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MISSISSIPPI

Mississippi

The Magnolia State

Explored by the Spaniard Hernando de Soto in 1540, and settled by the French Pierre Le Moyne more than a hundred years later, Mississippi hosts three of the most productive river valleys in North America and the world-the Mississippi, the Peal, and the Tombigbee. At the time of European exploration and settlement, its rich forests and fertile valleys covered the countryside and three nations inhabited the area, the Choctaw in the center, the Chickasaw in the north, and the Natchez in the southwest. The French drove off the Natchez before the Revolutionary War. Mississippi acquired its present borders and became a state in 1817. In the 1830s, remaining tribal leaders without the consent of their people ceded their land in treaties; the Choctaw and Chicksaw were forcibly removed to land west of the Mississippi.

Until the Civil War, the production of cotton boomed in Mississippi and the culture of slavery became entrenched. After the state’s early secession, West Point trained Mississippi Senator Jefferson Davis became president of the Confederacy. The outcomes of the war were tragic for the state-failed Reconstruction and endemic segregation. In 1962, James Meredith enrolled in law school at the University of Mississippi and broke the color barrier. Today, the legacy of slaves, tenant farmers, and artisans contribute to the complex history of this beautiful state.