American Indian Gallery

The artifacts displayed in this room trace the history of the various American Indian cultures which have existed in Alabama for over 12,000 years.

Alabama’s first human inhabitants, referred to as Paleo-Indians, arrived as early as 10,500 B. C., crossing the Bering Strait during the Ice Age. After traveling through Alaska and across America, a large population of Paleo-Indians settled in the Southeastern United States where they lived a nomadic existence as hunters and gatherers.

With the climate warming at the end of the Ice Age, large forests covered the region and the Indians’ lifestyle changed. They created permanent towns and utilized temporary camps while hunting and harvesting seasonal crops, developed new methods of food storage, and carved cooking bowls from soapstone.

About 1000 B. C., new cultural developments appeared, such as pottery-making, the bow and arrow, cultivated food crops, and social stratification. The construction of mounds also began in this period.

The complex Mississippian culture existed between 900-1500 A. D. These societies had hereditary rulers, structured religions, and a communal food base of shared maize fields and organized deer hunts. They played games like “chunkey,” and created pottery and carvings. This American Indian population declined with the 16th century arrival of the Spanish who invaded Alabama, enslaving and killing thousands of Indians. Even more deadly were the European diseases they introduced--smallpox, measles, typhus, influenza, and chicken pox. With no immunity to these diseases, entire American Indian villages were wiped out.

After the Spanish invasion the American Indians began to rebuild their culture during the Protohistoric Period. Although farming and hunting continued, the time of large villages, elite rulers and priests was over.

When European settlers began to arrive in the 1700s, the largest Indian tribe in Alabama was a Muskogean tribe (called the “Creeks” by the Europeans). These Indians carried on many native traditions, but also integrated European trade goods into their daily life.

They began raising livestock and building log cabins as a result of their contact with European settlers.

Many southeast American Indians were forced to give up their land and resettle in Oklahoma during the 1830s. Many of them died on the way as they followed the “Trail of Tears.”