Native American settlement The first archaeological evidence of human occupation of Kentucky is approximately 9500 BCE, and it was
Clovis culture, primitive hunter-gatherers with stone tools. Around 1800 BCE, a gradual transition began from a hunter-gatherer economy to agriculturalism. Around 900 CE, a
Mississippian culture took root in western and central Kentucky and a
Fort Ancient culture appeared in eastern Kentucky. While the two had many similarities, the distinctive ceremonial earthwork mounds constructed in the former's centers were not part of the culture of the latter. Fort Ancient settlements depended largely on corn, beans, and squash, and practiced a system of agriculture that prevented ecological degradation by rotating crops,
burning sections of forest to create ideal habitat for wild game, relocating villages every 10–30 years, and continually shifting the location of fields to maintain plots of land in various stages of
ecological succession. In about the 10th century, the Kentucky native people's variety of corn became highly productive, supplanting the
Eastern Agricultural Complex and replacing it with maize-based agriculture in the
Mississippian era. As of the 16th century, what became Kentucky was home to tribes from diverse linguistic groups. The
Kispoko, an
Algonquian-speaking tribe, controlled much of the interior of the state. French explorers in the 17th century documented numerous tribes living in Kentucky until the
Beaver Wars in the 1670s; however, by the time that European colonial explorers and settlers began entering Kentucky in greater numbers in the mid-18th century, there were no major Native American settlements in the region. The
Chickasaw had territory up to the confluence of Mississippi and Ohio rivers. During a period known as the
Beaver Wars (1640–1680), another Algonquian tribe called the
Maumee, or
Mascouten was chased out of southern Michigan. The vast majority of them moved to Kentucky, pushing the Kispoko east and war broke out with the
Tutelo of North Carolina and Virginia that pushed them further north and east. The Maumee were closely related to the
Miami from Indiana. Later, the Kispoko merged with the
Shawnee, who migrated from the east and the Ohio River valley. A persistent myth, perpetuated in many popular and scholarly works, alleges that Native Americans never lived permanently in Kentucky, but rather used it only as a "hunting ground". According to early Kentucky historians, early European settlers encountered extensive evidence of permanent, advanced settlements, including numerous burial mounds,
copper and stone
artifacts, and what early historians describe as "fortifications:" large sites consisting of extensive walls enclosing the flat tops of bluffs, cliffs or mountains, constructed from stone that was
quarried in the surrounding valleys and brought up to the summit. These sites and artifacts were sometimes explained as being the remnants of a "lost" white race, or some variously identified ethnic group predating and distinct from the Native Americans. More recent scholarship identifies the mound builders as the Mississippian and Fort Ancient peoples, which were distinct from the indigenous cultures encountered by settlers, although sharing the same origin in Paleoindian groups that inhabited the area for at least 12,000 years. Beginning in the seventeenth century, before indigenous groups in Kentucky made direct contact with Europeans, articles of European origin such as glass
beads entered the region via
trade routes, and the appearance of
mass graves suggests that European diseases were also introduced. By the eighteenth century, epidemics of disease had destabilized and changed the indigenous groups that inhabited Kentucky, causing some to reassemble into multi-tribal towns, and others to
disperse further from the sphere of European influence. Around the end of the French and Indian War, as European settlers began to claim parts of the Bluegrass State, Native Americans abandoned their larger, more permanent villages south of the Ohio River and continued to maintain only small or transient settlements. This upheaval allowed the settlers to state that Kentucky was a hunting ground contested by multiple tribes but not permanently inhabited, when in reality it had only recently been abandoned due to social and political turmoil.
Early explorations: the discovery of Kentucky European explorers arrived in Kentucky possibly as early as 1671. While French explorers surely spied Kentucky during expeditions on the Mississippi, there is no evidence French or Spanish explorers set foot in the lands south of the Ohio, notwithstanding speculations about Hernando de Soto and Robert de la Salle. The terrain in those days was not surveyed, so there is some uncertainty whether and to what extent the early English explorers out of Virginia set foot on the land. Confounding the issue is that the region south of the Ohio/Allegheny later known as
Kentucky country was larger than the state of Kentucky today, encompassing most of today's West Virginia and (vaguely) part of southwestern Pennsylvania. Notable expeditions were Batts and Fallam 1671, Needham and Arthur 1673. Thomas Walker and surveyor Christopher Gist surveyed the area now known as Kentucky in 1750 and 1751.
European settlement: The Treaty of Fort Stanwix 1768 As more settlers entered the area, warfare broke out with the Native Americans over their traditional hunting grounds. June 16, 1774, James Harrod founded Harrod's Town (modern
Harrodsburg). The settlement was abandoned during the conflict period of
Dunmore's War, and resettled in March 1775, becoming the first permanent European settlement in Kentucky. It was followed within months by
Boone's Station,
Logan's Fort and
Lexington before Kentucky was organized. This period was the time of
Daniel Boone's legendary expeditions starting in 1767 through the
Cumberland Gap and down the Kentucky River to reach the bluegrass heartland of Kentucky. While the
Cherokee did not settle in Kentucky, they hunted there. They relinquished their hunting rights there in an extra-legal private contract with speculator Richard Henderson called
Treaty of Sycamore Shoals in 1775.
Kentucky County and the Cherokee-American wars On December 31, 1776, by an act of the
Virginia General Assembly, the portion of
Fincastle County west of the
Big Sandy River (including today's
Tug Fork tributary) terminating at the North Carolina border (today Tennessee) extending to the Mississippi River, previously most of what was known as
Kentucky (or Kentucke) country, was split off into its own county of
Kentucky. Harrod's Town (Oldtown as it was known at the time) was named the county seat. A 1790 U.S. government report states that 1,500Kentucky settlers had been killed by Native Americans since the end of the
Revolutionary War.
Statehood ,
Lincoln and
Fayette Counties in 1780, but continued to be administered as the District of Kentucky even as new counties were split off. On several occasions the region's residents petitioned the General Assembly and the
Confederation Congress for separation from Virginia and
statehood. Ten constitutional conventions were held in
Danville between 1784 and 1792. One petition, which had Virginia's assent, came before the Confederation Congress in early July 1788. Unfortunately, its consideration came up a day after word of
New Hampshire's all-important ninth
ratification of the proposed
Constitution, thus establishing it as the new framework of governance for the United States. In light of this development, Congress thought that it would be "unadvisable" to admit Kentucky into the Union, as it could do so "under the Articles of Confederation" only, but not "under the Constitution", and so declined to take action. On December 18, 1789, Virginia again gave its consent to Kentucky statehood. The
United States Congress gave its approval on February 4, 1791. (This occurred two weeks before Congress approved
Vermont's petition for statehood.) Kentucky officially became the fifteenth state in the Union on June 1, 1792.
Isaac Shelby, a military veteran from Virginia, was elected its first Governor.
Post-colonial plantation economy near
Hodgenville The central
Bluegrass region and the western portion of the state were the areas with the most
slave owners.
Planters cultivated
tobacco and
hemp on plantations with the use of slave labor, and were noted for their quality
livestock. During the 19th century, Kentucky slaveholders began to sell unneeded slaves to the
Deep South, with Louisville becoming a major slave market and departure port for slaves being transported down the Ohio River.
The Civil War Kentucky was a heavily divided slave state during the
American Civil War. Though the state had dueling Union and Confederate state governments, Kentucky was never an official component of the Confederacy.
Kentucky was one of the Southern
border states during the war, and it remained neutral within the
Union. Despite this, representatives from 68 of 110 counties met at
Russellville calling themselves the "Convention of the People of Kentucky" and passed an
Ordinance of Secession on November 20, 1861. They established a
Confederate government of Kentucky with its capital in
Bowling Green, and Kentucky was officially admitted into the Confederacy on December 10, 1861, as the 13th Confederate state with full recognition in Richmond. The Confederate shadow government was never popularly elected statewide, though 116 delegates were sent representing 68 Kentucky counties which at the time made up a little over half the territory of the commonwealth to the Russellville Convention in 1861, and were occupied and governed by the Confederacy at some point in the duration of the war, and Kentucky had full representation within the Confederate Government. Although Confederate forces briefly controlled Frankfort, they were expelled by Union forces before a Confederate government could be installed in the state capital. After the expulsion of Confederate forces after the Battle of Perryville, this government operated in-exile. Though it existed throughout the war, Kentucky's provisional government only had governing authority in areas of Kentucky under direct Confederate control and had very little effect on the events in the commonwealth or in the war once they were driven out of the state. Kentucky remained officially "neutral" throughout the war due to the
Southern Unionists sympathies of a majority of the commonwealth's citizens who were split between the struggle of Kentucky's sister Southern States fully in the
Confederate States of America and a continued loyalty to the Unionist cause that was prevalent in other areas of the South such as in East Tennessee, West Virginia, Western North Carolina, and others. Despite this, some 21st-century Kentuckians observe
Confederate Memorial Day on
Confederate leader
Jefferson Davis' birthday, June 3, and participate in Confederate battle re-enactments. Both Davis and U.S. president
Abraham Lincoln were born in Kentucky.
John C. Breckinridge, the 14th and youngest-ever Vice President was born in Lexington, Kentucky at Cabell's Dale Farm. Breckenridge was expelled from the U. S. Senate for his support of the Confederacy. Henry W. Grady, editor of the Atlanta Constitution, coined the term
New South in 1874, urging transformation from an agrarian economy to a modern industrial one.
Reconstruction and the New South On January 30, 1900, Governor
William Goebel, flanked by two bodyguards, was mortally wounded by an
assassin while walking to the State Capitol in downtown Frankfort. Goebel was contesting the
Kentucky gubernatorial election of 1899, which
William S. Taylor was initially believed to have won. For several months,
J. C. W. Beckham, Goebel's running mate, and Taylor fought over who was the legal governor until the
Supreme Court of the United States ruled in May in favor of Beckham. After fleeing to
Indiana, Taylor was indicted as a co-conspirator in Goebel's
assassination. Goebel is the only governor of a U.S. state to have been assassinated while in office. The
Black Patch Tobacco Wars, a vigilante action, occurred in Western Kentucky in the early 20th century. As a result of the
tobacco industry monopoly, tobacco farmers in the area were forced to sell their crops at prices that were too low. Many local farmers and activists united in a refusal to sell their crops to the major tobacco companies. An Association meeting occurred in downtown
Guthrie, where a vigilante wing of "Night Riders", formed. The riders terrorized farmers who sold their tobacco at the low prices demanded by the tobacco corporations. They burned several tobacco warehouses throughout the area, stretching as far west as
Hopkinsville to
Princeton. In the later period of their operation, they were known to physically assault farmers who broke the boycott. Governor
Augustus E. Willson declared
martial law and deployed the
Kentucky National Guard to end the wars. ==Geography==