I had not heard of the Natchez Trace until trying to find an interesting route to travel on our way south. The Trace is a trail used from time immemorial to travel the 500 miles between what is now Natchez, Mississippi and Nashville, Tennessee, and beyond. It was first a woodland bison migratory route, then used by indigenous peoples for 10,000 years. Then before steamboats, Mississippi boatmen used it to returning upstream by foot, as well as traders, thieves, settlers, slaves, slave traders, soldiers and every sort of adventurer and opportunist. The Trace crossed the lands of the Chickasaw and Choctaw peoples before their lands were dispossessed, and the “Trail of Tears” crossed the Trace at several points after the Indian Removal Act was passed. (The Natchez nation was wiped out earlier by the French in the 1730’s)

It was used by armies in the American Revolution, the War of 1812, and the Civil War. The Trace has been travelled by Andrew Jackson (to and from his victory at New Orleans), General Ulysses S Grant (to secure supply lines for the Union siege of Vicksburg), Meriwether Lewis (on his way to Washington after his expedition with Clark to the Pacific), Aaron Burr (seeking fortune in the west after killing Alexander Hamilton in a duel) and much earlier, the Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto (looking for gold & a way to China).

Following the Old Trace was a dangerous and difficult ordeal: mud, snakes, heat, mosquitos, highwaymen, hunger, hard beds if any, rain, stinking swamps, swollen rivers, disease, and predatory merchants. It fell into disuse following the introduction of Mississippi steamboats, but was resurrected in the 1930’s when construction began on the Natchez Trace Parkway.

It is now a beautiful, unbroken National Scenic By-Way. Jennifer and I drove the full 444-mile length (714 km) of the Natchez Trace Parkway, staying in campgrounds along the way. A number of sections of the Old Trace survive parallel to the Parkway and we took a few short walks along some of the original Trace.