Last updated: September 30, 2023
Place
Chickasaw Council House, Milepost 251.1
NPS Photo/Sherwood Photography
Quick Facts
Location:
Milepost 251.1 on the Natchez Trace Parkway
Significance:
Chickasaw Nation Site
Amenities
2 listed
Accessible Sites, Historical/Interpretive Information/Exhibits
The site of the Council House followed the main route of the Natchez Trace. The trail was to the west and ran near the current town of Pontotoc, Mississippi. The text on the sign reads:
Westerly on the Natchez Trace stood an Indian Village “Pontatock” with its council house which, in the 1820’s, became the “Capitol” of the Chickasaw Nation.
The chiefs and headmen met there to sign treaties or to establish tribal laws and policies. Each summer two or three thousand Indians camped nearby to receive the annual payments for lands they had sold to our Federal Government.
After the treaty of 1832, the last land was surrendered. The Council House disappeared, but its memory remains here in the names of a Mississippi county and town and went west with the Chickasaws as a county and village in Oklahoma. –United States Department of the Interior—National Park Service
Westerly on the Natchez Trace stood an Indian Village “Pontatock” with its council house which, in the 1820’s, became the “Capitol” of the Chickasaw Nation.
The chiefs and headmen met there to sign treaties or to establish tribal laws and policies. Each summer two or three thousand Indians camped nearby to receive the annual payments for lands they had sold to our Federal Government.
After the treaty of 1832, the last land was surrendered. The Council House disappeared, but its memory remains here in the names of a Mississippi county and town and went west with the Chickasaws as a county and village in Oklahoma. –United States Department of the Interior—National Park Service