a scouting party led by
Dr. Thomas Walker.
Much of what is now Kentucky was purchased from Native
Americans in the treaties of
Fort Stanwix (1768)
and Sycamore Shoals
(1775).
Thereafter,
Kentucky grew rapidly as the first settlements west of the
Appalachian Mountains
were founded, with settlers (primarily from Virginia, North
Carolina, and Pennsylvania) entering the region via the
Cumberland Gap and the
Ohio River. The most famous of
these early explorers and settlers was
Daniel Boone, traditionally
considered one of the founders of the state. Shawnees north
of the Ohio River, however, were unhappy about the
settlement of Kentucky, and allied themselves with the
British in the
American Revolutionary War (1775–1783).
During this
period, the settlers introduced agriculture to the area.
Tobacco, corn, and hemp were the major crops of Kentucky,
and the hunter gatherer
aspects of Native American and settler life became less
pronounced.
Kentucky during the American
Revolution
Kentucky's
second largest city, and former capital
Lexington, is named for
Lexington, Massachusetts,
site of one of the first battles of the Revolution. A fort
was built there during the last year of the war for defense
against the English and their Native American allies.
Kentucky was a battleground during the war; the
Battle of Blue Licks,
one of the last major battles of the Revolution, was fought
in Kentucky.
Due to the
ongoing violence, by 1776 there were fewer than 200 settlers
in Kentucky.
Militia officers
After
Kentucky County was created
on December 6,
1776, the county militia was organized as follows:
-
In
November, 1780, Virginia divided Kentucky County into three
counties: Fayette,
Jefferson, and
Lincoln. Militia
officers of these counties included:
-
- Fayette County
-
John Todd - county lieutenant and colonel (killed at
Blue Licks in 1782)
-
Daniel Boone - lieutenant colonel
- Jefferson
County
-
John Floyd
- county lieutenant and colonel (killed 1783)
- Lincoln County
-
Benjamin Logan - county lieutenant and colonel
-
Stephen
Trigg - lieutenant colonel
(killed at Blue Licks in 1782)
In January
1781, Governor Thomas Jefferson
appointed George Rogers Clark as brigadier general, a
special position created for an expedition against Detroit
that never materialized. As a general, Clark was the highest
ranking militia officer in Kentucky and supervised the work
of the three Kentucky county colonels.
Separation from Virginia
Several
factors contributed to the desire of the residents of
Kentucky County to separate from Virginia. First, traveling
to the state capital was long and dangerous. Second,
offensive use of local militia against
Native
Americans required authorization from the
Governor of Virginia.
Last, Virginia refused to recognize the importance of trade
along the Mississippi River
to Kentucky's economy. Trade with the Spanish colony of
New Orleans, which controlled the
mouth of the Mississippi, was forbidden.
The
magnitude of these problems increased with the population of
Kentucky County, leading Colonel
Benjamin Logan to call a
constitutional convention in
Danville in 1784. Over the
next six years, nine more conventions were held. During one,
General James Wilkinson
proposed secession from both Virginia and the
United States to become a ward
of Spain, but the idea was defeated.
Finally, on June 1,
1792 the United States
Congress accepted the
Kentucky Constitution and admitted it as the 15th
state.
The antebellum period
In late
1811 and early 1812, Western Kentucky was heavily damaged by
a series of earthquakes referred to as the
New Madrid earthquake,
the largest recorded earthquake in the contiguous United
States. These earthquakes caused the Mississippi River to
change course, thus creating the
Kentucky Bend.
Civil War period
While
remaining loyal to the
Union, Kentucky was a
border state during
the American Civil War.
The state was officially neutral until a new legislature
took office on August 5,
1861 with strong Union sympathies. The
majority of the Commonwealth's citizens also had strong
Union sympathies. On September 4,
1861,
Confederate
General Leonidas Polk broke
Kentucky's neutrality by invading
Columbus, Kentucky. As a
result of the Confederate invasion, Union General
Ulysses S. Grant entered
Paducah, Kentucky. On
September 7, 1861,
the Kentucky State Legislature, angered by the Confederate
invasion, ordered the Union flag to be raised over the state
capitol in Frankfort,
declaring its allegiance with the Union. In November 1861,
during the Russellville
Convention, Southern sympathizers attempted to establish
an alternative state government with the goal of secession
but failed to displace the legitimate government in
Frankfort. On August 13,
1862, Confederate General
Edmund Kirby Smith's Army
of East Tennessee invaded Kentucky
and on August 28,
1862, Confederate General
Braxton Bragg's Army of
Mississippi entered Kentucky beginning the Kentucky
Campaign. Bragg's retreat following the
Battle of Perryville
left the state under the control of the Union Army for the
remainder of the war.
Reconstruction
Because
Kentucky was a slave state, it was subject to military
occupation during the Reconstruction Period. It was subject
to the Freedmen's Bureau
and a congressional investigation into the propriety of its
elected officials. During the election of 1865, ratification
of the Thirteenth Amendment was a major political issue.
Kentucky eventually rejected the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and
Fifteenth Amendments. Democrats prevailed in the election,
and one of their first acts was to repeal the Expatriation
Act of 1862, thus restoring the citizenship of Confederates.
After the
war, the Ku Klux Klan was quite
active in Kentucky. Between 1867 and 1881, the Frankfort
Weekly Commonwealth newspaper reported 115 incidents of
shooting, lynching, and whipping of blacks.
Reconstruction also saw the establishment of movements
favoring equal citizenship for blacks and
women's suffrage.
Laura Clay, daughter of noted
abolitionist
Cassius
Clay, was an active leader in the suffrage movement.
Kentucky's
hemp industry declined as manila
became the world's primary source of rope fiber. This led to
an increase in tobacco production, which was already the
largest cash crop of Kentucky.
Assassination of Governor
William Goebel
The
election of William S. Taylor
as Governor of the
Commonwealth of Kentucky on the
Republican Party
ticket in 1899 was an unexpected turn of events. To date,
this is the closest gubernatorial election in Kentucky
history. Supporters of William
Goebel, his
Democratic Party opponent, contested the election.
The
Kentucky Senate formed a
special Committee of Inquiry packed with Democratic members.
It was apparent to Taylor's adherents that the committee
would decide in favor of Goebel, and on
January 19, 1900,
a force of more than 1,500 armed civilians took possession
of the Capitol. For
more than two weeks, the United
States watched as the Commonwealth of Kentucky slid
towards civil war. Martial law was declared and the Kentucky
militia was activated.
On
January 30, 1900,
Goebel, accompanied by two bodyguards, was shot by a sniper
as he approached the Capital. Though mortally wounded,
Goebel was sworn in as Governor of the Commonwealth of
Kentucky the next day. Goebel died from his wounds on
February 3, 1900.
For nearly
four months after Governor Goebel's death, Kentucky had two
officials functioning as the commonwealth's chief executive;
Taylor, who insisted he was the governor, and
J. C. W. Beckham, running
mate of Governor Goebel, who was sworn in when the latter
died.
Governor
Beckham requested federal aid in determining who Kentucky's
chief executive was. The
U.S. Supreme Court
finally reached a decision on May 26,
1900, upholding the Commission's ruling
that Goebel was in fact Kentucky's governor, and his
Lieutenant Governor
(Beckham) had followed Kentucky's line of succession and was
now Governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky.
Immediately
following the court's decision, Taylor fled to
Indiana and was later indicted as one
of the conspirators in the assassination of Governor Goebel.
Attempts to extradite him failed, and Taylor remained in
Indiana until he died.
The early twentieth century
The coal
industry made dramatic progress between the turn of the
century and the first World War. Many Kentuckians made the
change from subsistence
farming to coal mining, particularly in the Appalachian
region. Many Kentuckians also left the state for
manufacturing and industrial centers in the Midwest.
German
immigrants also populated northern Kentucky extensively
during this time period; this situation led to much conflict
as the war progressed and anti-German sentiment increased.
World War I
Like the
rest of the country, Kentucky experienced dramatic inflation
during the war years. Much
infrastructure was created; roads had to be greatly
improved to accommodate the increasing popularity of the
automobile. The war also led to
the clear cutting of thousands of acres of Kentucky timber.
The tobacco
and whiskey industries had boom years during the teens,
although prohibition seriously
harmed the economy when the
Eighteenth Amendment took effect. Prohibition led to
widespread bootlegging that
continued on into the middle of the century.
The Great Depression
Like the
rest of the country and much of the world, Kentucky faced
great difficulty with the arrival of the
Great Depression in the late
1920s. There was widespread unemployment and little economic
growth. On the other hand, New Deal
programs greatly improved the educational system in the
state and led to the construction and improvement of a great
deal of infrastructure. The creation of roads, construction
of telephone lines, and
rural electrification were significant developments for
the state. The creation of the
Kentucky Dam and its hydroelectric power plant greatly
improved the lives of Western Kentuckians. Both the
Cumberland River and the
Mississippi River saw
extensive improvements in navigability and flood control.
The 1937 flood
Beginning
in January 1937, the Ohio River
was in various flood stages for three months. The flood led
to river fires when oil tanks in Cincinnati, Ohio were
destroyed in the flood. In Kentucky, one-third of Kenton and
Campbell counties were submerged. Paducah, Owensboro, and
other Purchase area cities were devastated. Damages from the
flood (nationwide) totaled 20 million dollars without
adjusting for inflation. It led to extensive flood
prevention efforts in the Purchase area, including the
distinctive flood wall at Paducah.
World War II
For
Kentucky, World War II,
signified increased importance of industry and decreased
importance of agriculture for the state's economy. The war
led to expansion of Fort Knox as
well as the creation of an ordnance plant in Louisville.
Louisville became the world's largest source of artificial
rubber. Shipyards at Jeffersonville and elsewhere was a
tremendous amount of work. Louisville's Ford manufacturing
center produced almost 100,000 Jeeps during the war. The war
also lead to a greater demand for higher education, as
technical skills were more in demand both during the war and
afterwards.
Notable Kentuckians during the
war
Husband Kimmel
of Henderson County commanded the Pacific Fleet. Sixty-six
men from Harrodsburg were on the
Bataan Death March. Edgar
Erskine Hume of Frankfort served as the military governor of
Rome after its capture. Kentucky native
Franklin Sousley was
depicted in the photograph showing the raising of the flag
at Iwo Jima. Harrodsburg resident John Sadler witnessed the
atomic bombing of Nagasaki as a prisoner of war. Seven
Kentuckians received the Medal of
Honor. 7,917 Kentuckians died during the war; 306,364
served.
Rose
Will Monroe, one of the models for
"Rosie the Riveter," was a
native of Pulaski County.
After the war
In the
years afterward, the
Interstate Highway System helped connect even the most
remote areas of Kentucky to one another.
Agriculture, though still important, was supplanted in many
areas by industry. By 1970, Kentucky had more urban
residents than rural residents. Tobacco production remains
an important part of the state economy, but has continually
decreased over the years. Marijuana is now the state's
largest cash crop. Though its cultivation is illegal, it is
prominent in rural areas and is seen by some as an extension
of the bootlegging culture that
was once pervasive in the region. Marijuana is widely grown
in the hilly areas of Eastern Kentucky, where it is
difficult for law enforcement to find and eradicate;
however, it is cultivated statewide. A 1997 study by
NORML estimated that Kentucky produced
over 800,000 marijuana plants annually, with a value to
growers of over $1.3 billion.
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