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Free Traveling Guides » States » Mississippi History of Mississippi
Mississippi, a state situated in the southern region of the United States, is named after the Mississippi River that flows along its western boundary. In the early period of the 2nd millennium AD, the Native American tribes that inhabited the territory of Mississippi included the Chickasaw, Choctaw, the Natchez, the Yazoo, and the Biloxi. It was Hernando de Soto who made the first European expedition into the territory in 1540. Fort Maurepas was the first settlement in the territory of Mississippi. It was settled in April 1699 by Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville. Natchez, which later became a trading post and a dominant town of the area, was founded on the Mississippi River in 1716. The territory of Mississippi was established on April, 1798. It spent some time under French, British, and Spanish nominal jurisdiction. After the French and Indian War, it was finally deeded to the British under the terms of the Treaty of Paris. During 1800-1830, the land was purchased from the Native American Tribes and the state of Mississippi was admitted to the Union as the 20th US State on December 10, 1817. On January 9, 1861, Mississippi seceded from the Union as one of the Confederate States of America and became the second state to do so. However, the Confederate States were defeated during the Civil War. The first constitutional convention in 1868 adopted universal suffrage and elected whites as well as Negroes as representatives. Finally, in 1870, Mississippi was readmitted to the Union as per the terms of Reconstruction. The history of Mississippi is, however, more complex than just discrimination. A series of increasingly restrictive racial segregation laws enacted during the first part of the 20th century, successive severe flooding in 1912 and 1913, disfranchisement of African Americans at the turn of the century, failure of the cotton crops due to boll weevil infestation, and increased lynching forced thousands of African Americans to leave Mississippi and migrate north during World War I. In the 1940s, another wave of migration started and nearly half a million people, three-quarters of them black, left the State. The State became a prime center of activity during the African-American Civil Rights Movement. In 1960s, the participation of Mississippians in the White Citizens' Councils, the violent tactics of the Ku Klux Klan and its sympathizers, and the resistance and harsh attitudes of many white politicians gained Mississippi a world-wide reputation as a reactionary state. Other important milestones and turning points in the history of the State included annulling prohibition of alcohol in 1966; adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment that abolished slavery, in 1995; Category 5 Hurricane Camille in 1969; and Category 3 Hurricane Katrina that hit the Mississippi coast in 2005. The complex history of the state has also generated great musicians and storytellers. Mississippi is particularly noted for its award-winning 20th century authors, including Nobel Prize winners William Faulkner, Richard Wright, Margaret Walker, Alice Walker, and Beth Henley.
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