Native Americans Throughout the past 10,000 years, a number of different
Native peoples are believed to have inhabited what is now Middle Tennessee. The region is believed to have been rich in
game animals favored by
Ice Age hunter-gatherers. During the
Mississippian period (1000–1600 AD), Native Americans established
chiefdoms and constructed numerous earthwork mounds in the region, such as
Mound Bottom in
Cheatham County and the
Castalian Springs site in
Sumner County. Natives that had occupied what is now Middle Tennessee prior to this time may have died as a result of new infectious diseases indirectly introduced by European explorers.
Exploration and colonization The first Europeans to reach what is now Middle Tennessee were probably an expedition in 1540–1541 led by Spanish conquistador
Hernando De Soto. By the late 17th century, the French had begun to explore the
Cumberland River valley in Middle Tennessee. In 1714, a group of French traders constructed a trading post at a site along the Cumberland River in modern-day Nashville that became known as French Lick. These settlers quickly established an extensive
fur trading network with the local Native Americans, but by the 1740s the settlement had largely been abandoned. In the 1750s and 1760s,
longhunters from Virginia explored much of Middle Tennessee, especially the
Cumberland Plateau. In 1769, French-born fur trader
Timothy Demonbreun established residence along the Cumberland River in present-day Nashville. In 1779,
James Robertson and
John Donelson led two groups of settlers from the
Washington District in what is now East Tennessee to the French Lick. These settlers constructed
Fort Nashborough, which they named for
Francis Nash, a
brigadier general of the
Continental Army during the
American Revolutionary War. The next year, the settlers signed the
Cumberland Compact, which established the
Cumberland Association, a representative form of government based on the government known as the
Watauga Association that had been established by the settlers of East Tennessee. Fort Nashborough later developed as the city of Nashville, and a number of other settlements were established nearby in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The first settlements in Middle Tennessee became known as the Cumberland Settlements. In 1790, what is now Tennessee became the
Southwest Territory, and the settlements in Middle Tennessee were organized into the Mero District, named after Spanish territorial governor
Esteban Rodríguez Miró. In 1795, a survey conducted by the territorial legislature found that the majority of residents of Middle Tennessee were opposed to statehood, while the majority of residents of East Tennessee, of which there were approximately three times more, were in favor. Tennessee was admitted to the Union as the 16th state the following year. During the
antebellum era, a
slavery-based agrarian economy took hold in Middle Tennessee, especially in the fertile soils of the
Nashville Basin. Planters primarily grew
cotton in the Nashville Basin, and
tobacco and
corn were cultivated in the
Highland Rim. By
1860, enslaved African Americans composed about 29% of the population of Middle Tennessee. After the election of
Abraham Lincoln that year, a majority of Middle Tennesseans voted against the state's ordinance of
secession in February 1861. Many of these white voters supported the continuation of slavery but were skeptical about leaving the Union.
Civil War and Reconstruction , November 30, 1864 Following the Confederate
attack on Fort Sumter in April 1861, which started the
Civil War, and President Lincoln's call to raise federal troops in response, many Middle Tennesseans changed their opinions about secession. In June 1861, Middle Tennessee voted in favor of Tennessee's second ordnance of secession, which resulted in Tennessee joining the
Confederate States of America (CSA), although a few counties in the extreme southwest (
Wayne) and northeast (
Macon and
Fentress) continued to favor the Union. A number of crucial campaigns and battles of the Civil War took place in Middle Tennessee. General
Ulysses S. Grant and the
U.S. Navy captured control of the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers in February 1862 at the battles of
Fort Henry and
Fort Donelson, essentially establishing Union control of Middle Tennessee. Union troops occupied the state for the duration of the war. Union strength in the area, however, was tested by a series of Confederate offensives beginning in the summer of 1862, which culminated in Union General
William Rosecrans's
Army of the Cumberland routing Confederate General
Braxton Bragg's
Army of Tennessee at the
Battle of Stones River in
Murfreesboro in December 1862 and January 1863. This was one of the bloodiest battles of the entire war. In February, the Confederates took about 670 to 870 casualties in the
Battle of Dover when Colonel
Abner C. Harding defeated the 2500 Confederate troops with 800 Union soldiers. The next summer, Rosecrans's
Tullahoma campaign forced Bragg's remaining troops in Middle Tennessee to flee to
Chattanooga with little fighting. The last major battles in Middle Tennessee occurred during the
Franklin–Nashville campaign in the fall of 1864, when the Army of Tennessee under the command of General
John Bell Hood unsuccessfully tried to lure Union General
William Tecumseh Sherman, who was conducting the
Atlanta campaign in Georgia, back into the region. Hood was defeated at the
Battle of Franklin in November, then completely dispersed from the state by General
George Thomas at the
Battle of Nashville the following month. The
United States Colored Troops (USCT) played a major role in this campaign. During
Reconstruction, Middle Tennessee's economy fell into a state of disrepair. The
Ku Klux Klan was formed in
Pulaski in December 1865 as a vigilante organization to advance the interests of former Confederates, including maintenance of
white supremacy. In the years following the Civil War, African Americans and their White allies in Middle Tennessee were targeted with acts of violence by former Confederates. Many freedmen (former slaves) became
sharecroppers following the end of slavery, and were often disadvantaged by the planters' recordkeeping and contracts.
Late 19th and earlier 20th century The post-Reconstruction era in Middle Tennessee was characterized by continued White violence against African Americans, especially related to elections, and many were
lynched in a cycle often related to economic tensions and settlement of finances after harvest. In the late 19th century, African Americans began fleeing Middle Tennessee to booming industrial cities in the Northeast and Midwest. This mass migration, which occurred in every Southern state and accelerated between 1915 and 1930, became known as the first wave of the
Great Migration. It continued until 1970. The region's economy continued to be based primarily on agriculture, but
coal mining expanded extensively in the Cumberland Plateau in Middle Tennessee in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1897, Tennessee celebrated its centennial of statehood one year late with the
Tennessee Centennial and International Exposition in Nashville. A
full-scale replica of the
Parthenon in
Athens was designed by architect
William Crawford Smith and constructed for the celebration The site of the exposition is now a city park called
Centennial Park. The
worst rail accident in U.S. history occurred on July 9, 1918, in Nashville when two passenger trains
collided head on, killing 101 people and injuring 171. Human error was ultimately deemed to be the main cause of the accident. The
Grand Ole Opry was first broadcast in 1925 in Nashville, and remains the longest-running radio program in the nation. This radio program helped establish Nashville as the national home of
country music. During
World War II Camp Forrest, located in
Tullahoma, was one of the
U.S. Army's largest training bases. It was also used to house German, Italian, and Japanese prisoners of war. After the war, it was adapted as
Arnold Air Force Base. The
Vultee Aircraft Corporation operated a plant in Nashville during the war, employing mostly women. On February 25 and 26, 1946, a civil disturbance known as the "Columbia Race Riot" occurred in
Columbia, instigated by a fight between a Black Navy veteran and a White repair apprentice. Described by the press as the "first major racial confrontation" following World War II, the event garnered national attention. It marked a new era of resistance by African-American veterans and others following their participation in
World War II, which they believed had earned them their full rights as citizens.
Mid 20th century to present During the early years of the
civil rights movement, the
Highlander Folk School near
Monteagle provided training to a number of activists in the movement, including
Martin Luther King Jr.,
Ralph Abernathy,
John Lewis, and
Rosa Parks. The
Nashville Student Movement was organized as part of workshops on
nonviolence taught by activist
James Lawson. Between February and May 1960, the group organized a
series of sit-ins at segregated lunch counters in Nashville, which successfully resulted in the desegregation of facilities in the city. The construction of the
Interstate Highway System in the latter 20th century facilitated
suburbanization in the region and brought new industries to Middle Tennessee. Since 1970, the Nashville and Clarksville metropolitan areas have been two of the fastest-growing regions in the United States. This growth has accelerated since 1990, causing Middle Tennessee to surpass East Tennessee as the most populous of the state's grand divisions in the 2000s. The region's economy has been transformed by new economic sectors, including the automotive, banking, technology, and entertainment industries. ==Geography==