What was mississippi before it became a state

The Claiborne years were comparatively stable for Mississippi Territory. Relative political peace prevailed, cotton became king, settlers arrived in record numbers, and Louisiana became part of the United States, making the movement of goods through New Orleans more predictable. However, in December Claiborne was transferred to New Orleans as governor. Williams chose to remain in his home state most of the time and did little to address such pressing territorial problems as brigands on the Natchez Trace, growing discontent among neglected settlers between the western Georgia border and the Mississippi River counties, and lingering border and access problems.

Thanks to others, especially congressional delegate George Poindexter, political reforms occurred during the Williams years. A petition was forwarded to Congress in to remove property qualifications for voting; the following year Poindexter was appointed chair of a congressional committee to study the petition.

Out of those deliberations came new, more democratic voting qualifications for free males—ownership of fifty acres of land or a town lot worth one hundred dollars.

The number of members in the territorial House of Representatives was increased from nine to twelve, and the territorial delegate to Congress was to be chosen by popular vote.

He was a mild-mannered man who brought to Mississippi a political philosophy that stressed a bipartisan approach to problem solving. Mississippi had been settled by the French on the Gulf Coast and by English, Spanish, and Americans in its southwestern section along the eastern shore of the Mississippi River.

But the territory stretched east to Georgia and north to Tennessee—a vast, thinly settled, and disregarded area. As early as the region from the Pearl River east threatened to separate from Natchez domination, and a more serious secession threat was defused only by the outbreak of the War of Today, the state is trying to create a historic trail connectingimportant sites in the history of the blues.

Mississippi is arguably the most religious state in the United States. These numbers come second to those in Alabama and Louisiana. And, a Gallup poll indicated that Mississippians come second only to people from Utah in terms of weekly church attendance.

Mississippi has a few other measures of religiosity in which it exceeds all other states. Mississippi has the nation's most churches per capita, and the country's largest bible producer is located in Mississippi. Natchez, Mississippi is a popular tourist destination for people interested in the architecture and history of the Antebellum South.

The town has dozens of famous mansions that are seen as ideal examples of Southern architecture, and in-all has a few hundred preserved historical sites. There are other preserved mansion sites in Oxford and Vicksburg, but the Natchez sites are arguably the most famous. King guitarist; Willie Morris writer; Elvis Presley singer;. Geography Land area: 46, sq mi. Map of Mississippi. While planters prospered, public education and organized religion struggled to gain a foothold.

Since there were few publicly funded schools in operation during the territorial period, wealthy citizens either hired private tutors to teach their children or sent them to private academies or eastern schools. Although Jefferson College was chartered in , private literary and scientific societies took the lead in encouraging appreciation of academic and cultural pursuits.

Many territorial residents were more familiar with camp meetings than with traditional church ceremonies. At these large-scale events in wilderness clearings, frontier preachers exposed thousands to religious teachings.

No other event affected the development of the region more than the Creek War. The war began as a civil war within the Creek nation over the issue of assimilation into American civilization versus retaining traditional Creek culture.

Fighting between American troops and Red Stick Creeks, who opposed the increasing American influence in the area and advocated for traditional Indian practices, first broke out in the summer of The war escalated a month later when Red Sticks successfully attacked Fort Mims, located north of Mobile, killing over settlers and soldiers in the process.

News of the killings spread like lightning across the nation. Thousands of American troops, assisted by numerous Native American allies, soon converged on the area to respond to the assault on Fort Mims. Throughout the fall of and spring of , the Creek War raged across the Mississippi Territory. In the chaos, roughly Native Americans were killed, more than in any other battle in American history.

The subsequent Treaty of Fort Jackson forced the devastated Creeks to cede over twenty-three million acres of land to the United States and cleared the way for an influx of immigration into the Mississippi Territory. Arguments over whether the Mississippi Territory would enter the union as one state or two had begun almost immediately after its organization in Aware of the economic and political dominance of their portion of the territory, many western residents, specifically those in the Natchez District, favored admission as a single state so that they might maintain their influence.

Many eastern residents in the Mobile region, however, initially felt that their interests were neglected due to the great distance between themselves and the territorial capital as well as other inherent differences in economy and lifestyle.

After the Creek War, however, the situation reversed. Realizing the potential to exert more influence on any new state of which they were to be a part, many eastern section residents now began to favor admission of the territory as one state. In October of , many prominent residents from throughout the territory met at the home of John Ford, south of Columbia, to discuss the issue. The line of division, which still serves as the boundary between Mississippi and Alabama today, was designed to be a compromise between the wishes of western and eastern residents of the territory.

Williams as its first senators. Alabama entered the Union two years later in In less than two decades, Mississippi had evolved from a sparsely inhabited frontier region to a dynamic part of the American union. Its population and influence would grow exponentially as it matured in the coming years with enslaved people eventually outnumbering Whites and assumed its position at the heart of the economic, social, and political development of the Deep South.

This article was updated in Busbee, Jr. Mississippi: A History. Williams as its first senators. Mississippi has since written three more constitutions over the past two hundred years.

The next constitution written in mirrored the Jacksonian age by expanding those who can participate in government to all white men. After the Civil War, the constitution extended voting rights to all men, regardless of race. These measures decimated the number of registered African American voters; measures that were not overturned til the modern Civil Rights Movement of the s and 60s. He is currently under contract to co-write a volume with the Heritage of Mississippi Series on Frontier Mississippi Click Here to view the schedule of topics in our 90 Day Study on Congress.

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