Natchez, Mississippi. January 9-10, 2025
Flew into Nashville last week and eventually drove the length of the Natchez Trace Parkway to its southern terminus. I will soon make my way back north, hiking the Natchez National Scenic Trail and the 60+ other trails within the Parkway over the next handful of weeks. More on that in a future post.
Since arriving in the South, I have developed a respiratory infection, lost multiple combs, flooded part of a hotel floor via a faulty washing machine, and the post office seemed to lose the box with all my hiking gear in it. Thankfully, the worst of my infection now seems to be over, combs are cheap, the hotel staff was gracious, and the post office found my gear. Also, my rental vehicle, booked through Turo, is affordable and spacious.
I have only been in Mississippi once before, and that was fifteen years ago and briefly, when my daughters and I were highpointing.
Natchez is the oldest city on the Mississippi River and the previous home to Forks of the Road, one of the largest slave-trading markets in the South. When the Union army came up the Mississippi River, Natchez did not resist and therefore its numerous antebellum mansions were not destroyed. I have never before seen actual plantation mansions and the very fields where enslaved people toiled, let alone the previous site of an actual slave market. I know Natchez is now more than its history, but the history is everywhere with all these preserved structures, and the entire experience of being here is sobering. The Natchez Trace National Scenic Trail itself played a huge role in American chattel slavery, as slave traders used the ancient Native American path to march enslaved people from Virginia to the market in Natchez.
Melrose, a former cotton plantation estate. Photos include the mansion, exterior shot of the house slaves’ quarters, interior shots of the field slaves’ quarters (one family to each room), NPS info signs describing the harsh realities of enslaved people, a former cotton field, and the dining room of Melrose with its giant wooden fan that was operated by a six-year-old enslaved child pulling on a heavy rope.
Forks of the Road
Two antebellum mansions
William Johnson’s home. Johnson was a freed Black man who decided to own slaves (there were no laws against that) to increase his wealth. I don’t think we should be honoring this guy. He did leave a diary so one can read his justifications if so inclined.
Fort Rosalie. Built by the French in 1716 to control the gateway to the Mississippi River. Subsequently taken over/destroyed/rebuilt by the British, then Spanish, then USA.
