March 3 marks the 200th anniversary of the separation of the Territory of Alabama from the Mississippi Territory. To commemorate the occasion, the public is invited to “Borderline Confusion: Cultures and Conflict in the Making of Mississippi and Alabama” at 2 p.m. Sunday in Nissan Auditorium on the Mississippi University for Women campus.
Speakers Phillip Carroll Morgan, Clay Williams, Jack Elliott Jr. and Mike Bunn will examine culture and circumstances that resulted in today’s borders.
Morgan will first address “Old Culture in the South: American Indians of Mississippi and Alabama.” The talk illuminates relationships between settlers and indigenous people before and after 1817.
Williams’ topic is “The Creek War and the Split of the Mississippi Territory,” a PowerPoint presentation giving an overview of the Creek War and the subsequent Treaty of Fort Jackson.
“The Upper Tombigbee River and the Birth of the State of Mississippi” is the title of Elliott’s segment about a small area of land that had people confused about which state it was in for years.
Bunn’s talk, “More or Less Arbitrary: The Location of the Alabama-Mississippi Border,” explores a contentious debate over the border’s placement and the political, economic and demographic realities of the region at the time.
The presentation is free and open to the public. It is sponsored by the Billups-Garth Foundation; the MUW Department of History, Political Science and Geography; Mississippi and Alabama Bicentennial Commissions; Alabama Heritage; and the Frances S. Summersell Center for the Study of the South at the University of Alabama.
John Giggie, director of the Summersell Center, will act as moderator. Jonathon Hooks, MUW assistant professor of history, will give introductions.
Nissan Auditorium is located in Parkinson Hall on the MUW campus in Columbus.
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