Upper Choctaw Boundary, Milepost 128.4

Upper Choctaw Boundary at Milepost 128.4 on the Natchez Trace Parkway near Canton, Mississippi.

NPS Photo

Quick Facts

Location:

Natchez Trace Parkway, Milepost 128.4

Significance:

American Indian Site and Trailhead

Amenities

3 listed

Historical/Interpretive Information/Exhibits, Parking - Auto, Trailhead

After 1800, treaties between the Choctaw and the US government whittled away tribal rights and lands.

Finally, in 1830, the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek was negotiated at a council house near this spot. All the remaining Choctaw homeland--nearly 10.5 million acres--was taken.

From 1831 through 1834, thousands of Choctaw trekked over 500 miles to "Indian Territory." The US War Department had promised in 1830 to "be kind and brotherly to them...to furnish them with ample corn and beef, or pork for themselves and their families."

Instead, the Choctaw had inadequate clothing and supplies. Heavy rain, blizzard-like snowfall, and a shortage of wagons turned the forced removal deadly.

Hikers can access the Yockanookany section of the Natchez Trace National Scenic Trail from the short self-guided interpretive walk at the location.

See Alerts & Condition for addtional information.

See Hiking the Yockanookany Section of the Natchez Trace National Scenic Trail for additional information.

• The Choctaw Spirit, Upper Choctaw Boundary, Milepost 128

  
  

  Speaker: Ian Thompson, Director of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma Historic Preservation Department.

  Credit / Author:

  NPS

  Date created:

  10/14/2020

  Audio Transcript

  (Speaking in Choctaw) Hello, I greet you in the beautiful Choctaw language. Choctaws left for each of the first three removals in the early 1830s in the wintertime. They were exposed to a number of diseases. Choctaw people came to poorly provisioned camps, some had absolutely no shelter, and people may or may not have had any clothing to wear. It was extremely harsh.

  Today, the Trail of Tears is talked about in different ways, but the most common term for it in Choctaw is (speaking in Choctaw), and that basically means the path where the eyes cried a lot. It’s a translation of the Trail of Tears. The Trail of Tears separated us from our indigenous homeland. There have been other forced exoduses in world history, but this one affected us; and it’s more than just being forced to leave a home that you have been in for a generation or two. It’s one that forced us to leave the land that we’d interacted with for 500 generations, that helped create our culture and language and help make us who we are; so it was an extremely, extremely traumatic event.

  Even more so because it the Choctaw way of thinking, west is the direction of death. That’s the direction that people travel after they have died and left this world, so having to move towards the west in particular made it even more traumatic for Choctaws because it was moving toward the land of the dead.

  Choctaw people have survived all of that, and done so mostly without becoming bitter. And that speaks to the resiliency of the Choctaw heart and the Choctaw spirit, being able to do that without becoming bitter and still looking forward to the future.