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Currently the poorest state in the US, Mississippi wasn’t always that way! Find out how it went from being one of the richest to the poorest in the blink of an eye.
Mississippi, a state located in the heart of the American South, is known for its rich artistic heritage and beautiful natural landscapes. However, despite its GDP of $115 billion, Mississippi holds the title of the poorest state in the US. But that wasn’t always the case. In this article, we’ll explore Mississippi’s remarkable journey from its days of prosperity to becoming the poorest state in the country. Learn the historical, economic, and social reasons behind this astonishing transformation.
Understand why the US state was so rich
To better understand the fall of the US state, we must go back to the end of the 18th century, when the country achieved its independence from Great Britain, thus making Mississippi official as a state of the Nation.
In this process, the settlement of the State was linked to the fertility available in its soil. This is because its territory is shaped by a series of geological and climatic factors that make it extremely fertile.
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However, just as the colonization and settlement of Mississippi occurred quickly, slave labor in the region also expanded rapidly, lasting for more than a century. To give you an idea, in 1820 there were about 33.000 slaves, but by 1860 that number had grown to 437.000, representing more than half of Mississippi's population.
At that time, the state's productive capacity was so great that in 1860 Mississippi was the richest US state in the nation, with cotton being the mainstay of the economy, with its production expanding by 600% compared to 1820.
Soon the cotton It dominated exports not only from the state, which produced thousands of tons of the product annually, but mainly from the United States, which supplied the strong textile production in Great Britain.
How did the state of Mississippi become poor?
Everything began to change in 1861, with the outbreak of civil war between the Southern states, which supported slavery, and the Northern states, which were abolitionist. Despite playing a leading role, providing soldiers and vital resources, the consequences of the conflict were devastating for Mississippi, especially after the defeat of the Confederacy and the military occupation of the Southern states until they were reintegrated into the Union.
In this process, slavery in the country came to an end, which led to the decline of agricultural production and the main farms in South America, which no longer had the same number of workers. Among the states most affected was Mississippi, which went from being the richest to the poorest state in the US and did not have a strong or previously consolidated industry that would allow it to replace the agricultural model.
This problem was the scene of contradictory proposals, such as the leasing model, where owners agreed to give part of the production to the worker, serving as a driver for social conflicts and terrorist movements against African-Americans in the US state, accompanied by the resistance of the local political and economic elite in adopting the changes so that Mississippi could reintegrate the union, something that only happened in 1870.
Understand how the state went from being the richest to the poorest in the US
Based on what has been said so far, it is It is well known that poverty and misery prevailed in Mississippi for more than a century. Although the civil war devastated the logistical infrastructure and overturned the current economic model, the new century brought with it the difficult economic restructuring of Mississippi.
The state's economic problem was structural, as it did not have a strong industrial tradition like the northern United States, and so the dependence on primary products derived mostly from agriculture inhibited any significant change in the state's economic development, something that explains the fact that at the end of the 60s around 40% of the population lived in poverty.
Therefore, diversifying the economy was essential to attract income and quality of life, something that was taken forward in the second half of the 20th century, when the manufacturing industry established itself in the state, especially after the combination of economic and tax incentives implemented to attract the attention of companies.
