Editing Bibb County, Georgia (section)

== History ==
This area was inhabited for thousands of years by successive indigenous peoples. The [[Ocmulgee National Monument]] is a national park and historic site incorporating two major mound and town complexes: [[Lamar Mounds and Village Site]] and Ocmulgee Mound Site, both located along the [[Ocmulgee River]]. They were built by indigenous peoples during the [[Mississippian culture]] era. The detailed chronicles of the [[Hernando de Soto]] expedition recorded visiting ''Ichisi'', a major village, in 1539. Historians and archeologists have theorized it may have been located at the Lamar Mounds complex.<ref>[[Charles M. Hudson]], ''[[Knights of Spain, Warriors of the Sun]]'', University of Georgia Press, 1997, pp. 157-162</ref>

For centuries, the historic [[Native Americans in the United States|Native Americans]] [[Creek people|Muscogee]] tribe, descendants of this culture, was the predominant one in a large area of Georgia, including that later organized as Bibb County. During the colonial period, Anglo colonists carried on a brisk trade with them and allied with them in certain wars in the Southeast. With European-American land hunger to extend cotton cultivation in the Georgia uplands, the Muscogee and other four Civilized Tribes of the Southeast were forcibly relocated to Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River, in the [[Indian Removal]] of the 1830s, during the administration of President [[Andrew Jackson]]. The Indian tribes affected refer to their journey is as the "[[Trail of Tears]]", since many died during the march west.

In the late 18th century, the cotton gin was invented, making profitable the processing of short-staple cotton. This could be grown across the uplands of the South, in contrast to the long-staple cotton of the Low Country. Bibb is considered one of the counties of the [[Black Belt in the American South|"Black Belt"]], which originally referred to the fertile dark soil in these uplands. The area was developed by European-American planters, who used enslaved African Americans as workers to clear land and develop large [[cotton]] [[plantations in the American South|plantations]] during the antebellum years. Cotton generated high profits, since it was in demand in the textile mills of the northern states and England. By the 1860 census, shortly before the [[American Civil War]], more than a million enslaved African Americans lived in Georgia, and they constituted a majority of the population in much of the Black Belt.

Bibb County was created by act of the [[Georgia Legislature]] on December 9, 1822, with Macon to be incorporated as a town/city in December 1823; designated the county seat. It was carved from the earlier territories of the counties of [[Jones County, Georgia|Jones]], [[Monroe County, Georgia|Monroe]], [[Houston County, Georgia|Houston]], and [[Twiggs County, Georgia|Twiggs]] Counties. The county seat has not been changed since, and no other subsequent county in the state has ever been created ("erected") out of land from Bibb County.

The county was named for Dr. [[William Wyatt Bibb]], a [[physician]] from [[Elbert County, Georgia|Elbert County]], who served in the [[United States House of Representatives|U.S. House of Representatives]] and [[United States Senate]] from [[History of Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]]. After he moved to the new [[Alabama Territory]], he was later elected as the first [[Governor of Alabama|governor of the new State of Alabama]] upon its admission.

===Civil War to present===
{{Main|Macon, Georgia#History|l1 = Macon, Georgia - History}}
During the Civil War, an estimated 10% of the white males in the county lost their lives while serving in the [[Confederate Army|Confederate States Army]].<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5vKMMkmNPSgC&pg=PA123 |title=Cotton, Fire, and Dreams|isbn=9780865545984 |last1=Davis |first1=Robert Scott |year=1998 |publisher=Mercer University Press }}</ref> The war gained the emancipation of slaves across the South. Georgia had been a battleground, and Atlanta and many other areas were left in ruins.

Well into the 20th century, the county depended on cotton and other agriculture as its economic base. It was subject to related vagaries of weather, financial markets, and the devastation of the invasive [[boll weevil]] in the early 20th century, which destroyed cotton crops across the South.

After the Civil War and during the 20th century, the county seat of Macon continued to serve as the county's principal population center, site of the most significant landmarks, and the location of major historical events.

On July 31, 2012, voters in the City of Macon (57.8% approval) and Bibb County (56.7% approval) passed a referendum to merge the governments of the city and the county, based on the authorization of House Bill 1171 passed by the [[Georgia General Assembly]] earlier in the year.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www1.legis.ga.gov/legis/2011_12/sum/hb1171.htm|title=HB 1171 - Macon-Bibb County; create and incorporate new political body corporate|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121030001652/http://www1.legis.ga.gov/legis/2011_12/sum/hb1171.htm|archive-date=October 30, 2012|url-status=dead}}</ref> Four previous consolidation attempts (in 1933, 1960, 1972, and 1976) had failed.<ref name="City-County Consolidation Proposals, 1921 - Present">[http://www.naco.org/Counties/Documents/City%20County%20Consolidations.01.01.2011.pdf City-County Consolidation Proposals, 1921 - Present] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120719083354/http://www.naco.org/Counties/Documents/City%20County%20Consolidations.01.01.2011.pdf|date=July 19, 2012}}, ''National Association of Counties''. Retrieved February 11, 2011.</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.ai.org/legislative/interim/committee/2005/committees/prelim/MCCC02.pdf |title=The Effects on City-County Consolidation |access-date=August 28, 2012 |archive-date=July 21, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140721082018/http://www.ai.org/legislative/interim/committee/2005/committees/prelim/MCCC02.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref name="autogenerated3">Consolidation pass for Macon and Bibb county in the 2012 vote.[http://etd.lib.fsu.edu/theses/available/etd-04152005-170723/unrestricted/05_lsj_CHAPTER_4_b.pdf CONSOLIDATION OF CITY AND COUNTY GOVERNMENTS: ATTEMPTS IN FIVE CITIES] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130120034927/http://etd.lib.fsu.edu/theses/available/etd-04152005-170723/unrestricted/05_lsj_CHAPTER_4_b.pdf|date=January 20, 2013}}. Retrieved September 14, 2010.</ref> The consolidation took effect on January 1, 2014, along with the [[Municipal deannexation in the United States|deannexation]] from the city of a small portion of land in Jones County.

In addition to Macon, Bibb County contained one other municipality, [[Payne, Georgia|Payne City]] (or Payne), an [[Enclave and exclave|enclave]] of around 200 people that was surrounded entirely by the preconsolidation City of Macon. In the 2012 referendum, Payne City voters rejected consolidation by a vote of 9 to 7, so it was not merged into the consolidated government. In early 2015, at the request of the small city's government, the Georgia General Assembly passed a bill dissolving Payne City, merging it with the rest of Macon-Bibb County.<ref name=":0" />