Editing DeSoto County, Mississippi (section)

==History==

DeSoto County, Mississippi, was formally established February 9, 1836.<ref name=Lowry473>Robert Lowry and William H. McCardle, ''A History of Mississippi: From the Discovery of the Great River by Hernando DeSoto, Including the Earliest Settlement Made by the French Under Iberville to the Death of Jefferson Davis.'' Jackson, MS: R.H. Henry & Co., 1891; p. 473.</ref> The original county lines included territory now part of [[Tate County, Mississippi|Tate County]], which was carved out in 1873.<ref name=Lowry473 />

The county is named for [[Spain|Spanish]] explorer [[Hernando De Soto (explorer)|Hernando de Soto]], the first European explorer known to reach the [[Mississippi River]].<ref>{{cite book | url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_9V1IAAAAMAAJ | title=The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States | publisher=Govt. Print. Off. | author=Gannett, Henry | year=1905 | pages=[https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_9V1IAAAAMAAJ/page/n104 105]}}</ref> The county seat, Hernando, is also named in his honor. De Soto reportedly died in that area in May 1542, although some accounts suggest that he died near [[Lake Village, Arkansas]].

===Early history===
Indian artifacts collected in DeSoto County link it with prehistoric groups of Woodland and [[Mississippian culture]] peoples. {{Citation needed|date=June 2012}} Members of the Mississippian culture, who built complex settlements and earthwork monuments throughout the Mississippi River Valley and its major tributaries, met [[Hernando de Soto]] in the mid-16th century when he explored what is now North Mississippi. By tradition, he is believed to have traveled with his expedition through present-day DeSoto County. Some scholars speculate that de Soto discovered the [[Mississippi River]] west of present-day Lake Cormorant, built rafts there, and crossed to present-day [[Crowley's Ridge]], Arkansas. Based on records of the expedition and archeology, the [[National Park Service]] has designated a "DeSoto Corridor" from [[Coahoma County, Mississippi]] to the Chickasaw Bluff in Memphis.

The Mississippian culture declined and disappeared, and in most areas this preceded European contact. Scholars speculate this may have followed changes in the environment. The town named ''Chicasa'', which De Soto visited, was probably the ancestral home of the historical [[Chickasaw]], who are descended from the Mississippian culture. They had lived in the area for centuries before white settlers began arriving. Present-day [[Pontotoc, Mississippi]] developed near the Chickasaw "Long Town", which was composed of several villages near each other. The Chickasaw Nation regarded much of western present-day Tennessee and northern Mississippi as their traditional hunting grounds.

The Chickasaw traded furs for French goods, and the French established several small settlements among them. However, France ceded its claim to territories east of the Mississippi River to Britain in 1763, after having been defeated in the [[Seven Years' War]]. The United States acquired the area from the British as part of the treaty that ended the [[American Revolution]].

===19th and 20th centuries===
The Chickasaw finally ceded most of their land to the United States under pressure during [[Indian Removal]], and a treaty in 1832. They were forced to remove to [[Indian Territory]] west of the Mississippi River.

Negotiations began in September 1816 between the United States government and the Chickasaw nation and concluded with the signing of the [[Treaty of Pontotoc]] in October 1832. During those 16 years, federal officials pressed the Chickasaw for cessions of land to extinguish their land claims to enable white settlement in their territory. Congress passed the [[Indian Removal Act]] in 1830, authorizing forcible removal if necessary to extinguish Native American claims in the Southeast. From 1832 to 1836, government surveyors mapped the {{convert|6442000|acre|km2|0}} of the Chickasaw domain and divided it into townships, ranges and sections. The Mississippi Legislature formed 10 new counties, including DeSoto, Tunica, Marshall, and Tate, from the territory.

By treaty, the land was assigned by sections of {{convert|640|acre|km2}} to individual Indian households. The Chickasaw, a numerically small tribe, were assigned {{convert|2422400|acre|km2|0}} of land by using that formula. The government declared the remainder as surplus and disposed of the remaining {{convert|400000|acre|km2}} at public sale. The Indians received at least $1.25 per acre for their land. The government land sold for 75 cents per acre or less.

During and after the Civil War, the area was developed as large plantations by planters for cultivation of cotton, a leading commodity crop. Before the Civil War, they had depended on the labor of thousands of enslaved African Americans. After the war and emancipation, many [[freedmen]] stayed in the area, but shaped their own lives by working on small plots as [[sharecroppers]] or tenant farmers, rather than on large labor gangs on the plantations. Reliance on agriculture meant that the area did not develop much economically well into the 20th century, and both whites and blacks suffered economically.

{{Main|Disfranchisement after Reconstruction era}}
In 1890, the state legislature [[disfranchisement after Reconstruction era|disenfranchised most blacks]] under the new constitution, which used [[poll taxes]] and [[literacy tests]] to raise barriers to voter registration. In the early 20th century, many people left the rural county for cities to gain other opportunities. Most blacks could not vote in Mississippi until the late 1960s, after the passage of federal legislation.

[[File:DeSoto County Co-op, DeSoto County, Mississippi (1954).jpg|thumb|right|DeSoto County Co-op in Hernando, a sharecroppers' union, 1954]]
During the [[Great Depression]], the Southern Tenant Farmers Union was organized in 1934. It was open to both black and white [[sharecroppers]] and worked to gain better deals and fair accounting from local white landowners. Whites in DeSoto County resisted the effort. In 1935, a white lynch mob attacked early union organizer and minister Reverend T. A. Allen, shot him, and threw him into the [[Coldwater River (Mississippi)|Coldwater River]].<ref name="nave">[http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/news/2015/feb/11/report-hinds-county-had-most-miss-lynchings/ R.L. Nave, "Report: Miss. No. 2 in Lynchings per Capita"], ''Jackson Free Press'', February 11, 2015; accessed March 19, 2017</ref> One account said that his body was weighted by chains and that authorities claimed it to be a suicide.<ref name="cold">[Michael Newton, ''Unsolved Civil Rights Murder Cases, 1934-1970'', McFarland, 2016, p. 102</ref>

In its 2015 report on ''Lynching in America'' (2015), the [[Bryan Stevenson|Equal Justice Institute]] documented 12 [[lynchings in the United States|lynchings]] in the county from 1877 to 1950.<ref name="eji">[https://eji.org/sites/default/files/lynching-in-america-second-edition-supplement-by-county.pdf ''Lynching in America'', 2nd edition] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180627005306/https://eji.org/sites/default/files/lynching-in-america-second-edition-supplement-by-county.pdf |date=June 27, 2018}}, Supplement by County, p. 5</ref> Most lynchings in the South took place around the turn of the 20th century.<ref name="eji"/>

Since the late 20th century, DeSoto County has experienced considerable suburban development related to the growth of Memphis.

===21st century===
As part of the [[Memphis, Tennessee|Memphis]], [[Tennessee]] metropolitan area, the early-21st-century DeSoto County has become one of the 40 fastest-growing counties in the [[United States]]. That is attributed to suburban development as middle-class and wealthier blacks leave Memphis to acquire newer housing and commute to Memphis for work. Some observers have characterized the shift as [[black flight]], but it is also typical of the pattern of postwar suburban growth in which people who could afford it moved to newer housing in suburbs.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2011/feb/04/black-flight-propels-desoto/|work=Commercial Appeal|place=Memphis, Tennessee|title='Black flight' propels DeSoto County growth, census figures show|author=Henry Bailey|date=February 4, 2011|access-date=April 7, 2014}}</ref>

Such suburban residential development in the county has been most noticeable in the Mississippi cities of [[Southaven, Mississippi|Southaven]], [[Olive Branch, Mississippi|Olive Branch]], and [[Horn Lake, Mississippi|Horn Lake]]. Also stimulating development in the formerly rural area is the massive casino/resort complex, in the neighboring [[Tunica County, Mississippi|Tunica County]], which is the sixth-largest gambling district in the United States.{{citation needed|date=March 2017}}