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Fort Bend County is a county in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2010 census, its population was 585,375,〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/48/48157.html )〕 making it the tenth-most populous county in Texas. The county seat is Richmond,〔(【引用サイトリンク】accessdate=2011-06-07 )〕 while its largest city is Sugar Land. The county was founded in 1837 and organized the next year. It is named for a blockhouse at a bend of the Brazos River; the fort was the start of the community in early days. Fort Bend County is included in the Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land Metropolitan Statistical Area. Since the 1970s Fort Bend County has been one of the fastest-growing counties in the United States. ==History== Prior to Anglo settlement, the area was inhabited by the Karankawa Indians. Mexican colonists had generally not reached this area, settling more in south Texas. After Mexico achieved independence from Spain, Anglo-Americans starting entering from the east. In 1822, a group of Stephen F. Austin's colonists, headed by William Little, built a fort at the present site of Richmond. The fort was called "Fort Bend" since it was built in the bend of the Brazos River. The city of Richmond was incorporated under the Republic of Texas along with nineteen other towns in 1837. Fort Bend County was created from parts of Austin, Harris, and Brazoria counties in 1838. Fort Bend developed a plantation economy based on cotton and, due to the high number of African-American slaves held as laborers, it was one of six majority-black counties in the state by the 1850s. In 1860 the slave population totaled 4,127, more than twice that of the 2,016 whites.〔Virginia Laird Ott, "FORT BEND COUNTY," Handbook of Texas Online (http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/hcf07), accessed February 22, 2014. Uploaded on June 12, 2010. Published by the Texas State Historical Association〕 There were very few free blacks, as Texas refused them entry. While the area began to attract immigrants in the late 19th century, it continued as majority black during and after Reconstruction, when Republicans were elected to office. By the 1880s, most white residents belonged to the Democratic Party, but factional tensions were fierce, largely along racial lines. The Jaybirds, representing the majority of the whites, were struggling to regain control from the Woodpeckers, who were made up of some whites consistently elected to office by the majority of African-Americans; several had been former Republican officials during Reconstruction. Fort Bend County was the site of the Jaybird-Woodpecker War in 1888-1889. After a few murders were committed, the political feud culminated in a gun-battle at the courthouse on August 16, 1889 when several more people were killed and the Woodpeckers were routed from the seat of government. Governor Lawrence Sullivan Ross sent in militia forces and declared martial law. With his support, the Jaybirds ordered a list of certain blacks and Woodpecker officials out of the county. The Jaybirds took over county offices and established a "white-only pre-primary," disfranchising the African Americans from the only competitive contests in the county.〔 This device lasted until 1950 when Willie Melton and Arizona Fleming won a lawsuit against the practice in United States District Court though it was overturned on appeal. In 1953 they ultimately won their suit when the Jaybird primary was declared unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court in ''Terry v. Adams'', the last of the white primary cases. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Fort Bend County, Texas」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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