Early Inhabitants and European Settlement
Paleo-Indian communities in present-day Mississippi trace back at least 12,000 years to the end of the Ice Age. About 3,000 years ago, during the Mississippian Period, mound-building Native American tribes lived along the Mississippi River. When European explorers reached the region in the 1500s, it was home to several tribes, including the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Natchez and Biloxi.
Spanish explorer and cartographer Alonso Alvarez Pineda first mapped the region in 1519, and Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto was the first European to explore it in 1540 when he crossed the Mississippi River. The Native Americans in the region were mostly left alone by Europeans until 1682, when French explorer Robert de La Salle arrived and claimed the Mississippi River basin for France, naming it Louisiana in honor of King Louis XIV. La Salle’s initial plan to colonize the area failed, but the French saw potential in the land at the mouth of the great river.
In 1716, the French established Fort Rosalie at modern-day Natchez. Conflicts between the settlers and Native Americans grew, leading to the Natchez revolt in 1729, resulting in the deaths of 300 Europeans. The French retaliated, decimating the tribe. The French also brought enslaved Africans to the region, with an enslaved population of about 6,000 by 1763.
During this time, the British began to make claims on the area, allying with the Chickasaws. After the 1783 Treaty of Paris, France ceded all its North American land to the British, although a secret treaty gave Louisiana to Spain. In 1798, Spain ceded the region to America, and a few weeks later, the U.S. Congress created the Mississippi Territory, expanding it twice so that by 1813, it included today’s Mississippi and Alabama.
Post-American Revolution, the “Great Migration” brought an influx of settlers to the territory, slowing during the War of 1812 and the 1813-1814 Creek War, a civil war among the Creek tribe that expanded to conflicts between Red Stick Creeks and American forces. The Red Sticks killed hundreds of American soldiers and settlers before the 1814 Battle of Horseshoe Bend when Gen. Andrew Jackson’s men killed 900 Red Sticks. The treaty that followed forced the tribe to leave the region. The end of the war, along with the draw of fertile agricultural land, brought a population surge, which included a massive increase in the enslaved population from 4,000 to 70,000 between 1798 and 1817.
After debate on whether the territory should enter the Union as one state or two, it was decided to divide the territory, partly to allow for two pro-slavery Senate seats. On December 10, 1817, President James Madison granted statehood to the western side of the territory, making Mississippi the Union’s 20th state. Mississippi is named after the Mississippi River, from the Ojibwe word for “great river.”
In 1830, the Indian Removal Act led to the forced relocation of the Choctaw to Oklahoma, along with other remaining tribes. The Mississippi Band of Choctaw, headquartered in Philadelphia, Miss., is the only federally recognized tribe remaining in the state, having received recognition in 1945.
The Civil War
From 1817 to 1860, Mississippi was America’s top-producing cotton state, and the crop was the nation’s top export. The booming cotton industry, along with cheap land taken from the Native Americans, brought new settlers and investors, as well as more slave labor: By 1860, more than half the state’s population was enslaved.
Mississippi was the second state to secede from the Union in 1861, citing the defense of slavery in its resolution that read: “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery—the greatest material interest of the world.”
Joining the Confederate States of America, led by Mississippian Jefferson Davis as its president, the state became a significant Civil War (1861-1865) battleground. Corinth, Jackson, Raymond and other sites saw intense fighting, with the 1862-1863 Vicksburg Campaign serving as a pivotal win for the Union. Called the “nailhead that holds the South’s two halves together” by Davis and “Vicksburg is the key!” by President Abraham Lincoln, the Confederates surrendered the strategically located city following a 47-day siege, giving the North control of the entire Mississippi River.
During the war, 80,000 white Mississippians fought for the Confederacy, while approximately 500 fought for the Union. Additionally, some 17,000 enslaved and freed Black men fought on the side of the Union.
Reconstruction and Civil Rights
Following the Union’s victory, Mississippi faced economic, political and cultural struggles during two phases of Reconstruction, which lasted 11 years. It rejoined the Union five years after the war’s end, on February 23, 1870.
However, the abolishment of slavery did not end violent racism in the state. The Ku Klux Klan terrorized Black Americans with lynchings, bombings, shootings and more. A trial in which local Black leaders were charged with inciting a riot triggered the 1871 Meridian race riot. When one of the accused contradicted a white witness, a KKK-fueled riot resulted in the deaths of nearly 30 Black residents and the white Republican judge. Furthering the tensions were groups such as the White Man’s Party in Vicksburg that threatened Black voters with guns to keep them from the polls and Jim Crow laws that legalized segregation and voter suppression, including poll taxes and literacy tests.
By the mid-20th century, the state was in the spotlight of the civil rights movement. The 1963 murder of NAACP State Field Secretary Medgar Evers in Jackson was the first assassination of a civil rights activist. Two murder trials with all-white male juries resulted in hung juries for the shooter, Byron De La Beckwith, of the White Citizens’ Council. In 1994, he was retried and found guilty, receiving a life sentence.
