"Keeweechic's Mississippi" a Mississippi Travel Page by keeweechic

The Magnolia State

Mississippi's early inhabitants were three powerful Indian. The Chickasaw who lived in the north and east. The Chocktaw who lived in the central area and the Natchez in the southwest. These tribes held control over the Chakchiuma, Tunica and Yazoo. Tribes that lived along the Yazoo River and the Biloxi and Pascagoula tribes of the Gulf Coast. When the first white explorers arrived, they found some 25,000 to 30,000 Indians living in the Mississippi region.

Spanish explorer Hernando deSoto was the first European to arrive in 1540. He was in search of gold and ended up at the Mississippi river. French explorer Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle, arrived in 1682 after travelling down the great Mississippi River from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. He then claimed the entire Mississippi valley for France and named it Louisiana for King Louis XIV. At that time the region included what we know today as Mississippi. In 1699 the first French settlement was established at old Biloxi which today is known as Ocean Springs. Jean Baptiste le Moye, established another settlement at Fort Rosalie (now known as Natchez) in 1719. Three years later Negro slaves were introduced to the region from West Africa. They were brought in to work in the rice and tobacco fields.

In 1722 the French name New Orleans as the capital of the region. There were difficulties with the Indians who fought the settlers then the British battled the French for possession with the help of the Chickasaw Indians and thus stopped the French from gaining control of the Mississippi Valley. Mississippi then came under British rule. Things got tossed around for many years until the British lost the war and the Mississippi region was made part of the United States. In 1817 when Congress divided the Mississippi Territory into the State of Mississippi. Mississippi was then admitted to the union as the 20th State.

Mississippi today has one of the nation's finest historical museums, in the restored Old Capitol in Jackson. Others are Old Courthouse Museum, Vicksburg, and the Jefferson Davis Shrine at Beauvoir House near Biloxi. There are Art museums which include the Mississippi Museum of Art on Jackson, Mary Bui Museum in Oxford, and Museum of Art in Laurel.

The Gulf Coast is one of the States most popular winter resort areas, known for its sunny beaches and fine hotels. In other areas of the state, wooded regions and the many historic monuments are a chief attraction. The old plantations give an insight to what life was like prior to the civil war.