Audio
“The Hard Trip Home,” Old Trace Exhibit Shelter, Milepost 8, Panel D
Transcript
The fourth exhibit, titled “The Hard Trip Home,” contains an illustration of nine Trace travelers walking down a trail and wading into swamp water. The Old Natchez Trace goes through the swamp and the trail is flooded. A map shows the route that boatmen and farmers followed down the Mississippi River and then home along Natchez Trace.
[Text] By 1810, most travelers along the Natchez Trace were Kaintucks heading home.
Kaintucks—farmers and boatmen from the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys—floated crops and other goods to market in New Orleans or the bustling, edgy river port of Natchez. There, they sold their flatboats as lumber; the boats were useless for traveling upstream against the swift current of the Mississippi.
Now on horseback or foot they faced a 500-mile journey home. Insects and snakes. Rain and mud. Swamps, creeks, and rivers waited to test the bodies and minds of already weary, homesick Kaintucks.
The Kaintucks in the panel illustration have left a dry portion of trail and waded into a cypress swamp partially covered with green algae. An alligator, only head and eyes above water, watches the men pass by.
The first man in the group has water to his waist. He pushes his blanket roll across the swamp on a short log raft. The others carry their belongings under their arms or on their shoulders; their firearms rest on their shoulders or are raised above their heads.
In 1812, Rev. John Johnson recounted his Trace journey:
"I have this day swam my horse five times, bridged one creek, forded several others beside the swamp we had to wade through. At night we had a shower of rain. Took up my usual lodging on the ground in company with several Indians.”
A map shows the route followed by Kaintucks between 1785 and 1825. One arrow points south along the Mississippi River, another curves under Natchez to indicate a change in direction, and a third points north along the Natchez Trace toward Nashville.
There are several boundaries shown on the map. Mississippi Territory including the Natchez District and the Chickasaw and Choctaw homelands line the east bank of the Mississippi River, and the Orleans and Louisiana territories the west bank. Most of the land along the Gulf of Mexico is disputed or held by the Spanish.
There are three other exhibits to your left. All of the panels in this shelter have a black band across the top. The band contains the National Park Service arrowhead on the right and the words National Park Service and U.S. Department of the Interior. On the left, the band contains the words Natchez Trace Parkway.
Description
The fourth exhibit, titled “The Hard Trip Home,” contains an illustration of nine Trace travelers walking down a trail and wading into swamp water. The Old Natchez Trace goes through the swamp and the trail is flooded. A map shows the route that boatmen and farmers followed down the Mississippi River and then home along Natchez Trace.
Duration
3 minutes, 3 seconds
Credit
NPS
Date Created
07/13/2017
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