West Tennessee
West Tennessee is one of the three Grand Divisions of Tennessee that roughly comprises the western quarter of the state. The region includes 21 counties between the Tennessee and Mississippi rivers, delineated by state law. Its geography consists primarily of flat lands with rich soil and vast floodplain areas of the Mississippi River. Of the three regions, West Tennessee is the most sharply defined geographically, and is the lowest-lying. It is both the least populous and smallest, in land area, of the three Grand Divisions. Its largest city is Memphis, the state's second most populous city. West Tennessee was originally inhabited by the Chickasaw, and was the last of the three Grand Divisions to be settled by Europeans. The region officially became part of the United States with the Jackson Purchase in 1818, 22 years after Tennessee's statehood. As part of the Mississippi River basin, West Tennessee enjoys rich soil that led to large-scale cotton farming during the antebellum ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Memphis Pyramid
The Memphis Pyramid, formerly known as the Great American Pyramid and the Pyramid Arena, and colloquially known as the Bass Pro Shops Pyramid, is a pyramid-shaped building located in downtown Memphis, Tennessee, Memphis, Tennessee, United States, at the bank of the Mississippi River. Built in 1991 as a 20,142-seat arena, the facility was owned and operated jointly by the city of Memphis and Shelby County, Tennessee, Shelby County until Shelby County sold its share to Memphis in April 2009. Its structure plays on the city's Memphis, Egypt, namesake in Ancient Egypt, Egypt, which is known for its ancient pyramids. It is (about 32 stories) tall and has base sides of ; it is by some measures the tenth-tallest pyramid in the world. The Memphis Pyramid has not been regularly used as a sports or entertainment venue since 2007. In 2015, the Pyramid re-opened as a Bass Pro Shops megastore, which included shopping, a hotel, restaurants, a bowling alley, and an archery range, with an outd ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Black Belt In The American South
The Black Belt in the American South refers to the social history, especially concerning slavery and black workers, of the geological region known as the Black Belt. The geology emphasizes the highly fertile black soil. Historically, the black belt economy was based on cotton plantations – along with some tobacco plantation areas along the Virginia-North Carolina border. The valuable land was largely controlled by rich whites, and worked by very poor, primarily black slaves who in many counties constituted a majority of the population. Generally the term is applied to a larger region than that defined by its geology. After 1945, a large fraction of the laborers were replaced by machinery, and they joined the Great Migration to cities of the Midwest and West. Political analysts and historians continue to use the term Black Belt to designate some 200 counties in the South from Virginia to Texas that have a history of majority African American population and cotton production ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Francisco Luis Héctor De Carondelet
Francisco Luis Héctor de Carondelet y Bosoist, 5th Baron of Carondelet (1748–1807) was a Spanish administrator of partial Burgundian descent in the employ of the Spanish Empire. He was a Knight of Malta. Biography Youth and military career Carondelet entered the service of the King of Spain in 1762, at age fifteen. By 1781, he commanded the IV Division, which fought at the Siege of Pensacola in 1781. Upon his return to Spain in 1787, he was attached to the Flandres Regimiento, with the rank of Infantry Colonel, and was received in the Order of Malta. During this period he married, against his own family's will, a woman from Aragón whose family was very influential at the royal court, Maria Concepción Castaños y Aragorri. Governor of El Salvador (1789 – 1791) Carondelet was named governor of El Salvador in 1789. Because the local indigenous population working in the indigo industry had declined greatly, Carondolet recruited Spanish laborers. Their descendants a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Louisiana
Louisiana ( ; ; ) is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It borders Texas to the west, Arkansas to the north, and Mississippi to the east. Of the 50 U.S. states, it ranks 31st in area and 25th in population, with roughly 4.6 million residents. Reflecting its French heritage, Louisiana is the only U.S. state with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are equivalent to counties, making it one of only two U.S. states not subdivided into counties (the other being Alaska and its boroughs). Baton Rouge is the state's capital, and New Orleans, a French Louisiana region, is its most populous city with a population of about 363,000 people. Louisiana has a coastline with the Gulf of Mexico to the south; a large part of its eastern boundary is demarcated by the Mississippi River. Much of Louisiana's lands were formed from sediment washed down the Mississippi River, leaving enormous deltas and vast areas of coastal marsh a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Chickasaw Wars
The Chickasaw Wars were fought in the first half of the 18th century between the Chickasaw allied with the British against the French and their allies the Choctaws, Quapaw, and Illinois Confederation. The Province of Louisiana extended from Illinois to New Orleans, and the French fought to secure their communications along the Mississippi River. The Chickasaw, dwelling in northern Mississippi and western Tennessee, lay across the French path. Much to the eventual advantage of the British and the later United States, the Chickasaw successfully held their ground. The wars came to an end only with the French cession of New France to the British in 1763 according to terms of the Treaty of Paris. Choctaw Attacks The governor of Louisiana and founder of New Orleans, Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville determined to stop Chickasaw trade with the British. In 1721 he was able to incite the Choctaw who began to raid Chickasaw villages, and to ambush pack trains along the Trader's Pa ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Chickasaw Campaign Of 1739
The Chickasaw Campaign of 1739 (July 24, 1739 – March 31, 1740), also known as the Second Chickasaw War, was a continuation of the Chickasaw Wars pursued by the French in Louisiana. In 1739 the French prepared extensively but failed to engage the Chickasaw beyond some half-hearted skirmishing, and finally accepted a negotiated peace. After the 1736 disasters of Ogoula Tchetoka and Ackia, Upper and Lower Louisiana were still separated by the obstinate Chickasaw. The Choctaw applied relentless pressure by ambushing hunting parties and traffic on the trading path to South Carolina. Alternately, the Choctaw devastated croplands and livestock after using superior numbers to force the Chickasaw into their forts. Under orders, Bienville immediately began to prepare a second grand expedition. Determined to remedy the lack of siege weapons and of coordination that had ruined his first, he obtained artillery, engineers and miners, and more soldiers. He planned for horses, meat on the ho ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne De Bienville
Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville (; ; February 23, 1680 – March 7, 1767), also known as Sieur de Bienville, was a French-Canadian colonial administrator in New France. Born in Montreal, he was an early governor of French Louisiana, appointed four separate times during 1701–1743. He was the younger brother of explorer Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville. Early life Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne was the son of Charles le Moyne, born in Longueil, near Dieppe, and Catherine Primot (also known as Catherine Thierry), born in Rouen, both cities in the Province of Normandy. Charles le Moyne established his family in the settlement of Ville-Marie (present day Montreal) at an early age and had fourteen children. Exploration in the New World At the age of seventeen, Bienville joined his brother Iberville on an expedition to establish the colony of Louisiana. In 1699, the group explored the Gulf of Mexico coastline as far as Mobile Bay, which was too shallow to go further. At the site of Bel ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Fort Assumption
Fort Assumption (or Fort De L'Assomption) was a French fortification constructed in 1739 on the fourth Chickasaw Bluff on the Mississippi River in Shelby County, present day Memphis, Tennessee. The fort was used as a base against the Chickasaw in the unsuccessful Indian-removal Campaign of 1739. History In 1739, Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville led an army of 1,200 Frenchmen into the area of what is modern day Shelby County, Tennessee to eradicate the native Chickasaw Indians in order to secure and prepare the land for settlement by the French. He had roughly 2,400 black and Native soldiers in his army as well. As a base for the operation he chose the fourth Chickasaw Bluff because of Its strategic position on high-ground overlooking the Mississippi River and ordered the construction of a fortification on top of the bluff. On August 15, 1739, the day of the Feast of the Assumption, the fort was finished and named ''Fort Assumption'' in commemoration of the holy da ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Chickasaw Bluffs
The Chickasaw Bluff is the high ground rising about above the Mississippi River flood plain between Fulton in Lauderdale County, Tennessee and Memphis in Shelby County, Tennessee. This elevation, shaped as four bluffs, is named for the Chickasaw people. Known in the 19th century as one of the Five Civilized Nations in the Southeast, they occupied much of this area in western Tennessee and Mississippi. By their control of the bluffs, they could impede French river traffic in the 18th century when the peoples were at war. Location The Chickasaw Bluffs were numbered by rivermen from one to four, starting from the north. The Battle of Fort Pillow was fought from the First Chickasaw Bluff. The battlefield is preserved as Fort Pillow State Historic Park. The town of Randolph, Tennessee was founded on the Second Chickasaw Bluff in the 1820s and was an early rival of Memphis until the 1840s. The town was destroyed twice during the Civil War. Today there is a small unincorporat ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Fort Prudhomme
Fort Prudhomme, or Prud'homme, was a simple stockade fortification, constructed in late February 1682 on one of the Chickasaw Bluffs of the Mississippi River in West Tennessee by Cavelier de La Salle's French canoe expedition of the Mississippi River Basin. The fortification was intended to provide shelter during the search for a member of the expedition who got lost at a stop while hunting, it was used by the expedition for only ten days. Fort Prudhomme was the first structure built by the French in Tennessee; its exact location is not known. After de La Salle became ill during his expedition's return up the Mississippi in 1682, he was required to spend forty days at the fort until he had recuperated. Fort Prudhomme was the first structure built by the French in Tennessee. La Salle's expedition René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle (1643–1687) was a French explorer. In December, 1681, he started his second expedition. La Salle led a party of 41 on a canoe expedition from ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur De La Salle
René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle (; November 22, 1643 – March 19, 1687), was a 17th-century French explorer and North American fur trade, fur trader in North America. He explored the Great Lakes region of the United States and Canada, and the Mississippi River. He is best known for an early 1682 expedition in which he canoed the lower Mississippi River from the mouth of the Illinois River to the Gulf of Mexico; there, on April 9, 1682, he claimed the Mississippi River basin for France after giving it the name Louisiana (New France), ''La Louisiane'', in honor of Louis IX of France, Saint Louis and Louis XIV. One source states that "he acquired for France the most fertile half of the North American continent". A later, ill-fated expedition in 1687 to the Gulf coast of Mexico (today the U.S. state of Texas) gave the United States a putative claim to Texas in the purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803; La Salle was assassinated during that expedition. Al ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Louis Jolliet
Louis Jolliet (; September 21, 1645after May 1700) was a French-Canadian explorer known for his discoveries in North America. In 1673, Jolliet and Jacques Marquette, a Jesuit Catholic priest and missionary, were the first non-Natives to explore and map the Upper Mississippi River. Early life Jolliet was born in 1645 in Beaupré, a French settlement near Quebec City, to Jean Jolliet and Marie D'Abancourt. When he was six years old, his father died; his mother married a successful merchant, Geoffroy Guillot dit Lavalle, until he died in 1665. Shortly after the passing of his mother's second husband, she was married to Martin Prevost until she died in 1678. Jolliet's stepfather owned land on the Ile d'Orleans, an island in the Saint Lawrence River in Quebec that was home to First Nations. Jolliet spent much time on Ile d'Orleans, so he likely began speaking Indigenous languages of the Americas at a young age. Besides French, he also learned English and Spanish. During his child ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |