Mississippi, following South Carolina's lead, secedes from…

Mississippi, following South Carolina's lead, secedes from the Union on January 9, 1861.

When cotton was king during the 1850s, Mississippi plantation owners—especially those of the Delta and Black Belt central regions—had become wealthy due to the high fertility of the soil, the high price of cotton on the international market, and free labor gained through their holding enslaved African Americans.

They have used some of their profits to buy more cotton land and more slaves.

The planters' dependence on hundreds of thousands of slaves for labor and the severe wealth imbalances among whites, play strong roles both in state politics and in planters' support for secession.

Mississippi is a slave society, with the economy dependent on slavery.

The state is thinly settled, with population concentrated in the riverfront areas and towns.

By 1860, the enslaved African-American population numbered 436,631 or 55% of the state's total of 791,305 persons.

Fewer than one thousand were free people of color.

The relatively low population of the state before the Civil War reflects the fact that land and villages have been developed only along the riverfronts, which form the main transportation corridors.

Ninety percent of the Delta bottomlands are still frontier and undeveloped.

The state needs many more settlers for development.

The land further away from the rivers will be cleared by freedmen and white migrants during Reconstruction and later.