Cultural Transformation in Mississippi Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Cultural Transformation in Mississippi - Article Example By the turn of the 19th century, the Mississippi was an Indian location. Indians were the most numerous residents. Indian villages also controlled passage down the river. Indian villages were governed by chiefs. Villages such as of those of Choctaw were autonomous and had a common language (Bradley 18). The Chickasaw had a great Chief who was consulted if community issues arose, or there were disciplinary problems that had to be met. The Indians had a unique way of designing their buildings, in addition to the mode of dressing (Bradley 18). Few of them still based their residences on molds, which had been a way of life since medieval times. Of the few white residents residing then, most were of French ancestry. Hence, cultural behavior and daily rules were derived from these two groups. Besides the particulars of French and Indian cultures, it is imperative to note that the Mississippi was a frontier. The culture of the region reflected a locality where people of diverse backgrounds collided. It also reflected a place where the systems of power and governance were uncertain. Colonial Mississippi was characterized by marked cultural differences from each kind of population. The cultural challenge during these times was to make the diverse population into a single nation. As migration mixed the population, and an improvement in communication and transportation technologies decreased the geographical barriers, the Mississippi culture began to homogenize during colonial times (Morris 22). New residents of Mississippi developed a cultural identity that was different from their ancestral lands. Attitudes towards social class, religion, manners, and slavery combined to make a distinct western culture and character (Ownby 38). The energy that drove cultural evolution in the region can be broadly categorized into two sources: local and global (Morris 6). One of the forces radiated from within the locale, where people confronted and continually changed their local enviro nment. The other force was as a resultant of the wide and always changing world. The culture of Mississippi was also a direct result of broader diplomatic and commercial factors (Wyne 4). In spite of everything, culture and commerce worked together to shape how residents negotiated with each other. Meanwhile, particular frontier circumstances were preserved due to the lack of clear resolutions in the struggle between the US, Europeans, and Indians for the control of Mississippi. In the 1820s, soil exhaustion and economic problems in the East forced tens of thousands of white Americans to seek fortune in the West (Wyne 3). The Mississippi region was deemed to offer a promised land of fertile, cheap land, where the river itself assured of speedy connections to the markets. By 1850, the Mississippi river was a thoroughfare through the increasing different cultures of South and North. The culture of lower Mississippi was rested on slavery (Ownby 54).