History of Tennessee

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Tennessee is one of the 50 states of the United States. What is now Tennessee was initially part of North Carolina, and later part of the Southwest Territory. It was admitted to the Union on June 1, 1796, as the 16th state. Tennessee earned the nickname "The Volunteer State" during the War of 1812, when many Tennesseans helped with the war effort, especially during the Americans victory at the Battle of New Orleans in 1815. The nickname became even more applicable during the Mexican–American War in 1846, after the Secretary of War asked the state for 2,800 soldiers, and Tennessee sent over 30,000 volunteers. Tennessee was the last state to formally leave the Union and join the Confederacy at the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861. With Nashville occupied by Union forces from 1862, it was the first state to be readmitted to the Union at the end of the war. During the Civil War, Tennessee furnished the second most soldiers for the Confederate Army, behind Virginia. Tennessee supplied more units of soldiers for the Union Army than any other state within the Confederacy, with East Tennessee being a Unionist stronghold. During the Reconstruction era, the state had competitive party politics, but a Democratic takeover in the late 1880s resulted in passage of disenfranchisement laws that excluded most blacks and many poor whites from voting, with the exception of Memphis. This sharply reduced competition in politics in the state until after passage of civil rights legislation in the mid 20th century. After 1900, Tennessee transitioned from an agrarian economy based on tobacco and cotton, to a more diversified economy. This was aided in part by massive federal investment in the Tennessee Valley Authority created in the 1930s by the New Deal, helping the TVA become the nation's largest public utility provider. The huge electricity supply made possible the establishment of the city of Oak Ridge to house the Manhattan Project's uranium enrichment facilities, helping to build the world's first atomic bombs. In 2016, the element tennessine was named for the state, largely in recognition of the roles played by Oak Ridge, Vanderbilt University, and the University of Tennessee in the element's discovery.

Paleo Indians are believed to have hunted and camped in what is now Tennessee as early as 12,000 years ago. Along with projectile points common for this period, archaeologists in Williamson County have uncovered a 12,000 year old mastodon skeleton with cut marks typical of prehistoric hunters. The most prominent known Archaic period (c. 8000 – 1000 BC) site in Tennessee is the Icehouse Bottom site located just south of Fort Loudoun in Monroe County. Excavations at Icehouse Bottom in the early 1970s uncovered evidence of human habitation dating to as early as 7,500 BC. Other archaic sites include Rose Island, located a few miles downstream from Icehouse Bottom, and the Eva site in Benton County. The Archaic peoples first domesticated dogs and created the first villages in the state, but were largely hunter gatherers confined to smaller territories than their predecessors. Tennessee is home to two major Woodland period (1000 BC – 1000 AD) sites: the Pinson Mounds in Madison County and the Old Stone Fort in Coffee County, both built c. 1–500 AD. The Pinson Mounds are the largest Middle Woodland site in the Southeastern United States, consisting of at least 12 mounds and a geometric earthen enclosure. The Old Stone Fort is a large ceremonial structure with a complex entrance way, situated on what was once a relatively inaccessible peninsula. Mississippian (c. 1000 – 1600) villages are found along the banks of most of the major rivers in Tennessee. The most well known of these sites include Chucalissa near Memphis; Mound Bottom in Cheatham County; Shiloh Mounds in Hardin County; and the Toqua site in Monroe County. Excavations at the McMahan Mound Site in Sevier County and more recently at Townsend in Blount County have uncovered the remnants of palisaded villages dating to 1200.

In the 16th century, three Spanish expeditions passed through what is now Tennessee. The Hernando de Soto expedition entered the Tennessee Valley via the Nolichucky River in June 1540, rested for several weeks at the village of Chiaha (near the modern Douglas Dam), and proceeded southward to the Coosa chiefdom in northern Georgia. De Soto spent the winter of 1540 41 in camp on Pontotoc Ridge in extreme northern Mississippi. He may have entered Tennessee and went west to the Mississippi at or near present day Memphis. In 1559, the expedition of Tristán de Luna, which was resting at Coosa, entered the Chattanooga area to help the Coosa chief subdue a rebellious tribe known as the Napochies. In 1567, the Pardo expedition entered the Tennessee Valley via the French Broad River, rested for several days at Chiaha, and followed a trail to the upper Little Tennessee River before being forced to turn back. At Chiaha, one of Pardo's subordinates, Hernando Moyano de Morales, established a short lived fort called San Pedro. It, along with five other Spanish forts across the region, was destroyed by natives in 1569, thereby opening the area to other European colonization. Chronicles of the Spanish explorers provide the earliest written accounts regarding the Tennessee Valley's 16th century inhabitants. Most of the valley, including Chiaha, was part of the Coosa chiefdom's regional sphere of influence. Inhabitants spoke a dialect of the Muskogean language, and lived in complex agrarian communities centered around fortified villages. The villages of Chalahume and Satapo, visited by Pardo in 1567, were likely predecessors (and namesakes for) the later Cherokee villages of Chilhowee and Citico, which were located near the modern Chilhowee Dam. During the height of the Mississippians, hundreds of walled cities extended throughout the American south from Louisiana to the east coast, up the Mississippi into Wisconsin & a few fringe cities along larger rivers on the Great Plains. They had complex society & agriculture. They did not build with stone, but made plenty of examples of sculpture work in clay, stone & copper. Most of what remains of these cities, however, are large, pyramidal, earthen hills (upon which chiefs & upper classmen would build their homes) and artful burial mounds. These people did not develop the Mississippian culture, however, but adopted it from the Caddo people west of the Mississippi River. To the east were the Yuchi & Iroquoian Cherokee, divided along the Tennessee River. In the north central region of the state were the Algonquian Cisca. They later moved northeast and merged with the Shawnee, but were briefly replaced with a second native nation known as the Maumee, or Mascouten which were driven south during the Beaver Wars (1640 1680) from southern Michigan. They later merged with the Miami of Indiana & were, once again, replaced by the Shawnee. The Shawnee controlled most of the Ohio River Region until the Shawnee Wars (1811 1813). In 1673, British fur trader Abraham Wood sent an expedition led by James Needham and Gabriel Arthur from Fort Henry in the Colony of Virginia into Overhill Cherokee territory in modern day northeastern Tennessee. Needham was killed during the expedition and Arthur was taken prisoner for more than a year. That same year, a French expedition led by missionary Jacques Marquette and trader Louis Jolliet explored the Mississippi River and became the first Europeans to map the Mississippi Valley. French explorers and traders, led by Robert de La Salle, entered the region in 1682 at Fort Prudhomme. France briefly (1739–1740) established a presence at Fort Assumption during the Chickasaw Wars. In 1714, a group of French traders under Charles Charleville's command established a settlement at the present location of downtown Nashville near the Cumberland River, which became known as French Lick. These settlers quickly established an extensive fur trading network with the local Native Americans, but by the 1740s the settlement had largely been abandoned. In 1739, the French constructed Fort Assumption under Jean Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville on the Mississippi River at the present day location of Memphis, which they used as a base against the Chickasaw during the 1739 Campaign of the Chickasaw Wars. It was abandoned the next year after the Chickasaw took hostage French troops stationed at the fort. The Cherokee eventually moved south from the area now called Virginia. As European colonists spread into the area, the native populations were forcibly displaced to the south and west, including the Muscogee, Yuchi, Chickasaw and Choctaw peoples. Then, from 1838 to 1839, the US government forced the Cherokee to leave the eastern United States. Nearly 17,000 Cherokee were forced to march from eastern Tennessee to the Indian Territory west of the Arkansas Territory. This came to be known as the Trail of Tears, as an estimated 4,000 Cherokee died along the way. In the Cherokee language, the event is called Nunna daul Isunyi—"The Trail Where We Cried".

In the 1750s and 1760s, longhunters from Virginia explored much of East and Middle Tennessee. In 1756, British soldiers from the Colony of South Carolina built Fort Loudoun near present day Vonore, the first British settlement in what is now Tennessee. Fort Loudoun was the westernmost British outpost to that date, and was designed by John William Gerard de Brahm and constructed by forces under Captain Raymond Demeré. Shortly after its completion, Demeré relinquished command of the fort to his brother, Captain Paul Demeré. Hostilities erupted between the British and the Overhill Cherokees into an armed conflict that became known as the Anglo Cherokee War, and a siege of the fort ended with its surrender in 1760. The next morning, Paul Demeré and a number of his troops were killed in an ambush nearby, and most of the rest of the garrison was taken prisoner. After the end of the French and Indian War, Britain issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which forbade settlements west of the Appalachian Mountains in an effort to mitigate conflicts with the Natives. Despite this proclamation, migration across the mountains continued, and the first permanent European settlers began arriving in the northeastern part of the state in the late 1760s. William Bean, a longhunter who settled in a log cabin near present day Johnson City in 1769, is traditionally accepted as the first permanent European American settler in Tennessee. Later that year, Daniel Boone, under Henderson's employment, blazed a trail from Fort Chiswell in Virginia through the Cumberland Gap, which became part of the Wilderness Road, a major thoroughfare for settlers into Tennessee and Kentucky. [[File:View of town NARA 280421. tif|thumb|Bean Station in 1938, the first known permanent settlement of Tennessee. After fighting in the American Revolutionary War one year later, Bean was awarded in the area he previously surveyed for settlement during his excursion with Boone. The settlement was situated at the intersection of the Wilderness Road, that roughly followed what is present day U. S. Route 25E, and the Great Indian Warpath, an east–west pathway that roughly followed what is now U. S. Route 11W. This heavily trafficked crossroads location made Bean Station an important stopover between Washington, D. C. and New Orleans for early American travelers entering Tennessee, with taverns and inns operating by the 1800s.

When North Carolina ratified the Constitution of the United States in 1789, it also ceded its western lands, the "Tennessee country", to the Federal government. North Carolina had used these lands as a means of rewarding its Revolutionary War soldiers. In the Cession Act of 1789, it reserved the right to satisfy further land claims in Tennessee. Congress designated the area as the "Territory of the United States South of the River Ohio", more commonly known as the Southwest Territory. The territory was divided into three districts—two for East Tennessee and one for the Mero District on the Cumberland—each with its own courts, militia and officeholders. President George Washington appointed William Blount, a prominent North Carolinian politician with extensive holdings in the western lands, territorial governor.

In 1795, a territorial census revealed a sufficient population for statehood. A referendum showed a three to one majority in favor of joining the Union. Governor Blount called for a constitutional convention to meet in Knoxville, where delegates from all the counties drew up a model state constitution and democratic bill of rights. The voters chose Sevier as governor. The newly elected legislature voted for Blount and William Cocke as Senators, and Andrew Jackson as Congressman. Tennessee leaders thereby converted the territory into a new state, with organized government and constitution, before applying to Congress for admission. Since the Southwest Territory was the first Federal territory to present itself for admission to the Union, there was some uncertainty about how to proceed, and Congress was divided on the issue. Nonetheless, in a close vote on June 1, 1796, Congress approved the admission of Tennessee as the sixteenth state of the Union. They drew its borders by extending the northern and southern borders of North Carolina, with a few deviations, to the Mississippi River, Tennessee's western boundary.

By 1860 the slave population had nearly doubled to 283,019, with only 7,300 free African Americans in the state. While much of the slave population was concentrated in West Tennessee, planters in Middle Tennessee also used enslaved African Americans for labor. According to the 1860 census, African slaves comprised about 25% of the state's population of 1.1 million before the Civil War.

People in East Tennessee were firmly against Tennessee's move to leave the Union; as were many in other parts of the Union, particularly in historically Whig portions of West Tennessee. This was primarily due to the distribution of slavery throughout the state; Of the state's entire slave population, nearly 40% of West Tennessee and about 20% of Middle Tennessee's were slaves, but in East Tennessee, slaves made up only 8% of the population. The East Tennessee Convention, which met at Knoxville in May 1861 and at Greeneville in June 1861, consisted of 29 East Tennessee counties and one Middle Tennessee county (Scott County) that resolved to secede from Tennessee and form a separate state aligned with the Union. They petitioned the state legislature in Nashville, which denied their request to secede and sent Confederate troops under Felix Zollicoffer to occupy East Tennessee and prevent secession. Many East Tennesseans engaged in guerrilla warfare against state authorities by burning bridges, cutting telegraph wires, and spying. The Union backing State of Scott was also established at this time and remained a de facto enclave of the United States throughout the war. Tennessee provided more Union troops than any other Confederate state; more than 51,000 soldiers in total, more than 20,000 of whom were Black. Tennessee also provided 135,000 Confederate troops, the second highest number after Virginia.

thumb|right|200px|upright|Alvin C. York
During the First World War (1914–1918), Tennessee provided the most celebrated American soldier, Alvin C. York, of Fentress County, Tennessee. He was a former conscientious objector who, in October 1918, subdued an entire German machine gun regiment in the Argonne Forest. Besides receiving the Medal of Honor and assorted French decorations, York became a powerful symbol of patriotism in the press and Hollywood film.

Tennessee became the focus of national attention during the campaign for women's voting rights. Like the temperance movement, women's suffrage was an issue with its roots in middle class reform efforts of the late 19th century. The organized movement came of age with the founding of the Tennessee Equal Suffrage Association in 1906, which gave the movement at least one national leader in Sue Shelton White from Henderson. There was a determined (and largely female) opposition, championed by the Chattanooga Times, the Nashville Banner and the Jonesboro Herald and Tribune. To overcome the opposition the Tennessee suffragists were moderate in their tactics and gained limited voting rights before the national question arose. In August 1920, Governor Albert H. Roberts called a special session of the General Assembly to consider ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U. S. Constitution. Leaders of the rival groups flooded into Nashville to lobby the General Assembly. In a close House vote, the suffrage amendment won passage when an East Tennessee legislator, Harry Burn, switched sides after receiving a telegram from his mother encouraging him to support ratification. On August 9, 1920, during a special session of the Sixty First General Assembly, Tennessee's vote in favor of ratifying the Nineteenth Amendment, made it the pivotal state in the ratification process. Women immediately made their presence felt by swinging Tennessee to Warren Harding in the 1920 presidential election. It was the first time since 1868 that the state had voted for a Republican presidential candidate.

National attention came Tennessee's way during the trial of John T. Scopes, also called the Scopes Trial. In 1925, the General Assembly, as part of a general education bill, passed a law that forbade the teaching of evolution in the public schools. Some local boosters in Dayton, Tennessee concocted a scheme to have Scopes, a high school biology teacher, violate the law and stand trial as a way of drawing publicity and visitors to the town. Their plan worked all too well, as the Rhea County Courthouse was turned into a circus of national and even international media coverage. Thousands flocked to Dayton to witness the high powered legal counsels, William Jennings Bryan for the prosecution, and Clarence Darrow for the defense, argue their case. Tennessee was ridiculed in the northeast and West Coast press as the "Monkey State," even as a wave of revivals defending religious fundamentalism swept the state. The trial was also given the name "Monkey Trial" by the same reporters. The legal outcome of the trial was inconsequential. Scopes was convicted and fined $100, a penalty later rescinded by the state court of appeals. The law itself remained on the books until 1967.

The need to create work for the unemployed during the Great Depression, the desire for rural electrification, and the desire to control the annual spring floods on the Tennessee River drove the federal government's creation of the Tennessee Valley Authority, the nation's largest public utility, in 1933. The TVA affected the lives of nearly all Tennesseans. The agency was created mainly through the persistence of Senator George Norris of Nebraska. Headquartered in Knoxville, it was charged with the task of planning the total development of the Tennessee River Valley. TVA sought to do this by building hydroelectric dams, constructing 20 between 1933 and 1951, as well as electricity producing coal fired power plants. Inexpensive and abundant electrical power was the main benefit the TVA brought to Tennessee, particularly to rural areas that previously did not have electrical service. TVA brought electricity to about 60,000 farm households across the state. By 1945, TVA was the largest electrical utility in the nation, a supplier of vast amounts of power whose presence in Tennessee attracted large industries to relocate near one of its dams or steam plants. This incentive contributed to important economic development in the state.

World War II brought relief to Tennessee by employing ten percent of the state's populace (308,199 men and women) in the armed services. Most of those who remained on farms and in cities worked on war related production since Tennessee received war orders amounting to $1.25 billion. Tennessee military personnel served with distinction from Pearl Harbor to the final, bloody assaults at Iwo Jima and Okinawa, and 7,000 died in combat during the war. In 1942–43, Middle Tennessee residents played host to 28 Army divisions that swarmed over the countryside on maneuvers preparing for the D Day invasion. Tennesseans participated in all phases of the war—from combat to civilian administration to military research. Cordell Hull served twelve years as Franklin D. Roosevelt's Secretary of State and became one of the chief architects of the United Nations, for which he received the Nobel Peace Prize.

War based industries hummed with the labor of a greatly enlarged workforce. A giant shell loading plant was built at Milan, as well as the Vultee Aircraft works in Nashville; TVA projects also expanded in East Tennessee. Approximately 33% of the state's workers were female by the end of the war. Especially significant for the war effort was Tennessee's role in the Manhattan Project, the military's top secret project to build an atomic weapon. Research and production work for the first A bombs were conducted at the huge scientific/industrial installation at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The Oak Ridge community was entirely a creation of the war. It grew from empty woods in 1941 to a city of 70,000 (Tennessee's fifth largest) four years later. With increased industrialization of the state's economy, the labor movement in the state gained momentum. In 1950, workers at an American Enka Company factory near the city of Morristown went on strike. Tensions soon built when residents appeared at the factory gates to apply for advertised replacements of the striking workers. Violence then followed, with people killed and vandalism and destruction of cars and houses. Then Governor Gordon Browning, dispatched National Guard troops to restore order at the facility. By the end of the strike, the event had become the location of on site congressional hearings and the nationwide face regarding labor relations.

Tennessee celebrated its bicentennial in 1996 after a yearlong statewide celebration entitled "Tennessee 200" by opening a new state park—the Bicentennial Mall—at the foot of Capitol Hill in Nashville.

In 2002, Phil Bredesen became the 48th governor, and Tennessee amended the state constitution to allow for the establishment of a lottery. In 2006, Tennessee saw the only freshman Republican, Bob Corker, elected to the United States Senate in the midst of the 2006 midterm elections and the Constitution was amended to reject same sex marriage. In January 2007, Ron Ramsey became the first Republican to become Speaker of the State Senate since Reconstruction. In 2010, during the historic 2010 midterm elections, Bill Haslam succeeded Bredesen, who was term limited, to become the 49th Governor of Tennessee. In April and May 2010, flooding in Middle Tennessee devastated Nashville and other parts of Middle Tennessee. In April 2011, parts of East Tennessee, including Hamilton and Bradley counties, were devastated by the 2011 Super Outbreak, the largest and costliest tornado outbreak in history.

Bergeron, Paul H. Paths of the Past: Tennessee, 1770 1970 (1979), Short survey
Carpenter, William. History of Tennessee: From its earliest settlement to the present (2011)
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Laska, Lewis L. "A Legal and Constitutional History of Tennessee, 1772 1972" University of Memphis Law Review 6 (1975): 563+ online. Lamon, Lester C. Blacks in Tennessee, 1791–1970. University of Tennessee Press, 1980. Mansfield, Stephen, and George E Grant. Faithful Volunteers: The History of Religion in Tennessee (1997)
Norton, Herman. Religion in Tennessee, 1777–1945. University of Tennessee Press, 1981. Putnam, Albigence Waldo. History of Middle Tennessee (1859) online. Sawyer, Susan. More Than Petticoats: Remarkable Tennessee Women (2nd ed. 2014)
Van West, Carroll. Tennessee History: The Land, The People, and the Culture University of Tennessee Press, 1998.