| Summary: | These records consist of letters, petitions, proclamations, acts, and financial records. Topics discussed include banking and state finances; road improvements; General Assembly furnishings; proposals submitted for the printing and binding of Aiken's Digest of the Laws of the State of Alabama; enslaved people; and Native Americans, specifically Creek and Cherokee removal and conflicts with white settlers in eastern Alabama. Of particular interest are letters regarding Jacob Cowan, an enslaved man in Mobile who had been forced to leave North Carolina after distributing David Walker's "Appeal," a pamphlet urging African Americans to fight against slavery. Also included is are handwritten copies of Gayle's proclamation "to the citizens of the counties situated in the Creek Nation" (October 7, 1833) and his letter to "the former Chiefs and head men of the Creek Indians" (June 16, 1834). Among the prominent correspondents are Jeremiah Austill, William Rufus King, John Murphy and Lewis Cass.
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