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Survey of Historic Sites and Buildings

	NATCHEZ TRACE PARKWAY Alabama-Mississippi-Tennessee	Meriwether Lewis site
Traverses the States of Miss., Ala., and Tenn., from Natchez to Nashville; address: 2680 Natchez Trace Parkway Tupelo, MS 38804-9715. Natchez Trace Parkway

The Natchez Trace has important prehistorical and historical associations that antedate by many centuries the period of history treated in this volume. Early inland explorers and settlers in the Southeastern part of the present United States discovered a network of animal trails and Indian paths that formed a wilderness road between present Natchez and Nashville. During the 18th century Frenchmen, Englishmen, Spaniards, and Americans used the road. French explorers, missionaries, soldiers, and traders called it a "trace," a French word for "trail." Shortly after arriving at the gulf coast in 1699, the French first explored the trace area; in 1716 they established Fort Rosalie at the site of Natchez. In 1763 the French ceded the region to the English, who occupied it until 1779. The English, who used the trace mainly to trade with the Natchez, Choctaw, and Chickasaw tribes, called it the "Path to the Choctaw Nation."

Natchez Trace Parkway, a scenic and historical route, generally follows the route of the old Natchez Trace. Dating from prehistoric times, the trace was later used by the Spanish, French, British, and Americans. For several centuries it was an important trade and emigrant road in the old Southwest.

At the end of the War for Independence, in 1783, Spain claimed the territory between the Mississippi and Chattahoochee Rivers, as far north as Memphis, as a reward for her aid to the colonies during the war. This territory included Natchez, at the southern end of the trace, which remained under Spanish control until it passed to the United States in 1798, though in the interim the population had remained predominantly English-speaking. The United States immediately organized the Mississippi Territory. At the northern end of the trace, as early as 1780, American settlers had begun to populate Nashville. "Kaintucks," Kentucky traders and other Ohio Valley frontiersmen, rafted their cattle, produce, and furs down the rivers to the Mississippi and thence to Natchez or New Orleans, where they exchanged them for Spanish silver. Unwilling or unable to row upstream against the river current on the return trip, they trekked the bandit-infested trace—which they sometimes called the Chickasaw Trace—to Nashville and then proceeded to their homes in the Ohio Valley. Some rode horses bought in Natchez but most walked. By 1800 about a thousand made the trip each year, and mail service was initiated along the trace.

From 1800 to 1820 the trace was the most traveled road in the old Southwest. Over it passed a variety of colorful frontier characters: Missionaries, boatmen, Indian hunting parties, mounted postmen, and U.S. soldiers. A vital economic and social artery, the trace bound the old Southwest to the rest of the Nation. It was used for frontier defense in the "cold war" with Spain, until she abandoned all claims to Florida in 1819, and it became a valuable military and post road. At the beginning of the War of 1812 Andrew Jackson and his force of Tennessee Militia used it to travel to Natchez, and after the war they returned over it in triumph.

Natchez Trace Parkway, Tennessee.

By 1820 the trace was no longer needed for frontier defense. Rivalries with Spain and England had ended, and the Indians were being forced westward. The new steamboat traffic, which moved both up and down the Mississippi, robbed the trace of much of its usefulness and traffic. As the States of Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee became more populous, sections of the trace were abandoned and other sections incorporated into local road systems. The trace had lost its frontier character.

The Natchez Trace Parkway is still under construction and follows roughly—crossing, recrossing, and at times paralleling—the route of the old trace. When completed, it will make possible a leisurely 450-mile drive through a protected zone of forest, meadow, and field that is rich in prehistorical and historical associations. Evidences of the aboriginal Indian inhabitants abound along the trace. Historic sites are indicated by markers, and interpretive exhibits point out their significance. The main visitor center is at Tupelo, Miss.