The Flow of History

[HostDave]

By Timothy Rubacky, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Product Development

American river cruising is appealing on so many levels. The experience of Steamboating, watching the big red paddlewheel churn, the grand American Queen, the theme cruises, fantastic entertainment and the Southern cuisine of famed Chef Regina Charboneau are all part of what make a river cruise special but they are the place settings on the table beneath which is, of course, the rivers themselves. In today’s blog, I thought I would take a look at a bit of the history of the Mississippi River’s name and the museums that tell the stories of the river.

Long before Europeans arrived and began calling themselves Americans, the Native Americans settled the area around the river as far back as 4,000 BC. By 1,000 BC, the inhabitants were building shelter, weaving and creating pottery. Trade routes developed and by the year 800 there was an agricultural society built around maize, beans and squash. Native American cities existed for roughly a thousand years beginning in 600. The most famous was Cahokia which may have had as many as 40,000 residents, more than London of the same era.
Unfortunately, European settlement and American expansion essentially destroyed one of the most important civilizations in world history.

The name Mississippi is lost to history but researchers and linguists have a pretty good idea where it might have come from. We know it comes from Messipi, a French variation on the Algonquin name Misi-ziibi. The name meant Great River, an appropriate moniker, it turns out. From expeditions by Henry Schoolcraft and Giacomo Beltrami, a European version of Misi-ziibi came into use and the river became, simply, the Mississippi. Clearly at no time during the process were school children’s penchants for misspelling the most important river on the continent taken into consideration!

But as most school children know, it was Spanish explorer Hernando De Soto who “discovered” the Mississippi River in 1541 when he named it Río del Espíritu Santo (River of the Holy Spirit). It was going to be a long road until a variation of the original Native American name would come into use. French explorers Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette traveled the river in the 1600s and Marquette decided it should be called the River of the Immaculate Conception. By 1682, the entire Mississippi River Valley was claimed by France and the river was called the Colbert River after Jean-Baptiste Colbert. By the time the Treaty of Paris ended the Seven Year’s War in 1763, the waterway had settled on the name Mississippi and it became the line of demarcation between the British lands to the east and the French lands to the west. Eventually, it took cold hard cash to transfer the western lands to the fledgling United States with the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.

What many folks may not know is that the long history of the river is laid out in an inter-related network of 70 museums and historic sites in 10 states along its length. Known collectively as the Great River Road Interpretive Centers, many of these are featured in our ports of call, such as:

Delta Cultural Center - Helena, AR
West Feliciana Historical Society Museum - St. Francisville, LA
LSU Rural Life Museum & Windrush Gardens - Baton Rouge, LA
The Historic New Orleans Collection - New Orleans, LA
Louisiana State Museum - New Orleans, LA
Jean Lafitte National Historical Park & Preserve - New Orleans, LA
Historic Fort Snelling - St. Paul, MN
Minnesota History Center - St. Paul, MN
Vicksburg National Military Park Visitor Center - Vicksburg, MS
Mark Twain Museum Interpretive Center - Hannibal, MO
Cape Girardeau Conservation Campus Nature Center - Cape Girardeau, MO
New Madrid Historical Museum - New Madrid, MO
Jefferson National Expansion Memorial (The Gateway Arch & Old Courthouse) - St. Louis, MO
Mississippi River Museum at Mud Island River Park - Memphis, TN
C.H. Nash Museum at Chucalissa - Memphis, TN
Putnam Museum of History & Natural Science - Davenport, IA
Nahant Marsh Education Center - Davenport, IA
Riverside Museum - La Crosse, WI

I urge you to follow some of the links above to learn more about the river that is our home. I might be a bit biased, of course, but I think the best possible way to experience the legends and flavor of the river is aboard the American Queen. I hope you can join us soon and follow the flow of history for yourself.