[2] Commodity crops such as cotton and tobacco were cultivated by migrant settlers in the region in the antebellum era, who were largely dependent on the labor of enslaved African Americans.

In addition, planters bred and trained livestock, such as the world-famous Tennessee Walking Horse, which was developed as a breed in the region during this time.

Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest conducted extensive raids through this area, destroying many Union assets in the 1864 Battle of Johnsonville.

Since the early 1970s, the region has been transformed by the entry of many new economic sectors, including automotive manufacturing, healthcare, finance, technology, tourism, and professional services.

[4] By the late 17th century, for unknown reasons, there were few Native Americans left in Middle Tennessee, but the Cherokee and the Chickasaw claimed the region as their hunting grounds.

[5] Natives that had occupied what is now Middle Tennessee prior to this time may have died as a result of new infectious diseases indirectly introduced by European explorers.

These settlers quickly established an extensive fur trading network with the local Native Americans, but by the 1740s the settlement had largely been abandoned.

[10] In 1779, James Robertson and John Donelson led two groups of settlers from the Washington District in what is now East Tennessee to the French Lick.

[11] These settlers constructed Fort Nashborough, which they named for Francis Nash, a brigadier general of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War.

[13] Fort Nashborough later developed as the city of Nashville, and a number of other settlements were established nearby in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

During the antebellum era, a slavery-based agrarian economy took hold in Middle Tennessee, especially in the fertile soils of the Nashville Basin.

Following the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter in April 1861, which started the Civil War, and President Lincoln's call to raise federal troops in response, many Middle Tennesseans changed their opinions about secession.

Union strength in the area, however, was tested by a series of Confederate offensives beginning in the summer of 1862, which culminated in Union General William Rosecrans's Army of the Cumberland routing Confederate General Braxton Bragg's Army of Tennessee at the Battle of Stones River in Murfreesboro in December 1862 and January 1863.

The next summer, Rosecrans's Tullahoma campaign forced Bragg's remaining troops in Middle Tennessee to flee to Chattanooga with little fighting.

The Ku Klux Klan was formed in Pulaski in December 1865 as a vigilante organization to advance the interests of former Confederates, including maintenance of white supremacy.

[26] In the years following the Civil War, African Americans and their White allies in Middle Tennessee were targeted with acts of violence by former Confederates.

In the late 19th century, African Americans began fleeing Middle Tennessee to booming industrial cities in the Northeast and Midwest.

The region's economy continued to be based primarily on agriculture, but coal mining expanded extensively in the Cumberland Plateau in Middle Tennessee in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

[30] The worst rail accident in U.S. history occurred on July 9, 1918, in Nashville when two passenger trains collided head on, killing 101 people and injuring 171.

It marked a new era of resistance by African-American veterans and others following their participation in World War II, which they believed had earned them their full rights as citizens.

Between February and May 1960, the group organized a series of sit-ins at segregated lunch counters in Nashville, which successfully resulted in the desegregation of facilities in the city.

[35] The construction of the Interstate Highway System in the latter 20th century facilitated suburbanization in the region and brought new industries to Middle Tennessee.

Unlike the geographic designations of regions of most U.S. states, the term "Middle Tennessee" has legal as well as socioeconomic and cultural meaning.

[43] The Cumberland Plateau has an average elevation of 2,000 feet (610 m), and is characterized by flat-topped tablelands separated by long, crooked stream valleys and rocky cliffs with numerous waterfalls.

Other important suburbs of Nashville include Franklin, Hendersonville, Smyrna, Spring Hill, Gallatin, Mount Juliet, Lebanon, Columbia, Dickson, and Springfield.

A diversity of sectors drives Middle Tennessee's economy, including music and entertainment, automotive manufacturing, healthcare, and technology.

The technology sector is also rapidly becoming an important aspect of Middle Tennessee's economy, with such tech giants as Amazon and Oracle pledging investments in the area in 2018 and 2021, respectively, that are expected to employ thousands.

[39][57][58] Other major corporations headquartered in Middle Tennessee include Caterpillar Inc. in Nashville, Acadia Senior Living in Franklin, Dollar General in Goodlettsville, Tractor Supply Company and Delek US in Brentwood, and Cracker Barrel in Lebanon.

[64] The soils of the Nashville Basin reportedly produce grasses which are favorable to horses, and as a result, the region is a top equestrian location.

In addition, TVA also purchases power from dams on the Cumberland River and its tributaries operated by the United States Army Corps of Engineers.