History of the Southern United States

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The history of the Southern United States spans back thousands of years to the first evidence of human occupation. The Paleo-Indians were the first peoples to inhabit the Americas and what would become the Southern United States. By the time Europeans arrived in the 15th century, the region was inhabited by the Mississippian people, well known for their mound-building cultures, building some of the largest cities of the Pre-Columbian United States. European history in the region would begin with the earliest days of the exploration. Spain, France, and especially England explored and claimed parts of the region.

Starting in the 17th century, the history of the Southern United States developed unique characteristics that came from its economy based primarily on plantation agriculture and the ubiquitous and prevalent institution of slavery. While West Africans were brought to the region as soon as English colonization began, the system was strictly formalized after Bacon's Rebellion. Afterwards, Millions of enslaved Africans, approximately 10% of all slaves taken from Africa during the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade were imported to the United States primarily but not exclusively for forced labor in the south. While the great majority of Whites did not own slaves, slavery was nevertheless the foundation of the region's economy and social order. Southern slavery denied basic human rights to Black Americans and permeated all parts of daily life of all residents. Questions of Southern slavery directly impacted the struggle for American independence throughout the South gave the region additional power in Congress. Almost all Southern founding fathers owned slaves including Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, though Washington did free all enslaved persons in his will.

As industrial technologies including the cotton gin made slavery even more profitable, Southern states refused to ban slavery- perpetuating the division of the United States between free and slave states. Tensions escalated as the United States expanded west ward (also retroactively causing the Southeast region to also expand to the west. However, tepid agreements including the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850 did not resolve the growing divisions the South had with the North due to slavery and the planter class's political aspirations to control the entire country. Abraham Lincoln's election in 1860 caused South Carolina to secede which was soon followed by all other states in the region with the exception of the 'border states'. The breakaway states formed the Confederate States of America – the most significant country in modern history worldwide that was founded for the purpose of promoting slavery.

Lincoln's original goal was only to preserve the United States but to do that he had to destroy the Confederacy's economic base: slavery. Therefore his Emancipation Proclamation brought freedom to Black slaves living in rebellious areas as soon as the US Army arrived. With a smaller economy, smaller population and (in some cases) widespread dissent among its white population the Confederate States of America was unable to carry on a protracted struggle with the national government. The 13th and 14th amendments gave freedom, citizenship and civil rights to Black Americans all across the United States. The 15th Amendment and Radical reconstruction laws gave Black men the vote, and for a few years they shared power in the South, despite violent attacks by the Ku Klux Klan. Reconstruction attempted to uplift the former enslaved but this crusade was abandoned in the Compromise of 1877 and Conservative white Southerners calling themselves Redeemers took control. Even though the Ku Klux Klan was suppressed new White Supremacist organizations including the Red Shirts and the White League continued to terrorize Black Americans.

After the dissolving of a Populist movement in the 1890s that attempted to unite working-class blacks and whites Segregation and Jim Crow laws were implemented all across the region by 1900. Compared to the North, the Southern United States lost its previous political and economic power and fell behind the rest of the United States for decades. Its agricultural economy was often based on Sharecropping practices. The New Deal and World War II brought about a generation of Liberal Southerners within the Democratic Party that looked to accelerate development. The white South had a strong voice in Congress, which reorganized the cotton and tobacco markets to the advantage of Southern farmers. The government-operated Tennessee Valley Authority brought electricity and modernization to that state. Yet in exchange for economic reforms the progressive New Deal coalition carried an uneasy compromise with segregationist Democrats that the Jim Crow system would be left unaltered and the denial of basic civil rights to Black Americans would continue. Years after President Franklin D. Roosevelt died his Supreme Court appointees started dismantling segregation in the 1950s.

Black Americans and their allies resisted Jim Crow and Segregation, initially with the Great Migration and later the civil rights movement. In the face of intense opposition by racist Segregationists, Black Southerners including Martin Luther King Jr, Rosa Parks and others in a multi-racial coalition vigorously campaigned to end institutionalized racism in the American South as well as the rest of the United States. From a political and legal standpoint, many of these aims were realized by the Supreme Court's ruling on Brown v. Board and President Lyndon Johnson's (also a Southerner) reforms. Civil Rights coupled with the collapse of Black Belt agriculture has led some historians to postulate that a 'New South' based on Free Trade, Globalization, and cultural diversity has emerged. Meanwhile, the South has influenced the rest of the United States in a process called Southernization. The legacy of Slavery and Jim Crow continue to impact the region- which by the 21st century was the most populous area of the United States.^[1]