Kentucky

The First People in Kentucky

For 200 years, most historians argued that Native Americans didn’t live in the area now known as Kentucky and instead used the land sporadically for hunting and trapping. However, petroglyphs, stone tools and other archeological evidence suggests that Indigenous people have lived on the land for more than 12,000 years. The myth of an unpopulated Kentucky prior to European settlement was popularized by a book published in the late 1700s, written by a land speculator and entrepreneur who hoped to encourage new settlements in Kentucky.

Before Europeans arrived, Kentucky was home to many tribes speaking a wide range of languages, including Algonquian, Iroquoian and Muskogean. When Kentucky joined the Union in 1792, over 20 tribes legally claimed land in Kentucky, including the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Chippewa, Delaware, Eel River, Haudenosaunee, Kaskaskia, Kickapoo, Miami, Ottawa, Piankeshaw, Potawatomi, Shawnee, Wea and Wyandot. The Mingo, Yamacraw and Yuchi also called Kentucky home.

The Cherokee were one of the largest groups in Kentucky and the first to come into contact with Spanish explorers in the mid-1500s. British settlers in Virginia developed a robust trading relationship with the Cherokee starting in the early 1600s. The British also brought smallpox epidemics that halved the Cherokee population in the 1700s. During the Seven Years War, the Cherokee fought against the French with the British. Following England’s 1763 victory, the British stipulated that Kentucky was Indian Territory and could not be purchased or taken from the Cherokee without their permission.

Wilderness Road to Statehood

Dr. Thomas Walker and surveyor Christopher Gist first explored the area now known as Kentucky in 1750 and 1751. The outbreak of the Seven Years War prevented further exploration until frontiersman Daniel Boone visited Kentucky in 1769 and recognized the potential of the area’s natural resources. In 1775, a group of settlers created the Transylvania Company with the purpose of settling the land between the Kentucky, Ohio and Cumberland rivers.

Working for the Transylvania Company, Boone forged the Wilderness Road over Kentucky’s Cumberland Gap. The path led more than 200,000 settlers—including many Scotch-Irish and German migrants from western Pennsylvania, Maryland, North Carolina and Virginia—to Kentucky by the end of the century. Ft. Harrod was established in 1773, and Harrodsburg became Kentucky’s first permanent settlement in 1774. Boone also established the Boonesborough fort in his name.

Virginia annexed Kentucky and made it a county of its colony in 1776. After the colonists won the Revolutionary War, Kentucky settlers began a separatist movement for independence from Virginia. On June 1, 1792, the Union admitted Kentucky as the 15th state.

Native American Land Cessions and Trail of Tears

In the late 1700s and early 1800s, a growing number of white settlers arriving in Kentucky on the Wilderness Road clashed with Indigenous people over land. Hoping to push settlers out of Kentucky, Native American warriors from the Shawnee, Hurons, Shawnee, Wyandot, Mingo and other tribes fought against the colonists alongside their British trading partners in the Revolutionary War.

In 1775, Transylvania Company representatives and Boone compelled the Cherokee to sign the Treaty of Sycamore Shoals, which sold the company much of the Cherokee’s land in modern-day Kentucky and Tennessee. However, Virginia—which counted Kentucky as a county at the time—nullified the treaty in 1776 while granting the Transylvania Company 200,000 acres along the Ohio River.

The Cherokees eventually ceded some of their Kentucky land to the American colonists in 1785, but settlers did not ultimately respect the established boundaries. Over the following decade, the Cherokee joined a confederacy of other Native American groups—including the Shawnee, Delaware, Wyandot and Miami—to fight the colonists, often with the aid of the British.

Several treaties between the government and Indigenous people over the 1790s brought an end to the battles and attempted to establish Cherokee territory. But by the early 1800s a flood of new settlers began demanding new land in Kentucky. Between 1805 and 1811, the Cherokee and Chickamauga ceded their lands to the United States government. In 1818, the Chickasaw sold their Kentucky territory west of the Tennessee River with the Jackson Purchase.

Following the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, a nationwide movement began to relocate Native Americans to territory west of the Mississippi River. In 1830, President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act, which led to the government takeover of Native American lands in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee.

Some Native Americans voluntarily moved to “Indian Territory,” or modern-day Oklahoma. Those who resisted were forcibly removed by the military on a long and deadly path, known as the Trail of Tears, through Kentucky and several other states. A few Indigenous people managed to escape and remain in Kentucky. Today some Cherokee still live in Kentucky, but the state has no federally- or state-recognized Native American tribes.

Slavery and the Civil War

Slavery existed in Kentucky since the first settlers arrived, and it was written into the state’s original constitution. By 1830, Black people made up 24 percent of Kentucky’s population. An 1833 law banned the importation and sale of slaves, but was overturned in 1849. At the same time, a movement to ban slavery in Kentucky was unsuccessful.

During the Civil War, Kentucky remained a neutral state. Around 100,000 troops fought for the North, and 40,000 troops fought for the South, including almost 24,000 African American soldiers. The Battle of Richmond in Madison County, Kentucky, led to the Union capture of the capital city of Frankfort. The Battle of Perryville in October of 1862 was the largest and last Civil War battle in Kentucky, leaving 1,600 dead and 5,400 wounded.

After the Civil War ended, Kentucky did not ratify the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which officially ended slavery. Throughout Reconstruction until the mid-1950s, Black people in Kentucky fought for the right to vote and other equal treatment under the law. The state’s oppressive segregation laws were gradually dismantled by the civil rights movement. The state only officially ratified the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution in 1976—more than 100 years after they were enacted. Provisions for segregation and a poll tax were removed from the state constitution in 1996.

Bourbon, Horse Racing and Bluegrass Music

Kentucky’s climate is ideal for producing and distilling whiskey, which has been produced in the state since the first white settlers arrived. Whiskey was first produced in Bourbon county, which became nationally recognized as a whiskey variation by the mid-19th century. Kentucky has since become the world’s bourbon capital: According to the Kentucky Distillers Association, as of 2022, more than 95 percent of the world’s bourbon whiskey is produced in Kentucky.

Kentucky’s moderate climate and geography is also ideal for raising and training horses. They came into the territory with the first frontiersmen. Kentucky is home to the first known circular horse racing track, constructed in the 1780s. The world-famous Kentucky Derby has been held at Churchill Downs in Louisville every May since 1875.

Bluegrass music’s roots trace to the 1600s, brought to Kentucky and surrounding states by Irish, Scottish and English settlers. Bill Monroe, born in Kentucky, is often considered the “father of bluegrass” music. Monroe is credited with popularizing a style of country music that he named “bluegrass,” after the Bluegrass Region in his home state.

Date of Statehood: June 1, 1792

Capital: Frankfort

Population: 4,505,836 (2020)

Size: 40,411 square miles

Nickname(s): Bluegrass State

Motto: United we stand, divided we fall

Tree: Tulip Poplar

Flower: Goldenrod

Bird: Cardinal

• Despite the fact that there were no battles fought within the state, more than half of all Americans killed in action during the War of 1812 were from Kentucky.
• In late August of 1888, nine members of the Hatfield family were tried and convicted at the Pike County Courthouse in Kentucky for a raid on Randall McCoy’s home, in which his son and daughter were killed, his wife was beaten unconscious and his home was burned to the ground. The long-running feud between the Hatfields of West Virginia and the McCoys of Kentucky claimed a dozen members of the two clans. In 2003, the families signed a formal truce, putting an official end to the hostilities.
• The “Happy Birthday to You” melody was the creation of sisters Mildred and Patty Hill in 1893. While working at Louisville Experimental Kindergarten School, the duo created a song for teachers to sing to students entitled “Good Morning to All.” In 1924, Robert Coleman first published the “Happy Birthday to You” lyrics along with the tune. It is now one of the most popular songs in the English language.
• The annual three-day Hillbilly Days Festival attracts more than 100,000 people to Pikeville. The event began in 1977 as a way to celebrate Appalachian culture while raising money for the Shriners Hospitals for Children.
• Although he is more closely associated with Illinois, Abraham Lincoln was born in Hodgenville, Kentucky.
• Born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr., boxing champion Muhammad Ali was born in Louisville, Kentucky, on January 17, 1942.
• Fort Knox was established as the U.S. Treasury Gold Vault in 1936. The United States Bullion Depository contains the largest gold reserve in the world. As of 2021, the facility held 147.3 million ounces of gold—or half of the United States Treasury’s stored gold.
• Kentucky’s original black barns were treated with creosote to deter termites. The dark color trapped heat and sped up tobacco curing. Later, barns were painted black purely for aesthetic purposes.

Sources

United States Census Bureau, Quick Facts: Kentucky

Encyclopedia of North Carolina, Transylvania Company

Wilderness Road: Virginia's Heritage Migration Route, Daniel Boone Wilderness Trail

Kentucky Historical Society, Transylvania Company

Mitchell County Historical Society, Sycamore Shoals and the Start of the March

National Park Service: Mammoth Cave, Early Native Americans

Kentucky Historical Society, The Walker Expedition

Library of Congress, Today in History - June 7, Daniel Boone

American Battlefield Trust, The Revolutionary War in Kentucky

Kentucky Department of Tourism, Kentucky History

Southern Cherokee Nation of Kentucky, Cherokee In Kentucky?

Lexington Convention and Visitors Bureau, Indigenous Americans in Kentucky

Kentucky Historical Society, Jackson Purchase

United States Census Bureau, Kentucky 230th Anniversary of Statehood (1792): June 1, 2022

City of Harrodsburg, City History

Kentucky Genealogical Society, Pioneer Families Had Dangerous Paths into Kentucky

Kentucky Historical Society, Jackson Purchase

Library of Congress, Indian Territory

Public Broadcasting Service, Indian Removal

Stay in Clay, Native Americans of Clay County & Kentucky

500 Nations, Kentucky's Recognized Tribes

Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, Indigenous Lands Acknowledgment

Kentucky Historical Society, The Trail of Tears

American Battlefield Trust, Richmond

American Battlefield Trust, Perryfield

Kentucky Department of Tourism, Civil War

Kentucky Historical Society, Slavery Laws in Old Kentucky

Kentucky Department of Tourism, Kentucky History

Kentucky Historical Society, Explore KY’s Civil Rights History

Public Broadcasting Service, Living the Story: The Civil Rights Movement in Kentucky

United States Mint, Fort Knox Bullion Depository

Library of Congress, A traditional black Kentucky tobacco barn

Kentucky Distillers’ Association, Kentucky Bourbon

Kentucky Historical Society, Bourbon Whiskey

Bluegrass Heritage Foundation, A Brief History of Bluegrass Music

Lexington Convention and Visitors Bureau, Bluegrass Region

Kentucky Historical Society, Explore KY’s Horse History

Library of Congress, Kentucky Horse Country