<P> The first European explorers to settle in the area of the present - day state were French colonists , and later some Spanish and English , particularly along the Gulf Coast . European Americans did not enter the territory in great number until the early nineteenth century , and then they brought many enslaved African Americans with them to serve as laborers to develop cotton plantations along major riverfronts . Through the 1830s , the federal government forced most of the native Choctaw and Chickasaw people west of the Mississippi River . White planters developed an economy based on the export of cotton produced by slave labor along the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers . A small elite group of planters controlled most of the richest land , the wealth , and the politics of the state , which seceded from the Union in 1861 . Its river cities particularly were sites of extended battles during the Civil War , and there was widespread destruction . </P>
<P> The first European explorers to settle in the area of the present - day state were French colonists , and later some Spanish and English , particularly along the Gulf Coast . European Americans did not enter the territory in great number until the early nineteenth century , and then they brought many enslaved African Americans with them to serve as laborers to develop cotton plantations along major riverfronts . Through the 1830s , the federal government forced most of the native Choctaw and Chickasaw people west of the Mississippi River . White planters developed an economy based on the export of cotton produced by slave labor along the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers . A small elite group of planters controlled most of the richest land , the wealth , and the politics of the state , which seceded from the Union in 1861 . Its river cities particularly were sites of extended battles during the Civil War , and there was widespread destruction . </P>
who were the first european settlers of mississippi
who were the first european settlers of mississippi
French colonists
French colonists