Macon County Alabama

Macon County Alabama is located in the east-central part of the state.  Its county seat is Tuskegee, Alabama. Its name is in honor of Nathaniel Macon, a member of the United States Senate from North Carolina.

For thousands of years, this area was inhabited by varying cultures of indigenous peoples. The historic tribes encountered by European explorers were the Creek people, descendants of the Mississippian culture.

Macon County was established by European Americans on December 18, 1832, from land ceded by the Creek, following the US Congress’ passage of the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Most of Macon’s earliest settlers came from Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, and the Carolinas via the Old Federal Road, which connected Washington, D.C., to New Orleans.

Developed for cotton plantation agriculture in the nineteenth century, the county is considered within the Black Belt of the South. It has had a majority-black population since before the American Civil War.