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Mississippi: Difference between revisions
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When [[King Cotton|cotton was king]] during the 1850s, Mississippi plantation owners—especially those of the Delta and Black Belt central regions—became wealthy due to the high fertility of the soil, the high price of cotton on the international market, and free labor gained through their holding enslaved African Americans. They used some of their profits to buy more cotton land and more slaves. The planters' dependence on hundreds of thousands of slaves for labor and the severe wealth imbalances among whites, played strong roles both in state politics and in planters' support for [[secession]]. Mississippi was a slave society, with the economy dependent on slavery. The state was thinly settled, with population concentrated in the riverfront areas and towns. | When [[King Cotton|cotton was king]] during the 1850s, Mississippi plantation owners—especially those of the Delta and Black Belt central regions—became wealthy due to the high fertility of the soil, the high price of cotton on the international market, and free labor gained through their holding enslaved African Americans. They used some of their profits to buy more cotton land and more slaves. The planters' dependence on hundreds of thousands of slaves for labor and the severe wealth imbalances among whites, played strong roles both in state politics and in planters' support for [[secession]]. Mississippi was a slave society, with the economy dependent on slavery. The state was thinly settled, with population concentrated in the riverfront areas and towns. | ||
By 1860, the enslaved African-American population numbered 436,631 or 55% of the state's total of 791,305 persons. Fewer than 1000 were [[free people of color]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/histcensus/php/state.php |title=Historical Census Browser |publisher=Fisher.lib.virginia.edu |access-date=July 30, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070823030234/http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/histcensus/php/state.php |archive-date=August 23, 2007 }}</ref> The relatively low population of the state before the | By 1860, the enslaved African-American population numbered 436,631 or 55% of the state's total of 791,305 persons. Fewer than 1000 were [[free people of color]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/histcensus/php/state.php |title=Historical Census Browser |publisher=Fisher.lib.virginia.edu |access-date=July 30, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070823030234/http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/histcensus/php/state.php |archive-date=August 23, 2007 }}</ref> The relatively low population of the state before the American Civil War reflected the fact that land and villages were developed only along the riverfronts, which formed the main transportation corridors. Ninety percent of the Delta bottomlands were still frontier and undeveloped.<ref name="Willis Forgotten Time">John C. Willis, ''Forgotten Time: The Yazoo-Mississippi Delta after the Civil War''. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2000, {{ISBN|978-0813919829}}.</ref> The state needed many more settlers for development. The land further away from the rivers was cleared by freedmen and white migrants during Reconstruction and later.<ref name="Willis Forgotten Time"/> | ||
===Civil War through late 19th century=== | ===Civil War through late 19th century=== | ||
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Due to seasonal flooding, possible from December to June, the [[Mississippi River|Mississippi]] and [[Yazoo River|Yazoo]] rivers and their tributaries created a fertile [[floodplain]] in the Mississippi Delta. The river's flooding created natural levees, which planters had built higher to try to prevent flooding of land cultivated for cotton crops. Temporary workers built [[levees]] along the Mississippi River on top of the natural levees that formed from dirt deposited after the river flooded. | Due to seasonal flooding, possible from December to June, the [[Mississippi River|Mississippi]] and [[Yazoo River|Yazoo]] rivers and their tributaries created a fertile [[floodplain]] in the Mississippi Delta. The river's flooding created natural levees, which planters had built higher to try to prevent flooding of land cultivated for cotton crops. Temporary workers built [[levees]] along the Mississippi River on top of the natural levees that formed from dirt deposited after the river flooded. | ||
From 1858 to 1861, the state took over levee building, accomplishing it through contractors and hired labor. In those years, planters considered their slaves too valuable to hire out for such dangerous work. Contractors hired gangs of Irish immigrant laborers to build levees and sometimes clear land. Many of the Irish were relatively recent immigrants from the famine years who were struggling to get established.<ref>{{cite book|first=David R. |last=Roediger|title=The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class|location=New York|publisher=Verso|year=1999|page=146|isbn=978-1859842409}}</ref> Before the | From 1858 to 1861, the state took over levee building, accomplishing it through contractors and hired labor. In those years, planters considered their slaves too valuable to hire out for such dangerous work. Contractors hired gangs of Irish immigrant laborers to build levees and sometimes clear land. Many of the Irish were relatively recent immigrants from the famine years who were struggling to get established.<ref>{{cite book|first=David R. |last=Roediger|title=The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class|location=New York|publisher=Verso|year=1999|page=146|isbn=978-1859842409}}</ref> Before the American Civil War, the earthwork levees averaged six feet in height, although in some areas they reached twenty feet. | ||
Flooding has been an integral part of Mississippi history, but clearing of the land for cultivation and to supply wood fuel for steamboats took away the absorption of trees and undergrowth. The banks of the river were denuded, becoming unstable and changing the character of the river. After the Civil War, major floods swept down the valley in 1865, 1867, 1874 and 1882. Such floods regularly overwhelmed levees damaged by Confederate and Union fighting during the war, as well as those constructed after the war.<ref name="John Otto Solomon 1999, pp.10-11">{{cite book|first=John Otto |last=Solomon|title=The Final Frontiers, 1880–1930: Settling the Southern Bottomlands|location=Westport|publisher=Greenwood Press|year=1999|pages=10–11}}</ref> In 1877, the state created the Mississippi Levee District for southern counties. | Flooding has been an integral part of Mississippi history, but clearing of the land for cultivation and to supply wood fuel for steamboats took away the absorption of trees and undergrowth. The banks of the river were denuded, becoming unstable and changing the character of the river. After the Civil War, major floods swept down the valley in 1865, 1867, 1874 and 1882. Such floods regularly overwhelmed levees damaged by Confederate and Union fighting during the war, as well as those constructed after the war.<ref name="John Otto Solomon 1999, pp.10-11">{{cite book|first=John Otto |last=Solomon|title=The Final Frontiers, 1880–1930: Settling the Southern Bottomlands|location=Westport|publisher=Greenwood Press|year=1999|pages=10–11}}</ref> In 1877, the state created the Mississippi Levee District for southern counties. | ||