12/10/2025
Today we celebrate Mississippi's 208th birthday. Here is some interesting information about our great state's birth.
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1G4ZYviWQr/
President James Monroe signed a congressional resolution on December 10, 1817 that admitted the western portion of the Mississippi Territory as the State of Mississippi as the 20th state of the Union.
The Mississippi Territory was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from April 7, 1798, until December 10, 1817, when the western half of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Mississippi. The eastern half was redesignated as the Alabama Territory until it was admitted to the Union as the State of Alabama on December 14, 1819.
The United States and Spain disputed these lands east of the Mississippi River until Spain relinquished its claim with the Treaty of Madrid, initially signed in 1795 by the two countries' representatives. The Mississippi Territory was organized in 1798 from these lands (approximately the southern half of the present states of Alabama and Mississippi).
The state of Georgia maintained a claim over almost the entire area of the present states of Alabama and Mississippi, until it surrendered its claim in 1802 following the Yazoo land scandal.
Beginning about 1808 the legislature of the Mississippi Territory held its official meetings in one of the houses owned by Charles DeFrance of the Natchez District. The DeFrance house, also known as Assembly Hall, was located in Washington, Mississippi, about 10 miles from the city of Natchez.
In 1812, declaring that it had been included in the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the United States annexed the Mobile District of West Florida, between the Perdido River and the Pearl River. Spain disputed this and maintained its claim over the area. The following year, a Federal statute was secretly enacted authorizing the President to take full possession of this area with the use of military force as deemed necessary. Accordingly, General James Wilkinson occupied this district with a military contingent; the Spanish colonial commandant offered no resistance. This annexation extended the Mississippi Territory south to the Gulf of Mexico, with the northern border being the boundary of the state of Tennessee, taking in all of what is now Alabama and Mississippi.
Federal statutes enacted on March 1 and 3, 1817, provided a plan for the division of the Mississippi Territory into the state of Mississippi in the west and the Alabama Territory in the east. On December 10, 1817, the division was finalized when the western portion was admitted to the Union as Mississippi, the 20th state.
Photo courtesy of Digital Collections, The New York Public Library
