1817- Journals of the Legislative Council/Senate of the General Assembly of the State of Alabama (title varied); printed by St. Stevens, Thomas
Eastin (1818), followed by other state printers in other towns and cities. Prior to its elevation to the status of a separate territory in 1817, Alabama
had comprised the eastern half of the Territory of Mississippi. The latter entity had been created by Congress in 1798 from lands disputed by the
State of Georgia, several native American tribes, and the United States itself. The whole of the sparsely settled Mississippi Territory was governed from
Natchez by a governor appointed under the terms of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. After two decades the conflicting claims to parts of the larger
territory by Georgia had been settled with monetary payments and those of the Native Americans by war. In 1817 Mississippi was made a state, and
Alabama was severed off as the Alabama Territory. It was assumed from the beginning that Alabama’s territorial experience would be short. Therefore,
rather than establishing a unique territorial government, the region was governed much as it was during its Mississippi Territory period, with its
territorial legislature being comprised of transplanted Alabama members from the former Mississippi territorial legislature. As with its predecessor, the
Alabama territorial legislature had a House of Representatives and a Legislative Council. These worthies spent most of their energies during the two brief
sessions of the territorial legislature organizing the region for statehood. A constitutional convention was convened in July of 1819, and Alabama
was admitted to the Union as a state in December. The first state capital was at Saint Stevens. Then came Cahaba, in 1819, Tuscaloosa, in 1826, and
finally Montgomery in 1846. Of note, the second session in 1818 of the Journal of Legislative Council (so called in 1818) is currently not found.
(Records in the Early State Records collection were digitized from a microfilm copy of title originally held by the Library of Congress, Birmingham Pubic
Library, Alabama Supreme Court Library and the Alabama Department of Archives and History).
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