History of Memphis, Tennessee

The history of Memphis, Tennessee and its area began many thousands of years ago with succeeding cultures of indigenous peoples. In the first millennium, it was settled by the Mississippian culture. The Chickasaw Indian tribe emerged about the 17th century, or migrated into the area.^[1] The earliest European exploration may have encountered remnants of the Mississippian culture by Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto. Later French explorers led by René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle likely encountered the Chickasaw.^[2] The city of Memphis was not founded until 1819. The city was named after the ancient capital of Egypt on the Nile River in North Africa.

It rapidly developed as a major trading center for cotton cultivated at the region's large plantations and dependent on the work of enslaved African Americans. In the 19th century, and especially 1878 and 1879, the city suffered severe yellow fever epidemics. In 1878 tens of thousands of residents fled and more than 5,000 died, with hundreds more dying in the next year's epidemic, causing the city to go bankrupt and give up its charter until 1893.

By the early 20th century, cotton was still a major commodity crop; Memphis grew into the world's largest spot cotton market and the world's largest hardwood lumber market. During the 1960s the city was at the center of civil rights actions, with a major strike by city sanitation workers in 1968. Having come to the city to support the workers, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated by a lone sniper on April 4, 1968, at the Lorraine Motel. Many notable blues musicians grew up in and around the Memphis and northern Mississippi area.^[3] These included musical artists such as Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, B.B. King, Howlin' Wolf, Isaac Hayes, Young Dolph and Elvis Presley.