Mississippi

Mississippi joined the Union as the 20th state in 1817 and gets its name from the Mississippi River, which forms its western border. Early inhabitants of the area that became Mississippi included the Choctaw, Natchez and Chickasaw. Spanish explorers arrived in the region in 1540 but it was the French who established the first permanent settlement in present-day Mississippi in 1699. During the first half of the 19th century, Mississippi was the top cotton producer in the United States, and owners of large plantations depended on the labor of black slaves. Mississippi seceded from the Union in 1861 and suffered greatly during the American Civil War. Despite the abolition of slavery, racial discrimination endured in Mississippi, and the state was a battleground of the Civil Rights Movement in the mid-20th century. In the early 21st century, Mississippi ranked among America's poorest states.

Recommended Articles

  • Vicksburg Campaign

    Vicksburg Campaign

    In one of the most brilliant campaigns of the Civil War, Ulysses S. Grant captured Vicksburg, Mississippi, splitting the Confederacy in two.

  • Confederate States of America

    Confederate States of America

    In 1860-61, after years of rising tensions, 11 southern states seceded from the Union to form the Confederate States of America, leading to the American Civil War.

  • The States

    The States

    Stretching more than 3,000 miles from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the United States of America is comprised of 50 states, each with its own unique traditions and history.

  • The Integration of Ole Miss

    The Integration of Ole Miss

    In 1962, a crisis erupted after a Supreme Court decision forced the state-funded University of Mississippi to admit a black man, James Meredith.

Did You Know?

Mississippi produces some 60 percent of America's farm-raised catfish. Commercial catfish production began in the state in the mid-1960s. The Mississippi Delta city of Belzoni, billed as the Catfish Capital of the World, has a catfish museum and hosts an annual catfish festival.

Date of Statehood: December 10, 1817

Capital: Jackson

Population:  2,967,297 (2010)

Size: 48,432 square miles

Nickname(s): Magnolia State

Motto: Virtute et armis  (“By valor and arms”)

Tree: Magnolia

Flower: Magnolia

Bird: Mockingbird

Interesting Facts

  • Oliver Pollock, an Irish merchant in Spanish-controlled New Orleans who used his fortune to help finance the American Revolution, is credited with creating the dollar sign in 1778. He is buried in Pinckneyville, where he lived with his son-in-law prior to his death on December 17, 1823. 
  • The Blues musical form originated in the Mississippi Delta after the Civil War. Rooted in the songs sung by slaves working in the fields and African spirituals, the Blues offered an escape from oppression and a means of expression for many African Americans.
  • While on a hunting expedition with Mississippi Governor Andrew Longino near Onward in November of 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt refused to shoot a bear that had been captured and tied to a tree. Afterward, a satirical cartoon of the event was published, inspiring a Brooklyn candy shop owner to create a stuffed “Teddy’s Bear.”
  • The flight school at Columbus Air Force Base trained more than 8,000 students during World War II to become flying officers in the Army Air Corps.
  • Dr. James D. Hardy performed the world's first human lung transplant at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson on June 11, 1963. On January 23, 1964, he transplanted the heart of a chimpanzee into a dying patient—performing the world's first heart transplant surgery.

 

Fact Check We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn't look right, contact us!

Advertisement

This Day in History

May 21

Lead Story

American Red Cross founded, 1881

In Washington, D.C., humanitarians Clara Barton and Adolphus Solomons found the American National Red Cross, an organization established to provide…

Shop HISTORY