The Natchez Trace Parkway

The idea for the Natchez Trace Parkway was conceived in the 1930s by Mississippi Congressman Thomas Jeff Busby. The route was to follow the old Natchez Trace as closely as possible. The Trace had been an important foot trail back in the late 1700s before it evolved into one of America’s first National Roads in the early 1800s. It linked Nashville with Natchez, a town of strategic importance that was founded by the French in 1716. Both cities were major hubs of commerce at the time.

In 1699, France controlled most of the land bounded by the Rocky Mountains in the west and the Appalachian Mountains in the east. The exceptions were parts of modern day Texas and New Mexico, which were controlled by the Spanish. The territory was called Louisiana in honor of King Louis the 14th. Despite constant wars with the local Indians, France maintained the territory up through 1763, when it lost the Seven Years War (aka French and Indian War) to England.

During the tail end of the Seven Years War, England also fought against Spain—which had allied with France— in what is known as the Anglo-Spanish War (January 1762 until February 1763). This war ended at the same time as the Seven Years War. Terms were negotiated under the 1763 Treaty of Paris. All French land east of the Mississippi was ceded to England. Spain gave up Florida to England in exchange for Cuba, which England had taken during the war. To compensate the Spanish for helping them in the war, France gave the remainder of its North American land to Spain, which included the important port city of New Orleans. The Mississippi River was now the border between English and Spanish colonies. It was agreed that the river was open to navigation by both countries.

The political division of North America would again change following the American Revolution, which began in 1775 and ended in 1783 with the signing of the 1783 Treaty of Paris. Spain, which had also fought the British during the war, took control of Florida. It had conquered the area of Natchez during the fighting and kept this land as well, thus enlarging its holdings east of the Mississippi (Natchez was on the eastern bank of the Mississippi).

Natchez was of vital strategic importance. Sitting on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River, the country that controlled it controlled traffic on the river. The French had built and maintained a fort at Natchez starting in 1716. By the time the Spanish took control, the the town had grown into a center of commerce. Goods traveling down the Mississippi River were either unloaded here or farther down at New Orleans.

The problem with transporting goods down the Mississippi in the era before steam power was that while barges loaded with merchandise could easily float down the river, they couldn’t travel upstream against the current. Thus, boatmen built makeshift keelboats and flatboats to carry goods, and then sold them for scrap once they reached their destination. The only way back home was to walk, and the trail of choice was the Natchez Trace.

The Trace began as a series of disjointed Indian trails that connected the Natchez area to what would become Nashville. Animals traveled the corridor from the Mississippi River to the salt licks in the Nashville area, and thus the Indians soon followed suit as they hunted the animals for food. When commerce on the Mississippi started to boom after the American Revolution, and more and more boatmen used the Trace to travel back to Nashville, the Indian paths became one well worn, continuous trail. It took about six weeks to travel to Nashville on foot, or four by horse.

After the Revolution, Americans began encroaching into Spain’s Florida territory. The Florida border was never well defined, and with very little Spanish presence in the area, Americans saw no reason to stay out. In response, Spain took control of the Mississippi River and began taxing American goods, plus it closed the port of New Orleans to American goods, which effectively put an end to American exports through the Gulf of Mexico. It took until 1795 for the dispute to be resolved by the Treaty of Madrid (aka Treaty of San Lorenzo or Pinckney’s Treaty).

In 1794, the U. S. had aligned itself with England against France with the signing of the Jay Treaty. Though France had just fought with the Americans during the Revolution, and while this alliance was in fact the reason America was victorious, the Americans had been allied with France under Louis the 16th, and he had just been executed in 1793 after a revolution. Thus, America had no problem turning its back on the new French government. Because of this, Spain feared a possible threat of a war against a U. S.-British alliance and found it prudent to reestablish friendly relations with the United States.

Under the 1795 Treaty of Madrid, the Florida border was surveyed and agreed upon by both countries, the Mississippi was once again open to tax free travel by American merchants, and the Natchez area was ceded to the United States. In 1798 the area was organized into what was called the Mississippi Territory, with Natchez as its capital.

In 1799, Napoleon Bonaparte seized control of France. The following year he signed the Treaty of Sal Ildefonzo with Spain, which returned the Louisiana Territory—a huge swath of land west of the Mississippi River all the way to the Canadian border—back to France in exchange for placing Charles IV’s (king of Spain) son on the throne of the newly formed kingdom of Etruria in northern Italy. With the land now back in French control, the freedom to transport and sell goods unhindered to New Orleans was revoked. U. S. politicians began to throw around the idea of seizing the land and starting a war with France, but cooler heads prevailed. President Thomas Jefferson offered to buy the southern portion of the territory. Napoleon, who was going broke as a result of his war with England, upped the deal by offering to sell everything, and the United States got the entire Louisiana Territory for around $11 million. The deal was signed on May 2, 1803, and became known as the Louisiana Purchase.

With the entire region now in U. S. hands, the government decided to expand the Natchez Trace into a National Road. Treaties with the Choctaw and Chickasaw Indians were signed and expansion of the Trace began. In addition to boatmen traffic, the road was used for troop movements, a postal service, and general travel between Natchez and Nashville. However, the road was never comfortable to travel on, and it was also quite dangerous. Boatmen with pocketfuls of money after selling their boats and delivering their goods were easy prey for bandits and angry Indians. To defend themselves, they took up the practice of banding together for trips back home, but this did little to combat the deep mud found on much of the trail, or the mosquitoes, poison ivy, and poisonous snakes that thrived in the swampier areas.

From the start, both white and Indian businessmen saw an opportunity to make money by setting up what were called “stands,” or inns, along the Natchez Trace. Money was made by renting out rooms or a spot on the porch or yard to weary travelers. Meals were provided for an extra fee. The stands were usually about twenty miles apart, the distance a person could cover during a day’s travel. Only one stand remains today, that at Mount Locust (mile post 15 on the Natchez Trace Parkway), though many stops along the Parkway mark sites of former stands.

In the early 1780s, inventors in various countries began working on steam powered boats. Once perfected, ships no longer had to rely on winds or float with the current. In the United States, Robert Fulton and Robert Livingston began operating a steamboat on the Hudson River in 1807. By the 1820s the steamboat phenomenon had come to the Mississippi, and the days of floating down the river and walking back on the Natchez Trace came to an end.

Boatman did not account for all of the traffic on the Natchez Trace, so it would stand to reason that the Trace, now a National Road, would still see plenty of use. However, newer and better roads were constructed. By 1830 you could travel between Columbia, Tennessee, and Madison, Louisiana, on Jackson’s Military Road, and by 1840 on the Robinson Road that ran between Columbus and Jackson. The railroads were coming through the area as well, so there were better alternatives to the Natchez Trace. It was used by some troops during the Civil War and for local travel, but the road fell into disuse by the end of the 1800s. Today, many modern roads include paved portions of the Trace.

In its hey-day the Natchez Trace was so highly traveled that gullies as deep as ten feet were worn into the ground by men, horses, and wagons. Stands and trading posts along the route had made businessmen, both white and Indian, wealthy. There is a lot of history along the Trace, which is why concerned citizens in the area did not want to see it fade completely from memory. It is from this longing to preserve a part of early American history that the idea for a commemorative parkway came into being.