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DeKalb County was created by the Alabama legislature on January 9, 1836, from land ceded under duress to the Federal government by the Cherokee Nation prior to their forced removal to Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River.
The county was named for Major General Baron Johann de Kalb, a hero of the American Revolution.
The city of Fort Payne, now the county seat, developed around a fort of the same name, built in the 1830s to intern Cherokee of the region prior to their removal.
In the early 19th century, Sequoyah, the Cherokee man who independently created the Cherokee syllabary, a written system for his language, lived in this area. He had been born in a Cherokee town in Tennessee and migrated here in the early 1800s. His work enabled the Cherokee to publish the first Native American newspaper, The Phoenix, which they produced in Cherokee and English.