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Society impact on the mississippi river
The historic influence of Mississippi
The historic influence of Mississippi
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The Mississippi is one of the most important rivers in the United States and probably in North America as a whole. With the Mississippi being one of the most managed rivers that we have, different problems can arise from these management organizations. The Mississippi has a long history when it comes to its life being mingled in with those of humans. Humans have used the Mississippi for navigation, trade, and energy, along with a few other things. The course of this river has taken drastic changes throughout the years, some not as good as other changes. The Mississippi has been the centerpiece for several settlements and a centerpiece in our society as a whole, especially in early years when it was used to help promote trade. With the Mississippi’s …show more content…
Many today support the claim that Hernando De Soto was the first explorer to discover the Mississippi River. After De Soto’s claim of Florida for the King of Spain he traveled northward in search for gold and treasure. Really, there was only one thing that explorers wanted from the new land, and that mostly was the untouched gold reservoirs that dotted all over the landscape. During his dangerous treks through the new land, him and his men no doubt encountered Native Americans and got into bloody battles with them before he ever reached the Mississippi River. Though he did reach the Mississippi, in the search of gold, he soon died of malaria and his men left the river for the French to finally explore and discover more of the basin. Though many French explorers came across the Mississippi river, it took many years for it to finally be claimed by the French crown, and that didn’t come along till around the mid to late 1600s. In fact, the first white settlement that was placed on the Mississippi was Fort Rosalie, which was later named Natchez. One stubborn explorer went against his engineers whishes in the placement of headquarters along the Mississippi, thus this was how New Orleans was created. In order to help save the area from flooding, a levee system was began around the 1720s. This levee system …show more content…
The Mississippi river has had a long and interesting history when it comes to when ‘white man’ first discovered it. You can say that it has been a battle between nature and man with the many modifications that have been made to the Mississippi river, though a lot of those fixed the problem they were trying to fix also made other problems that now need addressing before things get too much worse, especially along the receding coastlines of Louisiana.
Finally for a little fun fact to end off the paper. In the early 1800s, the Mississippi actually ran backwards in the flow. Of course this was do to the seismic activity and earthquakes that were coming from the New Madrid fault line. This happened because the soil beneath the river rose and allowed for the river to temporarily flow backwards, and though this may seem odd, it is actually not as rare as one may think
Yet, these forces did not act in isolation but rather vitally interacted with one another to make New Orleans particularly helpless to Hurricane Katrina. Culture, society, and nature all interacted in the formation of policy: an obstinate ideology of human control over nature, plus a lack of concern for wetland preservation, fueled the federal decision on a ‘levees only’ approach to water resource management. Even after the great flood of 1927, the Army Corp of Engineers ignored proposals to utilize wetlands for flood control. Instead, they continued to build towering levees, which caused water levels to rise in the Mississippi (Kelman). The illusion of human control over the Mississippi River signifies an instrumental interaction between culture and nature (Spreyer 5).
Mississippi was also managed in New Orleans to limit flooding. This was done through levies that were at first naturally built by the river’s mud flows during floods. Later the levies were built higher and higher to keep the flooding Mississippi into the New Orleans area. But the levies were often ineffective in managing, or led to, more flooding. Kelman explains this when they write “With the development in the Mississippi Valley ongoing and artificial banks confining more runoff inside the channel, the river set new high-water marks” (Pg 702).
Andrew Jackson believed that the only way to save the Natives from extinction was to remove them from their current homes and push them across the Mississippi River. “And when removal was accomplished he felt he had done the American people a great service. He felt he had followed the ‘dictates of humanity’ and saved the Indi...
In 1784, the King of Spain consented to allowing the Acadians to settle in Southern Louisiana. However, when the Acadians arrived, they had some issues with the French aristocracy who didn’t really want them there, so this caused the Acadians to head west of the city of New Orleans into unsettled territory.... ... middle of paper ... ... Southern Quarterly 44.3 (2007): 68-84.
In 1539 Hernando de Soto and five hundred adventurers began on a journey of exploration that would take 4 years and would travel through 10 states in the southeast United States. His goal was to discover a source of wealth, preferably gold, and around his mines establish a settlement. During his travels through La Florida he encountered numerous groups of native peoples, making friends of some and enemies of others. His expedition was not the first in La Florida; however, it was the most extensive. In its aftermath, thousands of Indians would die by disease that the Spaniards brought from the Old World. De Soto would initially be remembered as a great explorer but, would be later viewed as a destroyer of native culture. However, in truth de Soto was neither a hero or a villain but rather an adventurer.
Mississippi is known for a lot of things including their crops, it can also be found as the Home of Confederate and, the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians has made many of the states traditions. The people, places and, events tell the story of Mississippi. The Modern History of Mississippi has made it the beautiful and popular state it is today.
The years 1840 to 1890 were a period of great growth for the United States. It was during this time period that the United states came to the conclusion that it had a manifest destiny, that is, it was commanded by god to someday occupy the entire North American continent. One of the most ardent followers of this belief was President James K. Polk. He felt that the United States had the right to whatever amount of territory it chose to, and in doing this the United States was actually doing a favor for the land it seized, by introducing it to the highly advanced culture and way of life of Americans. Shortly after his election he annexed Texas. This added a great amount of land to the United States, but more was to follow. The Oregon Territory became a part of the United States is 1846, followed by the Mexican Cession in 1848 and the Gadsden Purchase in 1853. At this point the United States had accomplished its manifest destiny, it reached from east to west, from sea to shining sea. Now that the lands it so desired were finally there, the United States faced a new problem- how to get its people to settle these lands so they would actually be worth having. Realistically, it is great to have a lot of land, but if the land is unpopulated and undeveloped, it really isn't worth much. And the government of the United States knew this. One of the reasons that many did not choose to settle there immediately was that the lands were quite simply in the middle of nowhere. They were surrounded by mountains, inhabited by hostile Indians, and poor for farming. Because of these geographical conditions, the government was forced to intervene to coax its citizens into settling the new lands. Basically the lands were not settled because they were available, they were settled because of various schemes the government concocted to make them seem desirable.
Two of the nations largest rivers meet in the American Bottom. The Mississippi and Missouri Rivers served as channels of change to the area, bringing outside influences of many different peoples to an Indian-inhabited land. Like the constant flow of the rivers, there was a constant change in the American Bottom. The progress eventually developed the area into a center of economic activity and gateway to the west, but also excluded native and long-time residents. The Illinois Indians long dominated the American Bottom. They were a unique and special tribe, who were complex politically, religiously, and socially. They were also an independent people until French colonizers came to settle in the area. The French Creoles became the dominant population in the region, effecting trade and implementing French Creole culture in the region. The French would not be the last group trying to develop and profit from the American Bottom. When the United States gained control of the territory, it changed even further and eventually Americanized into an U.S. State. The importance of the region increased as the U.S. continued to grow westward. The American Bottoms location between the two great rivers made it the ideal location for a center of economic growth.
"The Louisiana Purchase." Environmental Issues: Essential Primary Sources. Ed. Brenda Wilmoth Lerner and K. Lee Lerner. Detroit: Gale, 2006. 198-201. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 15 Nov. 2015.
Since 1541, Louisiana has been ruled under ten different flags, starting with Hernando de Soto’s flag, a man who claimed the region for Spain (“About Louisiana”). For six weeks after the Civil War had first started, Louisiana had become an independent commonwealth before finally joining the Confederacy. The Louisiana Purchase was negotiated by President Thomas Jefferson, in 1803, in order to get a part of Louisiana in American hands, which was considered essential (“About Louisiana”). Louisiana was a center for trading and finances during most of its early history and it was one of the most prosperous regions in America due to the act that its land was very abundant. On April 30, 1812, after being admitted into the union, Louisiana became the eighteenth state of the United States (“About Louisiana”). Later on, after sulphur and oil were unearthed in 1869 and 1901, Louisiana became a part of the major industry of America that produces oil and natural gas which is what Louisiana is still a part of to this day. Many people assume that the capital of Louisiana is New Orleans because it is the most populated and one of the most popular cities, but the capital is actually Baton Rouge. Louisiana also has a motto that states “Union, Justice, Confidence.” (“About Louisiana”).
In a passage from his book, Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America, author John M. Barry makes an attempt use different rhetorical techniques to transmit his purpose. While to most, the Mississippi River is only some brown water in the middle of the state of Mississippi, to author John M. Barry, the lower Mississippi is an extremely complex and turbulent river. John M. Barry builds his ethos, uses elevated diction, several forms of figurative language, and different styles of syntax and sentence structure to communicate his fascination with the Mississippi River to a possible audience of students, teachers, and scientists.
What exactly was the Civil Rights movement in Mississippi? It was a time during the 1960s that had affected people even up to this day, and had also initiated the formations of documentaries and cinematic material that were created to renovate events. It was a time when the privilege and opportunity of drinking from a publicly-used water fountain depended on your race and color of skin. A not so recent film, Mississippi Burning, was produced in order to show detailed happenings that occurred during this time period. The movie talks about many characters that actually existed throughout history. It was shocking to experience the way people were treated in Mississippi. People were murdered for racist reasons, organizations were created to pursue horrible deeds, and people that were looked up upon were a part of these organizations. This film reenacts certain situations and was talked about frequently when it was first released. Reviews stated that the movie was somewhat historically accurate. However there were also those who explained that the film was superficial in a way that abused what really did happen during that time. Mississippi Burning was historically factual in introducing characters who were actually alive during this time. However it failed to realistically demonstrate how actual quarrels took place, and included unnecessary, dramatic events for entertainment and economic reasons.
...the Mississippi. This doubled the size of the United States. Jefferson sent Meriwether Lewis and William Clark on an expedition to explore this land.
By abandoning the set path of handling Natives that the predecessors left him, nevertheless, Jackson was able to satisfy his interest of the west side of the land. Even with the court cases and the moral values that American already head, Jackson forced the Indians to move from their lands. Without a doubt this act was clearly against everything the American’s believed before his presidency. Therefore, Jackson’s change in policy clearly confirms that “the decision of the Jackson administration to remove the Cherokee Indians to lands west of the Mississippi River in the 1830’s was more a change in the policy than a simple reformulation of that national policy.
Approximately 5500 years ago four of the worlds' most prestigious ancient river civilizations had emerged. Our world has been left in astonishment and awe wondering how these civilizations were developed. Egypt and Mesopotamia were the first ancient river civilizations to create cities and their own ways of living. Society, geography, and religion played an enormous role in the development of the ancient cities. Although there is evidence of early Sumerian contact with the Egyptians, Egypt's civilization was largely self-generated and its history and cultural patterns differed from Mesopotamia.