Natchez Trace

thumb|right|Part of the original Natchez Trace near [[Natchez, Mississippi|Natchez, Mississippi]]

thumb|right|Old Trace historical marker

The Natchez Trace, also known as the Old Natchez Trace, is a historic forest trail within the Southeastern United States which extends roughly from Nashville, Tennessee, to Natchez, Mississippi, linking the Cumberland, Tennessee, and Mississippi rivers.

Native Americans created and used the trail for centuries. Early European and American explorers, traders, and immigrants used it in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. European Americans founded inns, also known as "stands", along the Trace to serve food and lodging to travelers. Most of these stands closed as travel shifted to steamboats on the Mississippi and other rivers. The heyday of the Trace began in the 1770s and ended in the 1820s; by the 1830s, the route was already in disrepair and its time as a major interregional commercial route had come to an end.

Today, the path is commemorated by the Natchez Trace Parkway, which follows the approximate path of the Trace, as well as the related Natchez Trace Trail. Parts of the original trail are still accessible, and some segments are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Origins

thumb|right|The "Sunken Trace"

Largely following a geologic ridge line, prehistoric animals followed the dry ground of the Trace to distant grazing lands, the salt licks of today's Middle Tennessee, and to the Mississippi River. Native Americans used many early footpaths created by the foraging of bison, deer, and other large game that could break paths through the dense undergrowth. In the case of the Trace, bison traveled north to find salt licks in the Nashville area.

After Native Americans began to settle the land, they blazed the trail and improved it further until it became a relatively well-established path. Numerous prehistoric indigenous settlements in Mississippi were established along the Natchez Trace. Among them were the 2,000-year-old Pharr Mounds of the Middle Woodland period, located near present-day Tupelo, Mississippi.

The first recorded European explorer to travel the Trace in its entirety was an unnamed Frenchman in 1742, who wrote of the trail and its "miserable conditions". Early European explorers depended on the assistance of Native American guides to go through this territory — specifically, the Choctaw and Chickasaw who occupied the region. These tribes and earlier prehistoric peoples, collectively known as the Mississippian culture, had long used the Trace for trade. The Chickasaw leader, Chief Piomingo, made use of the trail so often that it became known as Piominko's Path during his lifetime. Another early common name was Trail to the Chickasaw Nation.

Development

According to Methodist circuit preacher J. G. Jones, who traveled the lower Mississippi region for many years as part of his work, "Besides the water route, following the eastern tributaries of the Mississippi River to the Father of Waters and floating down to the point of debarkation, there were three land routesmere horse-pathsopened through the Indian country to Natchez and other settlements on the Lower Mississippi. These were maintained by the Government for mail routes, by treaty stipulations with the Indian tribes. The first began at Nashville, and crossed the Tennessee River at Colbert's ferry, below the Muscle Shoals; thence through the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nation to the Grindstone Ford on Bayou Pierre, ending at Natchez and Fort Adams. The second began at Knoxville, and passed through the Cherokee Nation by way of the Tellico and Tombigbee rivers to Natchez. The third was from the Oconee settlements, in Georgia, through the Creek Nation across the Alabama River in the direction of St. Steven's, on westwardly to Natchez. The traders of the Upper Mississippi River and its tributaries, who brought down their produce in flatboats, were accustomed to return on foot or horseback by the first routecalled the Nashville and Natchez traceand hence it became best known."thumb|Map of Mississippi from 1819 showing the "Road Made by Order of Government from Pierre River to Nashville"

thumb|One of numerous overpasses on the Natchez Trace Parkway toward the exit to [[Vicksburg, Mississippi|Vicksburg ]]

thumb|Grindstone Ford photographed

Even before the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, President Thomas Jefferson wanted to connect the distant Mississippi frontier to other settled areas of the United States. To foster communication with what was then called the Southwest, he directed the construction of a postal road between Daniel Boone's Wilderness Road (the southern branch of the road ended at Nashville) and the Mississippi River.

thumb|left|James Wilkinson's survey of the Mississippi section of the trace, probably circa 1802

thumb|left|Tennessee River section

The U.S. signed treaties with the Chickasaw and Choctaw tribes to maintain peace as European Americans entered the area in greater numbers. In 1801, the United States Army began trailblazing along the Trace, performing major work to prepare it as a thoroughfare. The work was done by soldiers reassigned from Tennessee and later by civilian contractors. Jefferson called it the "Columbian Highway" to emphasize American sovereignty in the area. The people who used it dubbed the road "The Devil's Backbone" due to its remoteness, rough conditions, and frequently encountered highwaymen.

By 1809, the trail was fully navigable by wagon, with the northward journey taking two to three weeks. Critical to the success of the Trace as a trade route was the development of inns and trading posts, referred to at the time as "stands". and Port Gibson, Mississippi. The Natchez Trace was used during the War of 1812 and the ensuing Creek War, as soldiers under Major General Andrew Jackson's command traveled southward to subdue the Red Sticks and to defend the country against invasion by the British. Jackson most likely knew the road well from his career as an interstate slave trader operating between Natchez and Nashville beginning in 1789.

thumb|right|A trail on the Natchez Trace

By 1817, the continued development of Memphis (with its access to the Mississippi River) and Jackson's Military Road (heading south from Nashville) formed more direct and faster routes to New Orleans. Trade shifted to either of these routes along the east or west of the area, away from the Trace.

As part of the "Great Awakening" movement that swept the country in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the "spiritual development" along the Trace started from the Natchez end and moved northward. Several Methodist preachers began working a circuit along the Trace as early as 1800. By 1812 they claimed a membership of 1,067 white Americans and 267 African Americans. The Methodists were soon joined in Natchez by other Protestant denominations, including Baptist missionaries and Presbyterians.

The latter accompanied the migration of Scots-Irish and Scots into the frontier areas. Presbyterians and their frontier offshoot, the Cumberland Presbyterians, were the most active of the three denominations in this country. They claimed converts among Native Americans. The Presbyterians started working from the south; the Cumberland Presbyterians worked from the north, as they had migrated to Tennessee from Kentucky.

thumb|left|Another view of the Sunken Trace (June 2015)

As with the much-unsettled frontier, banditry regularly occurred along the Trace. Much of it centered around the river landing Natchez Under-The-Hill, as compared with the rest of the town atop the river bluff. Under-the-Hill, where barges and keelboats put in with goods from northern ports, was a hotbed of gamblers, prostitutes, and drunken crew from the boats. Many of the rowdies, referred to as "Kaintucks", were rough Kentucky frontiersmen who operated flatboats down the river.

Stands along the trace

thumb|Buzzard Roost Stand

thumb|Mount Locust, a "stand", or inn, that served travelers the early 1800s. It's one of the oldest structures left on the Old Natchez Trace.

thumb|John Gordon House at Duck River

thumb|Jackson Falls, named for Andrew Jackson, is just off the Natchez Trace Parkway; Jackson Branch once fed into [[Duck River (Tennessee)|Duck River in Maury County, Tennessee]]

The inns, or stands, as they were called along the Natchez Trace, provided lodging for travelers from the 1790s to the 1840s. These stands furnished food and accommodations and contributed to the spread of news, information, and new ideas. The food was basic: corn in the form of hominy was a staple, and bacon, biscuits, coffee with sugar, and whiskey were served. Lodging was normally on the floor; beds were available only to a few due to many travelers and cramped conditions. Some travelers chose to sleep outdoors or on the porches.

;Stands on the old Natchez Trace, from Nashville south to Natchez

;Nashville

Joslin's Stand, Tenn. 1797
Gordon's Stand, with Gordon's Ferry across the Duck River, Tenn. 1802.
Keg Springs Stand, Tenn. 1812
Sheboss Place, Tenn.
Dobbin's Stand, Tenn. 1808
Grinder's Stand, Tenn. 1808
McLish's Stand, Tenn. 1806
Young Factor's Stand, Tenn. 1805
McGlamery's Stand, Tenn.
Toscomby's Stand, Tenn.1810
George Colbert's Stand and Colbert's Ferry across the Tennessee River, Ala. 1806; present-day Florence

thumb|The spring located at Buzzard Roost Spring at Milepost 320.3 near [[Cherokee, Alabama.]]

Buzzard Roost Stand, Ala. 1812 See:Levi Colbert
Levi Colbert's Stand, Ala.
Brown's Stand, Miss. 1815
Old Factor's Stand, Miss. 1812
Levi Kemp's Stand, Miss. 1825
James Colbert's Stand, Miss. 1812

thumb|Points of historic interest in the Chickasaw Nation, Mississippi (drawn 1922)

thumb|[[Tokshish, Mississippi|Tokshish Church, Pontotoc County, Mississippi]]

Tockshish's Stand (McIntosh's Stand), or McIntoshville, Chickasaw Old Town, Miss. 1797
Wall's Stand, Miss. 1811
Pigeon Roost Stand, Miss. 1800
Mitchell's Stand, Miss. 1806
French Camp, LeFleur's Stand, Miss. 1810
Hawkins's Stand, Harkin's Stand, Miss. 1811
Shoat's Stand (Choteau's Stand), Miss. 1811
Anderson's Stand, Miss.1811
Crowders Stand, Miss. 1813
Doak's Stand, Miss. 1810. See: Treaty of Doak's Stand.
Ward's Stand, Miss. 1811
Brashear's Stand, Miss. 1806. See: Ridgeland, Mississippi.

thumb|Turner Brashears announces his tavern is open for business, 1806

;Jackson

Ogburn's Stand, Miss. 1810
Hayes's Stand, Miss. 1815
Dean's Stand, Miss. 1821
Red Bluff Stand, McRover's Stand, Smith's Stand, Miss. 1806

thumb|Store of [[Ferdinand Claiborne|Claiborne & Wooldridge, 1810]]

Wooldridge's Stand, Miss. 1806
Dillon's Stand, aft. 1830
Grindstone Ford, Miss. 1797

;Port Gibson

Coon Box Stand, Miss.
Old Greenville, Miss.
Uniontown, Miss.
Selserville, Miss.
Washington, Miss.

;Natchez

Source:

Death of Meriwether Lewis

thumb|right|upright|Meriwether Lewis National Monument and Grave, April 2014

Meriwether Lewis, of the Lewis and Clark Expedition fame, died while traveling on the Trace. Then serving as appointed governor of the Louisiana Territory, he was on his way to Washington, D.C., from his base in St. Louis, Missouri. Lewis stopped at Grinder's Stand (near current-day Hohenwald, Tennessee) for overnight shelter in October 1809. He was distraught over many issues, possibly affected by his use of opium. He was believed by many to have committed suicide there with a gun.

Some uncertainty persists as to whether it was suicide. In 1848, a Tennessee state commission erected a monument at the site.

On the bicentennial of Lewis's death (2009), the first national public memorial service honoring his life was held; it was also the last event of the Lewis and Clark Expedition Bicentennial.

Origins

Development

Stands along the trace

Death of Meriwether Lewis

See also

Notes

References

Further reading

External links