Mississippi

History

From 1800, the King Cotton economy developed in the South on land ceded and sold by the Chickasaw and Choctaw tribes. By the time of the Civil War, Mississippi had become the fifth-wealthiest state, its wealth created by the cotton plantations along the rivers, where slaves (counted as assets) had increased in value since the 1840s. At this point, 90 percent of the delta bottomlands were undeveloped frontier and the low population was 55 percent enslaved. The dominance of the “planter aristocracy” minority and agricultural cotton meant that taxation was intentionally kept low and there was very little investment in infrastructure, with some areas remaining unindustrialized until the late 20th century. This “planter aristocracy” was an elite of slave owners in a state where in 1860 only 31,000 out of 354,000 whites owned slaves; the elite were the 5,000 slave owners who owned more than 20 slaves, including the 317 who owned more than 100 slaves.

The southerners were convinced that such was the importance of their cotton that it would support the economy of an independent Confederacy and force cotton-reliant Britain and France to intervene in the Civil War. Mississippi became the second state to secede from the Union. In 1861, the south withheld its cotton from sale or export and then the Union blockade prevented 90 percent of export. This cotton diplomacy strategy failed as Europe had large stocks of cotton and production increased in Argentina, Egypt, and India to meet demand. Southern faith in cotton monoculture had proven disastrous, using land and labor that could have been used to grow much-needed food and leading the Confederacy into a Civil War it ultimately could not win.

Agricultural depression and changes in labor structure wrought by the massive damage and casualties of the Civil War caused the south to lose huge amounts of wealth. Although tens of thousands migrated into the state after the Civil War and began clearing land and farming, cotton prices continued to fall, culminating in another agricultural depression in the 1890s. New legislation introduced by white legislators in 1890 and the Jim Crow system disenfranchised most of the black and poor white population, resulting in their losing lands and leading in part to the Great Migrations to the north (1910–30 and 1941–70).

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