Memphis, Tennessee

=== 19th century ===
[[File:Memphis Tennessee 1850s.jpg|thumb|Memphis in the mid-1850s]]

At the beginning of the century, as recognized by the [[United States]] in [[Treaty of Hopewell|1786 Treaty of Hopewell]], the land still belonged to the [[Chickasaw|Chickasaw Nation]]. In the [[Treaty of Tuscaloosa]], signed in October 1818 and ratified by Congress on January 7, 1819, the Chickasaw ceded their territory in Western Tennessee to the [[United States]]. The city of Memphis was founded less than five months after the U.S. takeover of the territory, on May 22, 1819 (incorporated December 19, 1826), by [[John Overton (judge)|John Overton]], [[James Winchester (general)|James Winchester]] and [[Andrew Jackson]].<ref name="TNencyOverton">{{cite encyclopedia |url=http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entry.php?rec=1029 |title=TN Encyclopedia: John Overton |access-date=October 24, 2008 |encyclopedia=The Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture}}</ref><ref name="MemLib">{{cite web|url=http://www.memphislibrary.lib.tn.us/history/memphis2.htm |title=Memphis History and Facts |access-date=October 24, 2008 |publisher=Memphis Public Library |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927040837/http://www.memphislibrary.lib.tn.us/history/memphis2.htm |archive-date=September 27, 2007}}</ref> They named it after the [[Memphis, Egypt|ancient capital]] of [[Egypt]] on the [[Nile River]].<ref>{{cite book |last= Stewart |first= George R. |author-link= George R. Stewart |title= Names on the Land: A Historical Account of Place-Naming in the United States. Oxford University Press 1970 |page= 289}}</ref>

From the city's foundation onwards, [[African Americans]] formed large proportion of Memphis' population. Prior to [[Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|the abolition]] of [[slavery in the United States]], most Black people in Memphis were enslaved, being used as [[Forced labour|forced labor]] by white enslavers along the river or on outlying [[Plantation complexes in the Southern United States|cotton plantations]] in the [[Mississippi Delta]]. The city's demographics changed dramatically in the 1850s and 1860s, due to waves of immigration and domestic migration. Due to increased immigration since the 1840s and the [[Great Famine (Ireland)|Great Famine]], [[Irish Americans]] made up 9.9% of the population in 1850, but 23.2% by 1860, when the total population was 22,623.<ref>Carriere, Marius. (2001), "An Irresponsible Press: Memphis Newspapers and the 1866 Riot", ''Tennessee Historical Quarterly'' 60(1):2</ref><ref>Bordelon, John. (2006), "Rebels to the Core‟: Memphians under William T. Sherman", ''Rhodes Journal of Regional Studies'' 3:7</ref><ref name="Walker">Walker, Barrington. (1998), "'This is the White Man's Day': The Irish, White Racial Identity, and the 1866 Memphis Riots", ''Left History'', 5(2), p. 36</ref>

[[File:Forrest Memphis Raid.jpg|thumb|Attack on [[Irving Block prison|Irving Block]] by General Forrest in 1864]]

[[Tennessee#History|Tennessee]] seceded from the [[United States|Union]] in June 1861, and Memphis briefly became a [[Confederate States of America|Confederate]] stronghold. [[Union (American Civil War)|Union]] [[Ironclad warship|ironclad gunboats]] captured it in the naval [[Battle of Memphis]] on June 6, 1862, and the city and state were occupied by the [[Union Army]] for the duration of the war. Union commanders allowed the city to maintain its civil government during most of this period but excluded [[Confederate States Army]] veterans from office. This shifted political dynamics in the city as the war went on.<ref name="carden">[http://mercatus.org/sites/default/files/publication/WP1040_An%20Unrighteous%20Piece%20of%20Business.pdf Art Carden and Christopher J. Coyne, "An Unrighteous Piece of Business: A New Institutional Analysis of the Memphis Riot of 1866"], Mercatus Center, George Mason University, July 2010, accessed February 1, 2014</ref>

The war years contributed to additional dramatic changes in the city population. The Union Army's presence attracted many [[Fugitive slaves in the United States|fugitive slaves]] who had escaped from surrounding rural plantations. So many sought protection behind Union lines that the Army set up [[Contraband (American Civil War)|contraband camps]] to accommodate them. Memphis's black population increased from 3,000 in 1860, when the total population was 22,623, to nearly 20,000 in 1865, with most settling south of the city limits.<ref name="Ryan">[https://www.jstor.org/stable/2716953 Ryan, James G. (1977). "The Memphis Riots of 1866: Terror in a black community during Reconstruction"], ''The Journal of Negro History'' 62 (3): 243–257, at JSTOR.</ref>