Native Paths: the Natchez Trace

As we've seen with many historic roads in what is now the Eastern United States, trails used by Native hunters and warriors formed the basis for thoroughfares leading further West.  An example of this is the Natchez Trace.

The Trace stretches over 400 miles, linking Natchez, Mississippi with Nashville, Tennessee and connecting the Cumberland, Tennessee and Mississippi Rivers.  The earliest portions of the trail were the well-worn tracks of animals, particularly bison, seeking access to the salt licks along the Tennessee River.  Native hunters followed these herds, widening the trail.  It was used by Mississippian Natives and later by the Choctaw and Chickasaw tribes, who often furnished guides to early explorers seeking to map the trail for use by settlers.  Europeans discovered the Trace in 1742, when a Frenchman called it a "miserable trail".  Decades later, in 1803, the Jefferson Administration decided to build a postal road connecting off of Daniel Boone's Wilderness Road.  They signed treaties with the Chickasaw and Choctaw for right of way over the Trace.  Despite efforts by the Army to widen the road, settlers often called it the "Devil's Backbone" because it was rough.  Soon, though, a steady stream of people began moving west, and trading posts developed along the route to outfit them for their journey west. 

As with many other roads that started off as hunting trails and then became roads for settlement, the military also found the Trace useful.  Andrew Jackson marched his men along the Trace to fight the War of 1812 (1812-1814) and the Creek War (1813-1814).  Afterwards, other trails and the advent of steamboat travel shifted traffic away from the Trace.  Portions of the Trace continued to be used as a local road, while other parts of it faded back into the forest from whence it came.