By: HISTORY.com Editors

Mississippi

Mississippi state flag

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Published: July 24, 2025

Last Updated: July 24, 2025

Mississippi, known as the "Magnolia State,” became the 20th state to join the Union on December 10, 1817. With a diverse landscape that includes the fertile Mississippi Delta, pine forests, rolling hills and Gulf Coast beaches, its history is marked by its role in the Civil War, the civil rights movement and as the birthplace of the blues.

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. 

Freedom Summer 1964

Freedom Summer 1964 was a massive voter registration campaign in Mississippi. The first interracial movement of its kind, the project was led by black southern organizers and staffed by both black and white volunteers.

The crime garnered national attention, as did the 1964 Freedom Summer civil rights campaign that brought volunteers, including white college students from the North, to the state to increase voter registration among Blacks, created alternative schools to empower Black students, and led to the establishment of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. The KKK, white law enforcement and others responded with violence, notably the KKK murder of three civil rights workers kidnapped and killed in Neshoba County

The events brought national outrage and played a role in the Voting Rights Act of 1965 passage.

Home of the Blues, Country Music and the First Rock Star

Born in the Mississippi Delta, the musical genre of the blues is traced to work chants and spirituals sung by enslaved people. The music, borrowing from both Black and white cultures, spread through local juke joints from the late 1880s-1930s. Mississippians Charlie Patton, Eddie “Son” House and the legendary Robert Johnson gained notoriety as they worked the Delta region and beyond. Soon, fellow Mississippians like Big Bill Broonzy, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and Willie Dixon were finding success in Chicago.

The state is also home to Jimmie Rodgers, a railroad brakeman-turned-”Father of Country Music.” From 1927 to his death from tuberculosis in 1933, he recorded 100-plus songs, influencing the country genre with his style of mixing yodeling with blues, jazz and folk music. And Elvis Presley, born and raised until he was 13 in Tupelo, blended blues, gospel and country on his way to becoming America’s first rock ‘n’ roll star. The Elvis Presley Birthplace and Museum is a major tourist attraction in the state. 

Industrial and Economic Growth

Agriculture remains Mississippi’s No. 1 economic industry driver. While it’s still a leading cotton producer nationally, other top crops today include poultry and eggs, soybeans, corn, cattle and catfish farming. 

Manufacturing industries, especially shipbuilding, automotive and furniture, are also important in the state. Natural resources include oil and natural gas reserves and forestry. Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi is one of the top employers in the state, and NASA’s Stennis Space Center is a research and development facility. Popular tourist attractions include Gulf Coast beaches and riverboat casinos, Civil War sites, the Mississippi Blues Trail and outdoor recreation. 

Quick Facts

  • Date of Statehood: Dec. 10, 1817

  • Capital: Jackson

  • Population: Approximately 2,961,279 million (2020 Census)

  • Size: 48,432 square miles

  • Nickname: The Magnolia State

  • Motto: Virtute et Armis (“By Valor and Arms”)

  • Tree: Magnolia

  • Flower: Magnolia

  • Bird: Mockingbird

Interesting Mississippi Facts

Dr. James D. Hardy performed the world’s first human lung transplant in 1963 and the first heart transplant in 1964 at Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson in 1964. 

In 2021, Mississippi ratified a new state flag, replacing its former flag, flown since 1894, that included the Confederate battle emblem, making it the final southern state to retire a Confederate-style flag. The new flag features the state flower, the magnolia.

Notable Mississippians: Writers William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Tennessee Williams, and Richard Wright; civil rights leader Medgar Evers; musicians Elvis Presley, Bo Diddley, B.B. King, Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, Jimmy Buffett, Britney Spears and Faith Hill; athletes Walter Payton, Jerry Rice and Brett Favre; entertainers Oprah Winfrey, Jim Henson and James Earl Jones.

Famous Mississippi inventions include Barq’s Root Beer, stickball, Pine-Sol, soft toilet seats and the iconic Mississippi mud pie chocolate dessert.  

A bear hunting trip by President Theodore Roosevelt to the Delta in 1902 inspired the invention of the teddy bear. When word got out that Roosevelt refused to shoot an old, tied-up bear captured by his team, a New York toymaker created a stuffed bear in the president’s name.  

Hatmaker John. B. Stetson developed his iconic Stetson hat in Dunn’s Falls. 

Sources

A Bicentennial History of Mississippi: 1817-2017, sos.ms.gov Mississippi History Now, mshistorynow.mdah.ms.gov First Peoples, mmh.mdah.ms.gov A Failed Enterprise: The French Colonial Period in Mississippi, mshistorynow.mdah.ms.gov Mississippi’s Territorial Years: A Momentous and Contentious Affair (1798-1817), mshistorynow.mdah.ms.gov

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Citation Information

Article title
Mississippi
Website Name
History
Date Accessed
July 24, 2025
Publisher
A&E Television Networks
Last Updated
July 24, 2025
Original Published Date
July 24, 2025

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