I have fallen for Mississippi. It is an opera \u2014 great drama, tragic sadness, indomitable spirit. Geographically, there are four distinct regions: The Delta, which I had always thought was the area where the Mississippi met the Gulf, but is the region between the Mississippi and the Yazoo; the Northern Hills, a border region with Tennessee and Alabama in the northeast corner; the Pine Belt, or Southern Pine Hills, to include Vicksburg and Jackson, largely a strip from the Mississippi River to the Alabama border; and the Gulf Coast with Biloxi and Gulfport (don\u2019t mention Passagoula to anyone with Navy connections). The Mississippi Arts Commission counts six regions: Delta, Red Clay Hills, Appalachian Foothills, Black Prairie (for the earth, not people), Piney Woods, and Gulf Coast. Throughout these regions, the First Nation culture, from the Natchez Trace Parkway cutting north to south and the mound trail along the Mississippi, are reminders of long inhabitation before European exploration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The pre-European history is all Indian, with presence as early as 13,000 BC and leading to well-established settlements by the first millennium CE. Europeans, first from Spain, arrived in the mid-1500s and not via the rivers but by land, and not from Mexico but from Florida. Coming by water, the French established the first European settlements in the late 1500s. As a New Englander, I have a historical bias that starts in 1620, which requires constant recalibration to better understand this region. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are big skips in time \u2014 the next being 1817 with admission to the union, but 1830 is the real date when the Indian Removal Act makes the modern Mississippi. This opened lands not only for the great slave plantations in the Delta and Pine Belt, but also small farm holdings in the Northern Hills, mostly via migration from Appalachia. The Anglo-Black slave culture that led to Mississippi\u2019s leading position in secession was not a long history, like Virginia\u2019s, which began in 1619. Woodlawn Plantation, established about 1813, is a prime example. It began with 300 acres, expanding to about 1600 acres by 1861. Its enslaved population grew from 24 enslaved in 1810 to 123 enslaved by 1861, largely by relocated slaves from other states. Additionally, slaves\u2019 productivity in the amount of cotton picked increased from about 30 to 350 pounds per day, a 350% increase over the same period. This was not enabled by mechanical devices; those were downstream with steam-driven cotton gins capable of processing over 2500 pounds of cotton per day. Do the math: that is ten hands from 120 plus on a single plantation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This productivity increase was in “managing” the human power of the slaves. I hear Michel Foucault rattling in my head: discipline and punishment take on new echoes. I am slowly coming to reassess the issue of slavery as driving the Civil War and, more importantly, the desire of the planter class to expand the system. Some planters might have used some of their land to create self-sufficient communities, as was Woodlawn, with farm animals, kitchen gardens, tanneries, blacksmithies, and managed woodlots, but there was never an interest to create an agricultural economy beyond the riches obtained by cotton. No desire to create a self-sustaining state. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Civil War raged through Mississippi with the Union strategy of breaking the Confederacy by separating the eastern states from Tennessee, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas. Vicksburg was the key, and control of the Mississippi was critical. And with possible ignominy, United States Colored Regiments from Mississippi \u2014 freed slaves who fought with the Union \u2014 proved that they had independence, stature, and capabilities depressed by the slave economy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mississippi, post-Reconstruction carrying through WW II, enacted some of the most restrictive laws against Black Americans. Again, Mississippi, vying with Georgia governors, became the center of history within the Civil Rights movement. From Emmett Till\u2019s murder, the Freedom Riders bombed buses, killed Civil Rights workers: James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, to Medgar Evers, Mississippi violence was endemic. No Bull Connor, but a state system, echoing again Foucault, that dictated reaction and resistance to the arc of history. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But, for all the bloody history, there is an allure to Mississippi because it happened here. The earth breathes it. The locations welcome reflection. There is beauty and pain. Life\u2019s reconciliation. Plus, it is modern \u2014 we might, with growing economic stratification, find that we are all Mississippi. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I have fallen for Mississippi. It is an opera \u2014 great drama, tragic sadness, indomitable spirit. Geographically, there are four distinct regions: The Delta, which I had always thought was the area where the Mississippi met the Gulf, but is the region between the Mississippi and the Yazoo; the Northern Hills, a border region with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/omp.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/omp.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/omp.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/omp.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/omp.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/omp.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":410,"href":"https:\/\/omp.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401\/revisions\/410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/omp.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/omp.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/omp.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}