The Mississippi Delta

You often hear the Mississippi Delta said to be the birthplace of the blues. But where is it? Here is a map that answers that question:



The map reveals that the Mississippi Delta is not really a river delta at all. It is, in fact, an alluvial plain between the Mississippi River and the Yazoo River to the east. An alluvial plain is basically the site of a former river delta, while the river that originally formed it has extended itself — in this case southward to Baton Rouge and then southeast to New Orleans and the actual delta of today's Mississippi River.

In that alluvial plain, flooding distributes the silt that comes down the river evenly over a broad flood plain, forming a very flat land that is wonderful for growing crops — cotton, in this case.

African slaves once picked and ginned the cotton of the Mississippi Delta. Their descendants gave birth to the blues in the late 19th and early 20th century.

Meanwhile, other black slave descendants in New Orleans to the south had already created other music styles that likewise amalgamated African and European musical influences, just as the early blues in the Delta did. These New Orleans styles were the building blocks of, first, ragtime, and later on, jazz.