1540 - Kaintuck
The ancestors of today’s American Indians first arrived in the area of the Natchez Trace around 12,000 years ago. Between 2100 years ago and the 1700s, these first peoples constructed mounds. The earliest mounds were burial mounds; later mounds were temple sites or possibly the residences of important persons. Built by the complex societies of the Mississippi area, these mounds were part of a network of settlements throughout the region. Diseases introduced by Europeans in the 1500s wiped out much of the indigenous population, thus ending the mound-building tradition.
The original Natchez Trace connected the Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Natchez tribes. Believed to be the first Europeans to use the Trace, Spanish explorer Hernando De Soto and his expedition travelled the Trace on their 1540 journey across the Southeastern United States in search of riches and gold. They crossed the Natchez Trace in present-day Mississippi and spent the winter of 1540-1541 in the Tupelo area near the trail. The De Soto expedition encountered natives, including the Mississippian mound builders and the Chickasaw Indians with whom they interacted along the Natchez Trace.
Europeans mapped the Trace as early as the 1730s. A narrow ribbon winding along ridgelines through wooded and open areas, the Trace connected neighboring villages with each other and with communities farther away. As European settlements grew, the role of the Trace changed as it became a major north-south trade route. In the 1800s, traders and merchants began to look for opportunities to sell their goods and services to those living on the frontier of the new United States.
The Natchez Trace was part of an expanding Euro-American trade network that served States such as Kentucky, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Traders called Kaintucks transported agricultural products, coal, and livestock down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers from the north to the south. When they reached New Orleans or Natchez, they sold the boats that carried the goods for lumber. The Kaintucks then walked or rode back approximately 500 miles on the Natchez Trace to Nashville and on to other cities north. At its peak, more than 10,000 Kaintucks traveled the Natchez Trace annually. By foot, the trip took roughly 35 days.
Crossing lands sometimes called the “Old Southwest,” the Natchez Trace cut through the historic homelands of the Chickasaw and Choctaw. The Chickasaw remained on their land until the 1830s, when a treaty with the U.S. government forced them to move west--along with Cherokees, Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles. Approximately 5,000 Chickasaw endured a forced march west to Oklahoma along a series of trails they named the "Trail of Tears" for the hundreds who died during the march.
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