Old Natchez Trace
Origins of the Natchez
Trace
The trail itself has a long and rich history, filled with brave explorers,
dastardly outlaws and daring settlers.
The Natchez Trace was a 440-mile-long path extending from Natchez,
Mississippi to Nashville,
Tennessee, linking the Cumberland,
the Tennessee and Mississippi rivers. It was used extensively
by Native Americans and early Caucasian explorers as both a trade and transit
route in the late 1700s and early 1800s The Old Natchez Trace, one of the
oldest roadways in the world, like many early footpaths, traces its beginnings
to the natural wanderings of bison, deer and other game. It was later used by America's First People, the native tribes of Mississippi, who
connected these series of trails to use as hunting and trade routes. The three
major tribes that the Natchez Trace was once home to were the Choctaw, Natchez and the Chickasaw.
The Choctaws lived in central Mississippi.
The Chickasaws lived in Northern Mississippi, close to Tupelo, MS.
Their village consisted of huts (not tepees). The Natchez
is an extinct tribe today, but in the 1600's, they lived in southern Mississippi. After
Native Americans first began to settle the land, they began to blaze the trail
further, until it became a relatively (for the time) well-worn path traversable
by horse in single-file, though it may have been traveled in part before,
particularly by famed Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto. But these 3 Indian
tribes were not the first humans to settle in this region. Archeological
evidence has found in the many ceremonial mounds and village sites on the
Trace, human habitation and remains which date back as long ago as 8000 years.
Indian burial grounds called mounds still exist along the Trace. Indians were
buried in these hill shaped graves, often a whole tribe together. Pottery,
beads, and weapons were also buried in the graves.
These tribes continued to use the trail up until the time that the white
European settlers of the new United
States began forging west to claim the
lands. Between 1699, when the French first arrived on the Mississippi gulf coast, to 1733, they had
explored the area well enough to draw a map. The map showed an Indian trail
running from Natchez to the Choctaw villages
near present day Jackson, Mississippi, and then on to the Chickasaw
villages in the northeastern part of the state. At this time the southern
portion of the Natchez Trace was known as the "Path to the Choctaw
Nation", while the northern part of the Trace was called "Chickasaw
Trace". The word "trace" is an old French word which meant a
line of footprints or animal tracks. This is the first known use of the word
"trace" being used to describe the trail. French traders,
missionaries, and soldiers traveled over the old Indian trade route during this
time.
In the mid-1700's, the Ohio River, the Mississippi River
and the Natchez Trace were important trade routes. Explorers, shopkeepers, and
pioneers transported their goods down the Ohio
and Mississippi Rivers
to Natchez, Mississippi. They then used the Natchez
Trace to travel back home. This allowed trade to increase because people in the
central United States could
sell their goods to people in the lower Mississippi
region In 1716, the French established Fort
Rosalie at present-day Natchez, Mississippi.
This fort was the first European settlement near the Natchez Trace. The Natchez
Indians lived near the fort in the Grand
Village of the Natchez. The first recorded Caucasian to
travel the Trace in its entirety was an unnamed Frenchman in 1742, who wrote of
the trail and its "miserable conditions." To Caucasians, who were not
conditioned to the rigors of the journey, the assistance of Native
Americans—specifically, the Cherokee, Choctaw and Chickasaw—was vital. The
earliest formal usage of the trail, in fact, was for trade between those three
Native American nations through which the trail passed. By 1743, the French
wiped out the Natchez.
A settlement near Fort
Rosalie took the tribe's
name. Today, this town is called Natchez,
Mississippi. Natchez
was an important town because it was located on the Mississippi
River. First France
ruled the town, then Spain,
and then Britain.
In 1763 the Spanish gained control of New Orleans
and attempted to assert their rights in the Tennessee
region, which was also claimed by England
and later the United States.
In 1783, the United States
gained control after defeating Britain
in the American Revolution. On April 7, 1798, the U.S. Congress established the
Mississippi Territory,
and Natchez
became the territory's capital.
Once Europeans learned of the river, it became the target of diplomatic and
territorial battles between the French, Spanish, and English, who viewed the
river system as the key to an inland North American empire. As early as 1513
the Mississippi River appeared on Spanish maps, but the first European to see
the river was probably Hernando de Soto, who reached the river with his party
of Spanish explorers in May 1541 at a spot reportedly near Memphis. By the time
the French arrived only a remnant of the Mississippian nations survived, and
the Chickasaws claimed the Tennessee
region along the river. In birch-bark canoes Pere Jacques Marquette and Louis
Joliet passed by the future state in 1673. Robert Cavelier de La Salle and his
men landed near the mouth of the Hatchie in 1682, where they constructed Fort Prudhomme.
Following these early explorations, the French settled the middle Mississippi Valley
in the early 1700s, trading down river to the French port of New Orleans.
In 1785, in an effort to establish land warrant claims, North Carolina sent Henry Rutherford to
survey the "Western District." Beginning at Key Corner, he laid out
land grants on Coal Creek Bluff. In 1795 the Spanish became concerned about
American activities in the territory along the Mississippi
and sent Don Miguel Gayoso de Lemos to erect Fort
San Fernando de las Barrancas near the
Chickasaw Bluffs at the mouth of the Wolf
River. The struggle for
control of the east bank ended with the Treaty of San Lorenzo (1795), and the
Spanish dismantled Fort
San Fernando in 1797. The
United States took control
of the Mississippi Valley in 1803 with the Louisiana
Purchase. One branch went southeast through the Cumberland Gap and
was known as the Wilderness Road or Boone's Trail, while another division swung
southwest through Nashville and was called the Natchez Trace, or Boatman's
Trail. The main branch of the Old Miami Trace traveled due north up from the
Indian town of Chattanooga on the Tennessee and then connected with the other Indian trails
branching off toward the Gulf of Mexico.
As was mentioned, the trail started at Chattanooga,
bounded along the west bank of the Tennessee River, branched off at Harriman, Ky., moved up
the valley of the Emory River over to the Valley of the Cumberland
River. Thence to the Indian settlement at the junction of the
north and south forks of the river at Burnside,
Ky. It then proceeded to the
Indian settlements of Central Kentucky at Danville, Lexington and Paris, where
it followed the ridge of the Licking to its mouth; it then it crossed the Ohio
to what is now Cincinnati. (The Wyandotte name
for Cincinnati
was Tu-ent-a-hab-whag-ta, "the place where the road leaves the
river.") At this point numerous important trails met. From the Ohio northward the trail is called the Old Miami Trail,
obviously the name being taken from the powerful Indian tribe, the Miamis, who occupied this
region. The old trail was sometimes called the Fort Miami Trail, simply because
it led to old Fort Miami, the oldest fortification in the State of Ohio. This fort was
built under the direction of Fontenac, Governor of Canada, in 1680, as a
military trading post. Its location was about fifteen miles up the Maumee from Lake Erie.
The French later moved it farther up the river; the English, in 1785, rebuilt
it.
The Native Americans followed certain routes for both trade and warfare. The
water courses and the ridges along the watersheds were used as their earthworks
now show. Both the Indians and the whites followed these same trails and used the
same sites for their towns,
In the decades prior to the American Civil War, market places where enslaved
Africans were bought and sold could be found in every town of any size in Mississippi. Natchez was unquestionably the state’s most active slave
trading city, although substantial slave markets existed at Aberdeen,
Crystal Springs,
Vicksburg, Woodville, and Jackson. Natchez
played a significant role in the southward movement of the existing slave
population to the waiting cotton plantations of the Deep
South. Slave sales at Natchez
were held in a number of locations, but one market place soon eclipsed the
others in the number of sales. This was the market known as “The Forks of the
Road,” located at the busy intersection of Liberty Road and Washington Road about one mile east of
downtown Natchez.
(Today, Washington Road
is named “D’Evereux Drive,”
which changes to “St. Catherine
Street” at the Liberty Road intersection.) The market
site occupied a prominent knoll, straddling what was then the city's eastern
corporation line. Washington Road
connected Natchez with the nearby town of Washington and with the Natchez Trace, a vital interstate
route extending northeast into northern Alabama
and Tennessee.
Liberty Road,
also known as “Old Courthouse Road”
or “Second Creek Road,”
linked Natchez with points to the east and
southeast, and ultimately with the southern reaches of Alabama
and Georgia.
Although the Forks of the Road became best known as a slave market, livestock
and other items were also sold there.
The Forks of the Road intersection appears in maps of the Natchez area as early as 1808. The earliest
known map illustrating slave markets at that location is a plat of St. Catherine Street
drawn in 1853. In the 1853 map, two “Negro Marts” are shown at the Forks of the
Road intersection: one inside the angle of the fork and another across Old Courthouse Road
(Liberty Road)
to the southwest. The map also shows the City of Natchez “Corporation
Line,” which intersected both slave markets and provides a way to accurately
locate the market sites today.
The Traders
The importance of the Forks of the Road as a slave market increased
dramatically when Isaac Franklin of Tennessee
rented property there in 1833. Franklin and his business partner, John
Armfield of Virginia, were soon to become the
most active slave traders in the United States. Franklin and
Armfield were among the first professional slave traders to take advantage of
the relatively low prices for slaves in the Virginia–Maryland area, and the
profit potential offered by the growing market for slaves in the Deep South.
Armfield managed the firm’s slave pen in Alexandria,
Virginia, while Franklin
established and ran the firm’s markets at Natchez
and New Orleans.
By the 1830s, they were sending more than 1,000 slaves annually from Alexandria to their Natchez
and New Orleans markets to help meet the demand
for slaves in Mississippi
and surrounding states.
When our country was formed by treaty in 1783, the western boundary was the Mississippi River and the southern boundary was the 31st
Parallel. By then, Fort Natchez, located on the Mississippi
River as a well established trading post in the Great Wild South
West of this young country. Some old Indian trading trails were the only
way by land to get from what became Nashville, Tennessee to Fort
Natchez. As the new
farmers west of the Allegheny Mountains grew
their crops of cotton, tobacco, corn, wheat, they needed a place to sell
it. Fort Natchez became the place to trade.
In the fall, farmers would load their crops on flat boats, float down the Ohio, Tennessee, Cumberland to the Mississippi
and then to Fort Natchez, later to just Natchez.
Here the farmers sold their crops and even the flat boat they came on for gold
or various forms of paper money. Then, they walked more than 400 miles
back to their homes by using the Indian foot path to what is now Nashville,
Tennessee and then on to their home. This foot path became known as the
Natchez Trace. Some called it The Devil’s Backbone because of the crime
committed on it, robbing and killing the farmers/traders for their money.
In spite of this, it became a trail of commerce, the main mail route to the
southwest, and a vital trail in development of the great southwest of the young
USA
between 1790 and about 1830.
A brisk traffic in flatboats and keelboats carried Middle Tennessee pork, corn,
whiskey, and hides down the Mississippi to New Orleans, where goods
and boats were sold; crews returned home by way of the Natchez Trace. The first
steamboat on the Mississippi, the New Orleans, passed by Tennessee in December 1811, and the crew
witnessed the destructive force of the New Madrid earthquake. In 1818 the
Chickasaws relinquished their claims to the Western District, and settlement
began in the Mississippi
Valley. Towns quickly
sprang up on the Tennessee bank of the river, and the steamboat trade
flourished. By 1834 some 230 steamboats plied the Mississippi. Memphis
emerged as an inland port city and a destination for immigrants arriving in the
United States through New Orleans. Towns along
the Mississippi
tributaries benefited as well. The Forked Deer was navigable for steamboats to Dyersburg, although a few managed to reach Jackson. The Hatchie was navigable for several miles, and some boats
went as far as Bolivar, though this area could not as easily engage in shipping
despite its rich agricultural land.
The Hudson's
Bay Company differed in certain important particulars in both organization and
operations from its American rivals. The fortified trading post was common to
both systems; the rendezvous was peculiarly an American institution; the
company's trapping brigade contained several important elements that were
foreign to the typical American trapping party. The usual American fur-trading
expedition, for example, consisted almost exclusively of men; a Hudson's Bay Company
brigade contained fifteen or twenty whites, fifty or more French-Canadian,
Indian, or half-breed trappers, and a multitude of women and children.
This large and heterogeneous personnel necessitated the use of much larger
supply trains and many more horses than the American system required; so that a
fur brigade, bound for a distant hunt of eighteen months' or two years'
duration, resembled a small-scale tribal migration. The women of the brigade
did the work of the camp, dressed the pelts, tanned the skins for shirts and
moccasins, and relieved the men of innumerable other essential details. They
and the children became a liability only when the brigade suffered major
disaster, such as epidemic, serious shortage of food, or defeat at the hands of
hostile Indians.
Over the past century, considerable attention has been paid to the political
history of the aspiring Metis nation but the processes by which Metis identity
was formed, the content of Metis culture, and the mechanisms by which it was
transmitted intergenerationally still remain obscure. Perhaps this is because,
despite Louis Riel's impassioned declaration of Metis consciousness "that
we honor our mothers as well as our fathers," the native women who
mothered and nourished the growth of a Metis society have been overshadowed by
their white male partners and fathers.
This article does not hope to answer the larger questions of Metis identity and
culture formation but instead explores the motivations prompting native females
to marry whites in the early stages of fur trade expansion south and west of
the Great Lakes, and seeks to resolve an apparent anomaly with regard to the
role of women in subsequent Metis cultural development. On the one hand, as
Jennifer S. H. Brown has noted in a path-breaking article, native women were
both center and symbol in the emergence of Metis communities. Since Metis
daughters of Indian-white marriages were more likely than Metis sons to remain in
the West and to maintain close ties with native mothers and kin, they were the
primary contributors via their own marriages to incoming whites and Metis males
to the rapid growth of a Metis population in the fur trading zone. It is not
surprising, therefore, that Metis life appears to have been characterized by
matriorganization, with the female and native side exercising the predominant
influences over residence and community, behavioral roles, and ethnic
filiation. Ultimately, to be Metis was to claim descent from, and the rights
of, a native mother, rather than of a white father. On the other hand, a core
denominator of persistent Metis identity has been a strong attachment to
Christianity. Especially among French-speaking Metis, Catholic belief and
practice did, and often still does, act as the demarcator between themselves
and their Indian relatives. Simply put, Metis attend Mass, not the Sun Dance.
But if Metis life was matricentered and native women and their female
descendants were the transmitters and translators of Metis culture and
identity, what are we to make of the prominence of an intrusive European belief
system? How are we to reconcile the apparently mutual influences of
strong-minded, perhaps exceptional native women and the religious ideology of
the colonizer? What role did Christianity play, if any, in propelling native
women toward white males and why did certain women chose, or so it would seem,
to abandon the traditions and lifeways of their own people?
The term certain women is deliberate. It may be fairly assumed that the
majority, or even the preponderance, of tribal women did not take white
husbands or succumb to the appeals of Christian missionaries at any time during
the early contact phase in North America. Carol Devens has argued that among
the "domiciled" Indian groups of New France,
women led the resistance against missionary efforts at conversion. It may also
be assumed, thanks to the remarkable portrait of "women in between"
painted by Sylvia Van Kirk and to Jennifer S. H. Brown's seminal
ethnohistorical analysis of fur trade families, that the native wives of fur
traders and their Metis daughters were neither degraded drudges, commodities to
be bought or sold, or the casual purveyors of sexual favors, stereotypes best
buried with the likes of Walter O'Meara's Daughters of the Country.
Van Kirk, in particular, has ably illustrated the intelligence and forceful
personalities of a number of wives of fur traders, women capable of exerting
considerable influence within both native and fur trade circles. Although her
sources tend to favor the native wives and daughters of men of rank, or women
who aroused comment, the women she describes had their counterparts throughout
fur trade country, on both sides of the international boundary. In the
western Great Lakes region alone, women such
as Madame Cadotte, Susan Johnston, Sally Ainse, Madame LaFramboise, Therese
Schindler, Marinette Chevalier, Domitille Langlade, and Sophia Mitchell
achieved prominence as traders, church founders and patrons, and leaders of fur
trade communities, while their Metis daughters and granddaughters perpetuated
many of these traditions, adding the roles of teacher, translator, and
interpreter.
Van Kirk and Brown have pointed to a number of factors that may have persuaded
native women to marry white traders, among them heightened material comfort and
physical security, access to trade goods, and personal role expansion. Other
factors -- the demographic pressure caused by a possible female surplus among
hunting tribes, the benefits to kin of an alliance with whites, the appeal of a
more permissive sexual code, a preference for monogamous marriage, and the
influence of Christianization.
Development of
the Trace
It was not until 1801, when the United States Armed Forces under the command of
James P Gaines, began blazing the trail for use as a postal route, that major
work was performed on the Trace to prepare it as a thoroughfare for travelers.
Treaties were signed with the Chickasaw and Choctaw nations, and work began,
first solely by soldiers reassigned from West Tennessee,
and then later by civilian contract. By 1809, the trail was fully navigable by
wagon. Critical to the success of the Trace as a trade route were inns and
trading posts, referred to at the time as "stands." For the most
part, the stands developed southbound from the head of the trail in Nashville. Stands gave
people a place to eat and rest. Between 1800 and 1820, more than twenty stands
were built along the trail. Although the stands were mostly shacks, they gave
people a place to eat and rest. Smaller stands served greasy food and provided
soggy cots. Travelers preferred to stay in these stands rather than eating
nothing and sleeping on the ground.
The best known stands were Doak's Stand, French Camp, Mount Locust,
and Red Bluff. Doak's Stand later became a stagecoach stop. French Camp was
opened by Frenchman Louis Le Fleur in 1810. Mount Locust
and Red Bluff were large enough to be called inns. Today, Mount Locust
is the only restored stand remaining along the Natchez Trace.
The stands were still a dangerous place because of robbers. Travelers tried to
protect themselves by burying their valuables before entering the stands or
taking turns sleeping?
Many of the first settlements in Mississippi
and Tennessee
developed along the Natchez Trace. Some of the most prominent of these were Washington, the old capital of Mississippi;
Greenville,
where Andrew Jackson plied his occupation as a slave trader; and Port Gibson,
among others.
In
1805 The Choctaws and Chickasaw agreed to assist travelers by allowing
hostelries or inns along their share of the Trace, provided the
establishments were operated by men of their nations. The Chickasaw also
ceded claim to a 40 mile wide strip of land running along the north side of the
Tennessee River.
Stands Along The
Trace
Nashville to Natchez
Nashville
Joshlin's Stand (TN) 1797
Gordon's Stand (TN) 1802
John Gordon
Gordon's Ferry across the Duck River.
Keg Springs Stand (TN) 1812
Sheboss Place (TN)
Dobbin's Stand (TN) 1808
David Dobbins, Swan Creek
Griner's Stand (TN) 1808
McLish's Stand (TN) 1806
William McLish, N/S Buffalo Creek
Young Factor's Stand (TN) 1805
McGlamery's Stand (TN)
A modern populated place, on the Natchez Trace
just
below Collinwood in Wayne County TN. We have not
yet
seen an early date for McGlamery's Stand.
(Submitted by David Cage.)
Toscomby's Stand (TN) 1810
Toscomby, an Indian's name
George Colbert's Stand (AL) pre 1806
George Colbert, 1/2 Chickasaw
Colbert's Ferry across the Tennessee
River.
Buzzard Roost Stand (AL) 1812
Levi Colbert's Stand (AL)
Brown's Stand (MS) 1815
Old Factor's Stand (MS) 1812
Levi Kemp's Stand (MS) 1825
James Colbert's Stand (MS) 1812
James Allen
Tockshish's Stand, McIntosh's Stand, Chickasaw Old Town (MS) 1797
This became the junction with "the
Notchey" or so called west Prong
of the Natchez Trace.
Wall's Stand (MS) 1811
Pigeon Roost Stand (MS) 1800
Mitchell's Stand (MS) 1806
French Camp, LeFleur's Stand (MS) 1810 Duke Family
Hawkins's Stand, Harkin's Stand (MS) 1811
Shoat's Stand, Choteau's Stand (MS) 1811
Anderson's Stand (MS) 1811
Crowders Stand (MS) 1813
Doak's Stand (MS) 1810
Ward's Stand (MS) 1811
Brashear's Stand (MS) 1806
Turner Brashear
Jackson (MS)
Ogburn's Stand (MS) 1810
Hayes's Stand (MS) 1815
Dean's Stand (MS) 1821
Dr Thomas Goings
Red Bluff Stand, McRover's Stand and Smith's Stand (MS) 1806
Rocky Springs
Wooldridge's Stand (MS) 1806
Grindstone Ford (MS) 1797
Port Gibson (MS)
Samuel Gibson
Coon Box Stand (MS)
Greenville (MS)
Uniontown (MS)
Selserville (MS)
Washington (MS)
Natchez (MS)
Sheboss Place, Tennessee. This was the site of an inn run by a man who
referred questions to his wife by saying, "I don't know, she boss."
Gordon’s
Stand, Tennessee. One
of the few remaining buildings associated with the Old Natchez Trace is the
home of ferry operator John Gordon at the Duck River
, mile marker 407.7. Gordon operated a trading post and ferry service here in
the early 1800s. Gordon served with Andrew Jackson and was away while much of
the construction was going on in 1817-1818, leaving his wife Dorathea to
oversee the project. Gordon died shortly after the home was completed, but his
wife lived here until her death in 1859.
The Colberts The Colbert family had tremendous influence
over the Chickasaw Nation and for many years, virtually ruled the Chickasaw.
They had tremendous wealth and exercised good business judgment. They were
interpreters and diplomats, and tried to help the Chickasaw better themselves.
Even though history records that they failed somewhat; nevertheless, they did
succeed in helping to move the Chickasaws to a new country, faring better than
many other tribes. The treaties that the Colberts worked for provided that the
Chickasaw would be paid for their lands prior to their removal. As a result,
the Chickasaw were the most prosperous of all of the Indian Tribes arriving in
the Indian Territories.
James Logan Colbert, 1721 - By one account, James left his Scottish homeland,
emigrated to America, possibly aboard the Prince of Wales in January, 1736,
landing in Savannah or Darien, Georgia. He was not listed as a passenger.
Another account which seems to be backed up by documentation, claims that James
was born in the colonies approximately 1721 and traveled west to Muscle Shoals,
Alabama from one of the Carolinas with a band of British traders and eventually
came to the Chickasaw towns and settled among the Chickasaw as a youth and was
adopted by a Chickasaw family. His contemporary, fellow trader James Adair
wrote that he "...lived among the Chikkasaw from his childhood, and speaks
their language even with more propriety than the English".
New Information: Guestbook visitor, Richard Allen Colbert writes, "He was
born in America, on Plumtree Island
in North Carolina
to be more precise. If you don't believe me, would you believe James Colbert
himself. On July 25, 1783, he sent letter to Governor Harrison of Virginia stating that he was "born" in America."
I do not have a copy that I can send via computer, but it is located in the
"Calendar of Virginia State Papers and other Documents," from January
1, 1782, to Dec. 31, 1784, Vol. III) (Richmond: Sherwin McRae, 1883), pp.
513-515. In addition, when James Colbert spent the summer of 1783 at Long
Island on the Holston River with Malcolm McGee and the chiefs of the Chickasaw
Nations to discuss peace terms with John Doone and Joseph Martin of Virginia,
John Donne wrote a letter to General James Wilkenson, and said: "from his
education and mode of life, being bred among the Indians from his infancy
...." QUESTION: How could this happen? ANSWER: His father was a Chickasaw
Indian trader and took him to live among the Chickasaws after his real mother
died. Father's name was William Colbert. He began trading with the Chickasaws
in 1722. Also, in the Draper Collection of Manuscripts, Lyman C. Draper
interviewed Malcolm McGee. McGee was asked to describe several of the Indian
traders he knew. He described them by their Nationality, i.e., ADAIR-Irish,
BUBBY-English, BUCKLES-English, HIGHTOWER-Dutchman, COLBERT-Carolinian. Note:
McGee did not say Colbert was a "Scotsman." He said he was a
"Carolinian." Also note that McGee was once married to Elizabeth
Oxberry Harris, daughter of Christopher Oxberry and Molly Colbert. If anyone
should know where James Colbert was born, it would be McGee.
- Richard Allen Colbert to Viki Anderson, Jan 6, 2001
He married three Chickasaw wives and had nine children: seven sons and 2
daughters. He lead his life as an Indian trader, interpreter and leader of men
during a time in history which was a turbulent struggle for land and new
opportunity.
The Chickasaw depended on the British traders for goods, English guns and
ammunition. The British were more than happy to frustrate French and Spanish
designs on the Mississippi
Valley by supporting the
Chickasaw and teaching them to use the weapons. James operated a lucrative
trade, established a plantation and owned cattle and 150 slaves. Many
mixed-bloods cultivated a new life-style, and congregated around the
headquarters of commissary John McIntosh on the Natchez Trace. British
authorities looked on men like Colbert with suspicion and disdain, but Colbert
proved to be a loyal ally of the British during the American Revolution.
James and his Chickasaw followers harassed, frustrated, and repelled the Kings
Enemies, patrolling the river country against invasion. French, Spanish,
British, and Americans all courted the Chickasaw who skillfully played one
against the other. The Chickasaw had begun to divide politically with one group
showing favoritism toward the Spanish and the other lead by James Colbert staying
loyal to the British. In 1781, James Logan Colbert lead an attack on Ft. Jefferson,
an American military post erected in 1780 by George Rogers Clark on Chickasaw
lands without Chickasaw permission. The siege lasted 5 days, but the Americans
held the fort. James was wounded three times in the encounter. The Americans
abandoned the fort in June of 1781.
After the British lost the American Revolution and the Anglo-Spanish War in Florida, they abandoned their colonization of the Mississippi Valley. The pro-British Chickasaw were
not about to embrace the Spanish who claimed the territory between the mouth of
the Yazoo River
and the Ohio.
They instead transferred their allegiance to the Americans. By 1782, according
to some reports, there were almost three hundred whites and possibly a hundred
blacks living in Chickasaw country, many of them Loyalist refugees from a
failed rebellion at Natchez.
James Colbert fashioned these men into a band of resistance fighters near
Chickasaw Bluffs, assaulting Spanish boats on the Mississippi. A group of 150 Loyalists and
200 Indians attacked Spanish commerce on the river. The raids climaxed in 1782
with the capture of a boat carrying Señora Nicanora Ramos, the wife of Governor
Cruzat of Saint Louis near present day Memphis. She was well treated and
released after 22 days.
James first wife was a full-blood Chickasaw. They had a daughter, Sally. His
second wife also was full-blood Chickasaw. They had several children: William,
George, Levi, Joseph, and Samuel. His third wife was a half-blood Chickasaw.
They had two children; James Holmes and Susan.
James brought up his half-blood children as Indians. It is ironic that while
James spent a good deal of his adult life seeking the Indian ways, his children
would raise their children in the white mans culture, sending them to schools
to become well educated. They became shrewd businessmen and leaders who exerted
tremendous influence in Chickasaw councils well into the nineteenth century. In
December, 1783, James died en route home from Pensacola in a fall from his horse. Some
people believed that Caesar, the slave that returned home to tell the tale, had
killed him.
Griners Stand
The Mystery of Meriweather Lewis
Meriwether Lewis, of the Lewis and Clark Expedition fame, met his mysterious
end while traveling on the Trace. Lewis had stopped at Grinder's Stand near
current-day Hohenwald, Tennessee for rest. Extremely depressed by
the state of his financial affairs (he was deeply in debt), he became drunk as
he had many times during the trip. He asked the owner of the stand for
gunpowder, which she gave him, intimidated by his behavior. A few hours later,
two shots rang out in the night—Lewis had apparently shot himself twice, once
in the head and once in the chest. He lived until the next morning.
His death went unquestioned as a suicide for many years. However, as time
passed, more details emerged—had he also been stabbed? Had one of his rivals,
particularly Robert Grinder, owner of the stand, killed and robbed him? Or was
it a more politically motivated killing, an assassination against the governor
of the Louisiana Territory?
In 1996 James E. Starr, a professor at George Washington University, attempted
to procure permission, supported by several researchers and 160 descendants of
Lewis, to exhume Lewis' remains to put the mystery to rest. The National Park
Service, which oversees the grave site in Hohenwald, denied permission. Though
a court later ruled that the exhumation was justified, the NPS has so far
successfully resisted the pressure to exhume Lewis.
Choctow Treaty, elemenating the boundry between the British
Colony of West Florida British, and the Choctows.
March 26 1765
Rowland, Miss Territory Archives I 476
Dean's Stand
William Dean patented 80.09 acres W1/2 NW1/4 Section 32 T5N R3W
March 26, 1823.
Hinds County Tract Book See Mrs. Ratliff, Raymond also,
Phil Armintage, grandson of Wm Dean who operated stand at present site of
Dillons.
55. pg 191 Dean's Stand. Site marked by family graveyard of Col. W.S.
Dillon, who in 1839 acquired "a tract of land known as Dean's stand."
Dillon's Stand formally Dean's Stand, Francise B Lee, administrator of estate
of Thomas
Goeng..hath
given, bargained and sold to Wilson F Dillon ass that tract of land W 1/2 of NE
1/4 of sec 33 T9R4E, also a tract of land N 1/2 of W 1/2 of the SE 1/4 of sec
33 T9 R4E also a tract of land known as Dean's Stand lying and being in
the situated in the county of Hinds and state aforesaid on the road leading
from Port Gibson to Raymond Containing 850 acres.
Feb 20, 1839
Hinds Co Deed Book, Vol 2. p227-78
Mrs. Margaret Dillon acquired the property from F. B. Lee adm.
1939
Thom. Going.
Mississippi Herald/Natchez Gazette, 21 October 1807. Letters-J. Moore, Postmaster at Port Gibson,
has the following letters in his office as of 01 October 1807: William
Scott; Vance Scott; Rev. Thomas Sacley; Joshua Clark; Miss Sally Griffin; John
Murdock; Stephen Bullock; James Milligan; William Pope; Mrs. Mary Elliot; Miss
Rebecca Milborun; Hon. Peter Byan Bruin; Archibald Griffing; David M Farlane;
Jesse Benton; Henry Trent; Rev MolesFloyd; Thomas Norris; Soloman Walker;
William R Richey; Dr. Thomas Going; Berryman Watkins; Abner
Wilfenson; Major John Barkley; Caleb Roberts; Caleb Roberts; Francis M'Cleland;
Samuel Beach; Ignatus Flowers; William Dickson; James Thompson; Walter
Slaughter; Colonel THomas White; James Knewlard; John Boothe; Mrs. Harriet
Turnbull; John Saxon; Joseph D Lewis; Roger Gypson; Joshua Rundle; Joshua
Rundie; David Spurlock; Solomon Walker.
JOURNEY OF THOMAS NIXON TO ATTAKAPAS, Thomas Nixon writes of his journey to
Attakapas where he was appointed to serve. He and Mr. Menefee rode to Mr.
Overaker's where they were hospitably entertained. The next morning they
rode to Washington
and dined with Dr. Rollins, then spent the night in the country with one of the
Tooley's (probably James) before turning toward Midway where they had an
appointment to preach, preceding the Bishop who would preach on Sunday.
Then they spent the night with Mr. Sojourner, dined with Brother Hodges and
spent the night with
Mr. Richardson near Midway. People flocked to hear them preach the next
day. On Monday the Bishop presided at McCalley's Church. On Tuesday
he preached in Liberty,
the county town of Amite. He took quite ill while in Liberty,
but rode eleven miles on his way to Franklin
County. Wednesday
he appeared better and he and his companions rode 28 miles to Mr. Pickett's.
The Pickett settlement was then one of the strongholds of Methodism in Franklin County. The Bishop intended to
preach there the next morning, but a chill kept him in bed all day. Having
other engagements to keep, he rode six miles that night to Mr. King's where he
spent a rainy night. They left early the next morning and rode 30 miles
in the rain to Randall Gibson's. The Bishop was confined to bed the next
day and missed his appointment for that day. He was so ill that day that
Randall sent to Port Gibson for Dr. Thomas Going. By
evening he was much better and came downstairs for a cheerful conversation with
the family. Also convalescing at the Gibson home was James Dixon who had missed
the Conference due to illness. He asked the Bishop's permission to leave
the country as soon as he could travel and was granted a transfer back to Tennessee. Nixon and Menefee
rode ten miles that night, and stayed with Mrs. Evans to preach to the blacks
at Old Hebron,
and had a gracious time.
An ACT for
Thomas Going, a free man of color Thomas Going is authorized to give testimony
in court. December 1, 1814.
Dillon's Stand
Interrog "State whether or not Mrs. Margaret Dillon dec'd
under the purchase as stated in the bill of complaint, had possesion of all
land which were originally conveyed to you[her] by Francis B Lee as adm of
Thomas Going which were then known as Dean's Stand"
Ans "She had possesion of all said land from the time of her
purchase up to the time of her death"
Interrog. WF Dillion, Hinds Co chauncery Records. Nov
27, 1874 No 1141
New Series left section.
Colonel Wilson F Dillon- Obituary, May 17, 1876.
Hinds County
Gazzette, Raymond, Miss., Wednesday, May 17 1876m No. 36, Page
1.
"Death of Col. WF Dillon-We greatly regret to announce the
death of Col. Wilson Dillon, which event occured at his residence near this
place on 13th inst. Col. Dillon was one of the most subsantial citizens
of the county of Hinds, one of our most valued friends, and a prompt paying
subscriber to the Gazette from it's first issue. He was born in Prize Edward
County, Va, 1797, and,
consequently died in the 79th year of his age. He removed to Mississippi in 1827, forty-nineyears ago,
and settled on the palce where he died, 6 miles from Raymondwhen this country
was a wilderness. Maby years ago he connected himself with the Methodist
Church, of which he continued a highly useful and devoted member, and died with
true christian fortitude and resignation. Col. Dillon was an upright and
positive man; was a public spirited and well informed citizen; and in early
times was a power and ever delighted in speaking of their characteristics and
peculiaristies. For many years he was president of the board of Police of
the county, and managed our public affairs most honestly, intelligently
and satisfactorily. We mourn the death of our friend, but woe for the
bright land 'beyond the sunset," and where he may be joined by his many
kindred, friends and aquintances."
Dillons Stand (formally Dean's Stand)
Abner & Sarah Wise to John Cook,
"all those lots or parcels of land being lots No One and
two of fractional section & two acres & twenty nine hundreths of an
acre"
Dec 45, 1834.
Claiborne County
Deed Book, O, 3607.
Note: This document was aknowledged before Wilson F
Dillon, an acting justice of the peace for Claiborne County.
"The following described property, their intire interest in
the lands known a Margret Dillon estate. All of S31 exet 16 a. in NE
corner also W1/2 of NW1/4 and E1/2 of SW1/4 of set 32, Except 25 acres in NE
Part of NW1/4 of sec. 32 T5 R3W."
Deed of Trust given by John B Herrod & Julia A Herrod March
26, 1877.
Hinds County Deed Book, Vol 48, p.401.
Defininitions
The Cumberland River was an important waterway in the southern United States.
It is 687 miles (1,106 km) long. It starts in Letcher
County in eastern Kentucky
on the Cumberland Plateau, flows through southeastern Kentucky
before crossing into northern Tennessee, and
then curves back up into western Kentucky
before draining into the Ohio River at Smithland,
Kentucky. The native American
name for the Cumberland River was the Warrito.
In 1748, Dr. Thomas Walker led a party of hunters across the Appalachian
Mountains from Virginia.
Walker, a Virginian, was an explorer and surveyor of renown. He gave the name
"Cumberland" to the lofty range of mountains his party crossed, in
honor of Prince William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland whose name became popular
in America after the Battle of Culloden (Stewart, 1967
John Murrell (also spelled as Murel
and Murrel), a near-legendary bandit operating in the United States along the
Mississippi River in the mid-1800s.
The Treaty of
Doak's Stand: Signed on October 20, 1820, in Madison County, Mississippi,
between Canton
and Farmhaven, the treaty gave the Mississippi Choctaw a large western
territory in exchange for land sales to settlers. The terms of the treaty
became a sore point in latter relations between the tribes and the government.
General Andrew Jackson supervised the treaty's signing.
The Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek:
Signed on September 27, 1830, in Noxubee County,
Mississippi, near Macon,
the treaty gave the Choctaws the option of moving to the western territories in
Oklahoma and Arkansas. The government made it clear,
however, that the tribe really needed to move and not remain in Mississippi. A few
Choctaws stayed in Mississippi
(in fact, some stayed on with the Gaines family at Peachwood), but the majority
went west over a period of several years.
The Outlaw Years: The History
of the Land Pirates of the Natchez
Trace. Contributors: Robert M. Coates - author. Publisher: University of Nebraska
Press. Place of Publication: Lincoln,
NE. Publication Year: 1986. Page Number: *.
Title: Indian Americans: Unity and Diversity. Contributors: Murray L. Wax - author. Publisher: Prentice
Hall. Place of Publication: Englewood
Cliffs, NJ. Publication Year: 1971. Page Number: 51.
I.
Adair's History of the American
Indians, James Adair, published in London,
1775.
II.
The Chickasaw, Duane K Hale
& Arrell M. Gibson ISBN 1-55546-697
III.
The Five Civilized Tribes, Grant
Foreman, ISBN 0-8061-0923-8
IV.
The American Revolution in
Indian Country, Colin G. Calloway, ISBN 0-521-47149-4
V.
Updated information - Additional
references and correspondence:
VI.
Kerry Armstrong – correspondence
VII.
DJ Thornton-research
corespondence
VIII. Dr. Panther Yates-research & correspondence
IX.
Who was Who Among the Southern
Indians, Don Martini, published 1998
X.
SMU Natchez Trace Collection -
Hattiesburg, Mississippi
XI.
Mississippi State Archives, Jackson,
Mississippi
XII. http://imahero.com/readingprogram/trailnatchez.html
XIII. http://www.tngenweb.org/campbell/hist-bogan/MiamiTrail.html
XIV. http://mshistory.k12.ms.us/features/feature30/gsgaines.html
XV.
http://mshistory.k12.ms.us/features/feature36/forks_of_the_road.html
XVI. http://www.us-census.org/native/choctaw.html
XVII. This Reckless Breed
of Men
The Trappers and Fur Traders of the Southwest BY ROBERT GLASS CLELAND 1963 NEW YORK ALFRED A. KNOPF
XVIII. The Outlaw Years:
The History of the Land Pirates of the Natchez
Trace. Contributors: Robert M. Coates - author. Publisher: University of Nebraska
Press. Place of Publication: Lincoln,
NE. Publication Year: 1986
XIX. Western Women: Their
Land, Their Lives. Contributors: Janice Monk - editor, Vicki L. Ruiz - editor,
Lillian Schlissel - editor. Publisher: University of New Mexico
Press. Place of Publication: Albuquerque.
Publication Year: 1988
XX.
http://newdeal.feri.org/guides/tnguide/ch03.htm
XXI. http://www.muzzleblasts.com/vol3no6/articles/mbo36-4.html
XXII. Studies in American
Indian Literature Series 2 Volume 11,
Number 1 Spring 1999
http://oncampus.richmond.edu/faculty/ASAIL/SAIL2/111.html
XXIII. This Reckless Breed of Men
The Trappers and Fur Traders of the
Southwest BY ROBERT GLASS CLELAND 1963 NEW
YORK ALFRED A. KNOPF
XXIV. Western Women:
Their Land, Their Lives. Contributors: Janice Monk - editor, Vicki L. Ruiz -
editor, Lillian Schlissel - editor. Publisher: University of New Mexico
Press. Place of Publication: Albuquerque.
Publication Year: 1988
XXV. The Hernando de Soto Expedition, History,
Historiography, and
"Discovery" in the Southeast. Edited by Patricia
Galloway University of Nebraska
Press Lincoln and London
XXVI. Runaway Slaves:
Rebels on the Plantation.
Contributors: John Hope Franklin - author, Loren Schweninger - author.
Publisher: Oxford
University Press. Place
of Publication: Oxford.
Publication Year: 1999.