Editing Kentucky (section)

==History==
{{Main|History of Kentucky}}

===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, [[controlled burn|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]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Patrick |first1=Andrew P. |title=Birth of the Bluegrass: Ecological Transformations in Central Kentucky to 1810 |journal=The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society |date=2017 |volume=115 |issue=2 |pages=155–182|doi=10.1353/khs.2017.0049 |s2cid=133557743 }}</ref>

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 culture|Mississippian era]]. As of the 16th century, what became Kentucky was home to tribes from diverse linguistic groups. The [[Kispoko]], an [[Algonquian languages|Algonquian-speaking]] tribe, controlled much of the interior of the state.<ref>Louis, Franquelin, Jean Baptiste. "Franquelin's map of Louisiana.". LOC.gov. Retrieved August 17, 2017.</ref>

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 people|Maumee]], or [[Mascouten]] was chased out of southern Michigan.<ref>"Early Indian Migration in Ohio." GenealogyTrails.com. Retrieved August 17, 2017.</ref> 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 people|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".<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Henderson |first1=A. Gwynn |title=Dispelling the Myth: Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Indian Life in Kentucky |journal=The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society |date=2018 |volume=90 |issue=1 |pages=1–25}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Native Americans of Clay County & Kentucky |url=https://www.claycountykentucky.org/history/indians/ |website=claycountykentucky.org}}</ref> According to early Kentucky historians, early European settlers encountered extensive evidence of permanent, advanced settlements, including numerous burial mounds, [[copper]] and stone [[Artifact (archaeology)|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 [[quarry|quarried]] in the surrounding valleys and brought up to the summit.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Cotterill |first1=Robert S. |title=History of Pioneer Kentucky |date=1917 |publisher=Johnson & Hardin |location=Cincinnati |pages=36–37}}</ref> These sites and artifacts were sometimes explained as being the remnants of a "lost" white race,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Cotterill |first1=Robert S. |title=History of Pioneer Kentucky |date=1917 |publisher=Johnson & Hardin |location=Cincinnati |page=30}}</ref> or some variously identified ethnic group predating and distinct from the Native Americans.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ranck |first1=George W. |title=History of Lexington Kentucky |date=1872 |publisher=Robert Clarke & Co |location=Cincinnati |page=12}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Henderson |first1=A. Gwynn |title=Dispelling the Myth: Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Indian Life in Kentucky |journal=The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society |date=2018 |volume=90 |issue=1 |pages=6–7}}</ref>

Beginning in the seventeenth century, before indigenous groups in Kentucky made direct contact with Europeans, articles of European origin such as glass [[bead]]s entered the region via [[trade route]]s, and the appearance of [[mass grave]]s suggests that European diseases were also introduced.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Henderson |first1=A. Gwynn |title=Dispelling the Myth: Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Indian Life in Kentucky |journal=The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society |date=2018 |volume=90 |issue=1 |page=17}}</ref> 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 [[Human migration|disperse]] further from the sphere of European influence.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Henderson |first1=A. Gwynn |title=Dispelling the Myth: Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Indian Life in Kentucky |journal=The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society |date=2018 |volume=90 |issue=1 |pages=18–22}}</ref> 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 likely led the settlers to believe 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.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Henderson |first1=A. Gwynn |title=Dispelling the Myth: Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Indian Life in Kentucky |journal=The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society |date=2018 |volume=90 |issue=1 |pages=24–25}}</ref>

===Early explorations: the discovery of Kentucky===
{{See also|Kentucke's Frontiers}}
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.<ref>"South of the Ohio" was almost, but not quite, synonymous with ''Kentucky country''.</ref> Notable expeditions were Batts and Fallam 1671, Needham and Arthur 1673.<ref>The First Explorations of the Trans-Allegheny Region by the Virginians 1650–1674</ref> 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===
{{further|Transylvania Colony|Lord Dunmore's War|Treaty of Fort Stanwix (1768)}}
{{See also|Indian Reserve (1763)}}
As more settlers entered the area, warfare broke out with the Native Americans over their traditional hunting grounds.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.merceronline.com/Native/native01.htm |title=The Presence |publisher=Mercer County Online |access-date=November 29, 2006 |website=History of Native Americans in Central Kentucky |archive-date=December 12, 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061212023438/http://www.merceronline.com/Native/native01.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref>

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.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Murphree |first1=Daniel S. |title=Native America: A State-by-State Historical Encyclopedia |date=2012 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |location=Santa Barbara, CA |isbn=9780313381270 |page=395 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0UNzFCOYTU4C |access-date=March 19, 2023 |archive-date=March 26, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326164802/https://books.google.com/books?id=0UNzFCOYTU4C |url-status=live }}</ref>

===Kentucky County and the Cherokee-American wars===
{{Further information|Kentucky County, Virginia|Cherokee-American wars|Fort Nelson (Kentucky)|History of Louisville, Kentucky}}

On December 31, 1776, by an act of the [[Virginia General Assembly]], the portion of [[Fincastle County]] west of the [[Big Sandy River (Ohio River)|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 County, Virginia|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 1,500{{spaces}}Kentucky settlers had been killed by Native Americans since the end of the [[American Revolutionary War|Revolutionary War]].<ref>{{cite book|author=James, James Alton|title=The Life of George Rogers Clark|location= Chicago|publisher= [[University of Chicago Press]]|year= 1928|isbn=978-0-404-03549-5}}</ref>

===Statehood===
[[File:Kentucky Statehood 150th Anniversary, 3c, 1942 issue.jpg|thumb
|In 1942 the U.S. Post Office issued a postage stamp [[commemorative stamp|commemorating]] the 150th anniversary of Kentucky statehood, a 3-cent 1942 issue]]
The county was subdivided into [[Jefferson County, Kentucky|Jefferson]], [[Lincoln County, Kentucky|Lincoln]] and [[Fayette County, Kentucky|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 [[Congress of the Confederation|Confederation Congress]] for separation from Virginia and [[U.S. state|statehood]]. Ten constitutional conventions were held in [[Danville, Kentucky|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 [[Article Seven of the United States Constitution|ratification]] of the proposed [[United States Constitution|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.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Kesavan|first1=Vasan|title=When Did the Articles of Confederation Cease to Be Law|journal=Notre Dame Law Review|date=December 1, 2002|volume=78|issue=1|pages=70–71|url=http://scholarship.law.nd.edu/ndlr/vol78/iss1/3|access-date=October 31, 2015|archive-date=January 1, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160101052616/http://scholarship.law.nd.edu/ndlr/vol78/iss1/3/|url-status=live}}</ref>

On December 18, 1789, Virginia again gave its consent to Kentucky statehood. The [[United States Congress]] gave its approval on February 4, 1791.<ref>{{USStat|1|189}}</ref> (This occurred two weeks before Congress approved [[Vermont]]'s petition for statehood.<ref>{{USStat|1|191}}</ref>) 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.<ref>{{cite web|title=Constitution Square State Historic Site |publisher=Danville-Boyle County Convention and Visitors Bureau |url=http://www.danville-ky.com/attractions2.php?category=History%20and%20Museums |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071011230008/http://danville-ky.com/attractions2.php?category=History%20and%20Museums |archive-date=October 11, 2007 |access-date=November 29, 2006 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

===Post-colonial plantation economy===
[[File:LincolnBirthplaceJBM82908.jpg|thumb|[[Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park|Abraham Lincoln Birthplace]] near [[Hodgenville, Kentucky|Hodgenville]]]]
{{See also|History of slavery in Kentucky}}
The central [[Bluegrass region]] and the western portion of the state were the areas with the most [[History of slavery in Kentucky|slave owners]]. [[Planter (American South)|Planters]] cultivated [[tobacco]] and [[Hemp in Kentucky|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===
{{Main|Border states (American Civil War)|Kentucky in the American 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 in the American Civil War|Kentucky was one of]] the Southern [[Border states (American Civil War)|border states]] during the war, and it remained neutral within the [[Union (American Civil War)|Union]].<ref>{{cite web | title=Border States in the Civil War | date=February 15, 2002 | publisher=CivilWarHome.com | url=http://www.civilwarhome.com/borderstates.htm | access-date=November 29, 2006 | archive-date=December 8, 2006 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061208033207/http://www.civilwarhome.com/borderstates.htm }}</ref> Despite this, representatives from 68 of 110 counties met at [[Russellville, Kentucky|Russellville]] calling themselves the "Convention of the People of Kentucky" and passed an [[Ordinance of Secession]] on November 20, 1861.<ref>{{cite web | title=Ordinances of Secession | publisher=Historical Text Archive | url=http://historicaltextarchive.com/sections.php?action=read&artid=170 | access-date=November 29, 2006 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101123052735/http://historicaltextarchive.com/sections.php?action=read&artid=170 | archive-date=November 23, 2010 | url-status=dead | df=mdy-all }}</ref> They established a [[Confederate government of Kentucky]] with its capital in [[Bowling Green, Kentucky|Bowling Green]], and Kentucky was officially admitted into the Confederacy on December 10, 1861, as the 13th Confederate state with full recognition in Richmond.<ref>{{cite web | title=Civil War Sites – Bowling Green, KY | publisher=WMTH Corporation | url=http://www.trailsrus.com/monuments/reg3/bowling_green.html | access-date=November 29, 2006 | archive-date=October 9, 2007 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071009101515/http://www.trailsrus.com/monuments/reg3/bowling_green.html | url-status=live }}</ref> 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{{citation needed|date=May 2023}} 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 States of America|Confederate]] leader [[Jefferson Davis]]' birthday, June 3, and participate in Confederate battle re-enactments.<ref>{{cite web | title=KRS 2.110 Public Holidays | publisher=[[Kentucky General Assembly]] | url=http://www.lrc.ky.gov/KRS/002-00/110.PDF | access-date=November 29, 2006 | archive-date=September 27, 2006 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060927011246/http://www.lrc.ky.gov/KRS/002-00/110.PDF | url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>Tony Hiss, ''Confederates in the Attic''</ref> 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''===
{{See also|Hatfield-McCoy feud}}
On January 30, 1900, Governor [[William Goebel]], flanked by two bodyguards, was mortally wounded by an [[assassination|assassin]] while walking to the State Capitol in downtown Frankfort. Goebel was contesting the [[Kentucky gubernatorial election, 1899|Kentucky gubernatorial election of 1899]], which [[William S. Taylor (Kentucky politician)|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.<ref>{{cite web|title=The Old State Capitol |publisher=[[Kentucky Historical Society]] |url=http://history.ky.gov/sub.php?pageid=23&sectionid=8 |access-date=September 9, 2007 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070827133601/http://history.ky.gov/sub.php?pageid=23&sectionid=8 |archive-date=August 27, 2007 }}</ref>

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, Kentucky|Guthrie]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://wkms.org/post/understanding-black-patch-tobacco-war-west-kentucky-and-tennessee#stream/0|title=Understanding the Black Patch Tobacco War of West Kentucky and Tennessee|publisher=[[WKMS]]|last1=Lochte|first1=Kate|last2=Markgraf|first2=Matt|date=September 22, 2014|access-date=May 6, 2016|archive-date=June 10, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160610004656/http://wkms.org/post/understanding-black-patch-tobacco-war-west-kentucky-and-tennessee#stream/0|url-status=live}}</ref> 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, Kentucky|Hopkinsville]] to [[Princeton, Kentucky|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.