DeSoto County, Mississippi, was formally established February 9, 1836. The original county lines included territory now part of
Tate County, which was carved out in 1873. The county seat, Hernando, is also named in his honor. De Soto reportedly died in that area in May 1542, although some accounts suggest that he died near
Lake Village, Arkansas.
Early history Indian artifacts collected in DeSoto County link it with prehistoric groups of Woodland and
Mississippian culture peoples. Members of the Mississippian culture, who built complex settlements and earthwork monuments throughout the Mississippi River Valley and its major tributaries, met
Hernando de Soto in the mid-16th century when he explored what is now North Mississippi. By tradition, he is believed to have traveled with his expedition through present-day DeSoto County. Some scholars speculate that de Soto discovered the
Mississippi River west of present-day Lake Cormorant, built rafts there, and crossed to present-day
Crowley's Ridge, Arkansas. Based on records of the expedition and archeology, the
National Park Service has designated a "DeSoto Corridor" from
Coahoma County, Mississippi to the Chickasaw Bluff in Memphis. The Mississippian culture declined and disappeared, and in most areas this preceded European contact. Scholars speculate this may have followed changes in the environment. The town named
Chicasa, which De Soto visited, was probably the ancestral home of the historical
Chickasaw, who are descended from the Mississippian culture. They had lived in the area for centuries before white settlers began arriving. Present-day
Pontotoc, Mississippi developed near the Chickasaw "Long Town", which was composed of several villages near each other. The Chickasaw Nation regarded much of western present-day Tennessee and northern Mississippi as their traditional hunting grounds. The Chickasaw traded furs for French goods, and the French established several small settlements among them. However, France ceded its claim to territories east of the Mississippi River to Britain in 1763, after having been defeated in the
Seven Years' War. The United States acquired the area from the British as part of the treaty that ended the
American Revolution.
19th and 20th centuries The Chickasaw finally ceded most of their land to the United States under pressure during
Indian Removal, and a treaty in 1832. They were forced to remove to
Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River. Negotiations began in September 1816 between the United States government and the Chickasaw nation and concluded with the signing of the
Treaty of Pontotoc in October 1832. During those 16 years, federal officials pressed the Chickasaw for cessions of land to extinguish their land claims to enable white settlement in their territory. Congress passed the
Indian Removal Act in 1830, authorizing forcible removal if necessary to extinguish Native American claims in the Southeast. From 1832 to 1836, government surveyors mapped the of the Chickasaw domain and divided it into townships, ranges and sections. The Mississippi Legislature formed 10 new counties, including DeSoto, Tunica, Marshall, and Tate, from the territory. By treaty, the land was assigned by sections of to individual Indian households. The Chickasaw, a numerically small tribe, were assigned of land by using that formula. The government declared the remainder as surplus and disposed of the remaining at public sale. The Indians received at least $1.25 per acre for their land. The government land sold for 75 cents per acre or less. During and after the Civil War, the area was developed as large plantations by planters for cultivation of cotton, a leading commodity crop. Before the Civil War, they had depended on the labor of thousands of enslaved African Americans. After the war and emancipation, many
freedmen stayed in the area, but shaped their own lives by working on small plots as
sharecroppers or tenant farmers, rather than on large labor gangs on the plantations. Reliance on agriculture meant that the area did not develop much economically well into the 20th century, and both whites and blacks suffered economically. In 1890, the state legislature
disenfranchised most blacks under the new constitution, which used
poll taxes and
literacy tests to raise barriers to voter registration. In the early 20th century, many people left the rural county for cities to gain other opportunities. Most blacks could not vote in Mississippi until the late 1960s, after the passage of federal legislation. During the
Great Depression, the Southern Tenant Farmers Union was organized in 1934. It was open to both black and white
sharecroppers and worked to gain better deals and fair accounting from local white landowners. Whites in DeSoto County resisted the effort. In 1935, a white lynch mob attacked early union organizer and minister Reverend T. A. Allen, shot him, and threw him into the
Coldwater River. One account said that his body was weighted by chains and that authorities claimed it to be a suicide. In its 2015 report on
Lynching in America (2015), the
Equal Justice Institute documented 12
lynchings in the county from 1877 to 1950. Most lynchings in the South took place around the turn of the 20th century. Such suburban residential development in the county has been most noticeable in the Mississippi cities of
Southaven,
Olive Branch, and
Horn Lake, as well with the county seat of Hernando. Also stimulating development in the formerly rural area is the massive casino/resort complex, in the neighboring
Tunica County, which is the sixth-largest gambling district in the United States. ==Politics==