located in the Southern United States
. Jackson
is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River
, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi ("Great River"). The state is heavily forested outside of the Mississippi Delta
area, which had been cleared for cotton
cultivation in the 19th century. Today its catfish
aquaculture
farms produce the majority of farm-raised catfish consumed in the United States.
1736 Battle of Ackia: British and Chickasaw soldiers repel a French and Choctaw attack on the Chickasaw village of Ackia, near present-day Tupelo, Mississippi. The French, under Louisiana governor Jean Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, had sought to link Louisiana with Acadia and the other northern colonies of New France.
1817 Mississippi becomes the 20th U.S. state.
1826 Mississippi College is founded in Clinton, becoming the first college in the state of Mississippi.
1831 The Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, the first removal treaty in accordance with the Indian Removal Act, is proclaimed. The Choctaws in Mississippi cede land east of the river in exchange for payment and land in the West.
1861 Mississippi becomes the second state to secede from the Union before the outbreak of the American Civil War.
1861 American Civil War: Georgia joins South Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, and Alabama in seceding from the United States.
1862 American Civil War: General Ulysses S. Grant issues ''General Order No. 11'', expelling Jews from Tennessee, Mississippi, and Kentucky.
1863 American Civil War: Grierson's Raid begins – troops under Union Army Colonel Benjamin Grierson attack central Mississippi.
1863 American Civil War: Battle of Raymond: two divisions of James B. McPherson's XVII Corps (ACW) turn the left wing of Confederate General John C. Pemberton's defensive line on Fourteen Mile Creek, opening up the interior of Mississippi to the Union Army during the Vicksburg Campaign.
1864 American Civil War: Battle of Brice's Crossroads. Confederate troops under Nathan Bedford Forrest defeat a much larger Union force led by General Samuel D. Sturgis in Mississippi.