The History of Italians in Mississippi is related to the Italian presence and emigration to the State of Mississippi in southern US. The immense obstacles that these Italian immigrants faced in assimilating into the broader society were far from easy, while also attempting to preserve their identity, culture, and traditions in a new land. Italian immigrants are responsible for developing and contributing to the region now known as Mississippi.
In the 19th century, many Italians entered the United States in New Orleans and traveled onwards to Mississippi. [1] Over 100 immigrants lived in Mississippi as the American Civil War started. In the late 19th century, Italian immigration increased in the United States, which made a tremendous impact on the area. [2] [3] Some of them went to work in the so-called "Mississippi Delta" in the cotton plantations, and even helped the development of the blues music with their mandolins. [4]
The late 19th century saw the arrival of larger numbers of Italian immigrants who left Italy seeking economic opportunities. Some Italians from Sicily settled as families along the Mississippi Gulf Coast in Biloxi, Ocean Springs, and Gulfport, preserving close ties with those in their homeland. They worked in the fishing and canning industries. Others were merchants, operating grocery stores, liquor stores, and tobacco shops. Biloxi's prosperous tourist industry in the early 20th century created opportunities for ambitious young (Italian) men ... Italians also settled in the Mississippi Delta. The first immigrants came there in the 1880s, working to repair levees and staying as hired farm laborers on plantations. Some of these families became peddlers selling goods to farmers. In 1895, the first Italians came to the Sunnyside Plantation, across the Mississippi River in the Arkansas Delta. That plantation would become the stopping off place for many Italian settlers along both sides of the river. They were mostly from central Italy and experienced in farm work.
— Charles Reagan Wilson (University of Mississippi)
People originating in Sicily in real life became involved in the fruit industry in the area around New Orleans in the late 1800s, which in turn influenced Italian settlement on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. [5]
Most people in Italy are Roman Catholics. Italians are predominantly Roman Catholic as a whole, and so were those Italians that settled in Mississippi. The Catholic Church outfitted vital institutional support to them and future generations. Although the presence of a Catholic population in Mississippi is relatively minor, Italians are a prominent group within many Catholic churches across the state. [6]
Greenville, Mississippi had the most Sicilian immigrants out of other cities in the delta. Most immigrants first settled in New Orleans and worked in the sugar cane and cotton fields. Later on when they arrived in the Delta, they began to settle in towns, which enabled them to open up grocery stores, restaurants, and fruit stands. Because they lived in towns, rather than on farms, they had access to higher quality education, which they took advantage of.
Because of these opportunities, young Sicilian immigrants were able to grow up, become established and enter into the workforce much faster than Central Italian immigrants. Sicilians established strong ties with their homeland after coming to America. [6]
Around the 1880s, the first Italian immigrants settled in the Mississippi Delta. Most immigrants were hired to be farm laborers on large plantations, whereas some became peddlers and sold goods to farmers. Religion, family roots and farming were the three vital traditions Italians managed to maintain after moving to the United States.
...by 1910 some 115,000 Southern and Eastern European immigrants had settled in the eleven state region that had earlier comprised the Confederate States of America. The most numerous immigrant element to enter the region by that date were Italians, 44,358 in number, residing chiefly along the Gulf Coast and in the Mississippi River Valley....Many of these Italians remained to become independent farmers. William Marchione [7]
Italians made a major impact specifically on the Mississippi Delta region, because of the farming culture they created by utilizing fertile soil in the land of opportunity – although they did get accustomed to the Southern tradition, but in doing so they also preserved their rich Italian culture. [6]
During the period of mass immigration to the United States, Italians suffered widespread discrimination in housing, social acceptance and employment. Local Mississippians had various beliefs and attitudes towards the 20th century Italian settlers. Many stereotypes floated around about them after they settled. During this time they faced discrimination, prejudiced attitudes and bigotry, all directed to their ethnic background.
First-generation became farmers, grocers, and merchants. The next generation became doctors, bankers, and lawyers. One of them was able to reach the top political level in Mississippi: Andrew Longino, who was governor from 1900 to 1904.
The Ku Klux Klan thrived off of targeting Catholics, including Italians. Italians were perceived as violent and dirty. Newspapers were even sensationalizing stories and headlines to further boost the negative reputation and stereotypes of Italian immigrants. Because of their darker skin tone and hair, Italians were viewed to be second-class citizens, unlike those of northern European ancestry. Italian immigrants that were tenant farmers at this time did work equivalent to African Americans, and therefore resulted in both ethnic groups residing at the bottom of the social scale.
Italian Americans were often victims of prejudice, economic exploitation, and sometimes even violence, particularly in the South. And Mississippi (with nearby Louisiana) was no exception to this.
Indeed, Mississippi and Louisiana were to become a worldwide symbol of anti-Italianism when, in 1891, eleven Italian immigrants in New Orleans were lynched due to their alleged role in the murder of the police chief David Hennessy. [8]
This was one of the largest mass lynchings in U.S. history. The lynching took place after nine of the immigrants were tried for the murder and acquitted. [9]
These nine Italians – some of whom were from the Mississippi Delta – who were thought to have assassinated police chief David Hennessy were arrested, tried, and acquitted. Subsequent to the trial, they were dragged from the jail in Parish Prison of New Orleans and lynched by a mob that had stormed the jailhouse, together with two other Italians who were being held in the jail at the time on unrelated charges. [10]
Afterwards, hundreds of Italian immigrants, most of whom were not criminals, were arrested by the police even in Mississippi. [11] [12]
Furthermore, in 1899, in Tallulah, near the Mississippi border, five Italian Americans were lynched for the attempted murder of Dr. Ford Hodge. A vigilante mob hanged three shopkeepers, and two bystanders who were Italian Americans. [13] Even in Erwin, Mississippi, some Italians were killed in 1901. [14]
In the twentieth century, mainly after World War I, Italians started to be accepted and integrated very well into the Mississippi society. The food and restaurant industry was one of the areas where they had their biggest results and economic success.
The seafood (and small shipyard) industry of Biloxi was owned mainly by the family of Andrew H. Longino – governor of Mississippi from 1900 to 1904 – who was the first governor of a US Southern state with Italian roots. [15]
According to Charles R. Wilson, one of the most prominent Italian families in Mississippi, the Bruninis of Vicksburg, produced a respected Catholic religious leader, the late Joseph Bernard Brunini, who was bishop of the Natchez-Jackson Diocese from 1966 to 1984. Bishop Brunini successfully promoted the integration of black people & other minorities in the 1980s.
The setting of the play The Rose Tattoo is a place in proximity to Biloxi. [16] The play has a film adaptation.
St. John the Baptist Parish is a parish located in the U.S. state of Louisiana. At the 2020 census, the population was 42,477. The parish seat is Edgard, an unincorporated area, and the largest city is LaPlace, which is also unincorporated.
Iberia Parish is a parish located in the U.S. state of Louisiana. At the 2020 census, it had a population of 69,929; the parish seat is New Iberia.
Avoyelles is a parish located in central eastern Louisiana on the Red River where it effectively becomes the Atchafalaya River and meets the Mississippi River. As of the 2020 census, the population was 39,693. The parish seat is Marksville. The parish was created in 1807, with the name deriving from the French name for the historic Avoyel people, one of the local Indian tribes at the time of European encounter.
Tallulah is a city in, and the parish seat of, Madison Parish in northeastern Louisiana, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 6,286, down from 7,335 in 2010.
Biloxi is a city in Harrison County, Mississippi, United States. It lies on the Gulf Coast in southern Mississippi, bordering the city of Gulfport to its west. The adjacent cities are both designated as seats of Harrison County. The population of Biloxi was 49,449 at the 2020 census, making it the state's 4th most populous city. It is a principal city of the Gulfport–Biloxi metropolitan area, home to 416,259 residents in 2020. The area's first European settlers were French colonists.
Italian Americans are Americans who have full or partial Italian ancestry. According to the Italian American Studies Association, the current population is about 18 million, an increase from 16 million in 2010, corresponding to about 5.4% of the total population of the United States. The largest concentrations of Italian Americans are in the urban Northeast and industrial Midwestern metropolitan areas, with significant communities also residing in many other major U.S. metropolitan areas.
Acadiana, also known as the Cajun Country, is the official name given to the French Louisiana region that has historically contained much of the state's Francophone population.
The Mississippi Delta, also known as the Yazoo–Mississippi Delta, or simply the Delta, is the distinctive northwest section of the U.S. state of Mississippi that lies between the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers. The region has been called "The Most Southern Place on Earth", because of its unique racial, cultural, and economic history.
The history of New Orleans, Louisiana traces the city's development from its founding by the French in 1718 through its period of Spanish control, then briefly back to French rule before being acquired by the United States in the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. During the War of 1812, the last major battle was the Battle of New Orleans in 1815. Throughout the 19th century, New Orleans was the largest port in the Southern United States, exporting most of the nation's cotton output and other farm products to Western Europe and New England. As the largest city in the South at the start of the Civil War (1861–1865), it was an early target for capture by Union forces. With its rich and unique cultural and architectural heritage, New Orleans remains a major destination for live music, tourism, conventions, and sporting events and annual Mardi Gras celebrations. After the significant destruction and loss of life resulting from Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the city would bounce back and rebuild in the ensuing years.
Louisiana or French Louisiana was an administrative district of New France. In 1682 the French explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle erected a cross near the mouth of the Mississippi River and claimed the whole of the drainage basin of the Mississippi River in the name of King Louis XIV, naming it "Louisiana". This land area stretched from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico and from the Appalachian Mountains to the Rocky Mountains. The area was under French control from 1682 to 1762 and in part from 1801 (nominally) to 1803.
The Mississippi Gulf Coast, also known as Mississippi Coast, Mississippi Gulf Coast region, Coastal Mississippi, and The Coast, is the area of Mississippi along the Mississippi Sound at the northern extreme of the Gulf of Mexico.
The Diocese of Jackson is a Latin Church diocese in Mississippi in the United States. Its ecclesiastical jurisdiction includes the northern and central parts of the state, an area of 97,458 square kilometers (37,629 sq mi). It is the largest diocese, by area, east of the Mississippi River.
Fort Maurepas, later known as Old Biloxi, was developed in colonial French Louisiana in April 1699 along the Gulf of Mexico . Fort Maurepas was designated temporarily as the capital of Louisiana in 1699. The capital was moved from Ocean Springs to Mobile in 1710, then to New Orleans in 1723 on the Mississippi River. Government buildings in the latter city were still under construction.
Louisiana is a South Central U.S. state, with a 2020 U.S. census resident population of 4,657,757, and apportioned population of 4,661,468. Much of the state's population is concentrated in southern Louisiana in the Greater New Orleans, Florida Parishes, and Acadiana regions, with the remainder in North and Central Louisiana's major metropolitan areas. The center of population of Louisiana is located in Pointe Coupee Parish, in the city of New Roads.
Mississippi is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Alabama to the east, the Gulf of Mexico to the south, Louisiana to the southwest, and Arkansas to the northwest. Mississippi's western boundary is largely defined by the Mississippi River, or its historical course. Mississippi is the 32nd largest by area and 35th-most populous of the 50 U.S. states and has the lowest per-capita income. Jackson is both the state's capital and largest city. Greater Jackson is the state's most populous metropolitan area, with a population of 591,978 in 2020. Other major cities include Gulfport, Southaven, Hattiesburg, Biloxi, Olive Branch, Tupelo, Meridian, and Greenville.
A Mississippi Landmark is a building officially nominated by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History and approved by each county's chancery clerk. The Mississippi Landmark designation is the highest form of recognition bestowed on properties by the state of Mississippi, and designated properties are protected from changes that may alter the property's historic character. Currently there are 890 designated landmarks in the state. Mississippi Landmarks are spread out between eighty-one of Mississippi's eighty-two counties; only Issaquena County has no such landmarks.
The Tunica people are a group of linguistically and culturally related Native American tribes in the Mississippi River Valley, which include the Tunica ; the Yazoo; the Koroa ; and possibly the Tioux. They first encountered Europeans in 1541 – members of the Hernando de Soto expedition.
Italians have had a presence in the New Orleans area since the explorations of the Europeans. Many Sicilians immigrated to New Orleans in the 19th century, traveling on the Palermo-New Orleans route by ship. The number of Italians who immigrated in the late 19th century greatly exceeded those who had come before the American Civil War. Only New York City has a higher population of Sicilian-Americans and Sicilian immigrants than New Orleans.
The 1891 New Orleans lynchings were the murders of 11 Italian Americans, immigrants in New Orleans, by a mob for their alleged role in the murder of police chief David Hennessy after some of them had been acquitted at trial. It was the largest single mass lynching in American history. Most of the lynching victims accused in the murder had been rounded up and charged due to their Italian ethnicity.
The French Louisianians, also known as Louisiana French, are Latin French people native to the states that were established out of French Louisiana. They are commonly referred to as French Creoles. Today, the most famous Louisiana French groups are the Alabama Creoles, Louisiana Creoles, and the Missouri French.
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