Historic Natchez

Historic Natchez

For history, scenic beauty, friendly people, and a chance to visit more wonderful old antebellum mansions than you will find anywhere else in America, put Natchez, Mississippi on your travel itinerary. On a visit to Natchez you can take a carriage ride along narrow streets that take you back a hundred years or more, watch towboats move huge barge loads of cargo down the wide Mississippi River, tour some of the most beautiful homes ever built, try your luck at a floating casino, and visit an ancient Indian village. The oldest settlement on the Mississippi River, Natchez has been inhabited for more than 2,000 years and its location has helped shape not only the history of the city, but the entire region.

The earliest inhabitants were prehistoric Indians, who were followed by the mound building Natchez civilization. The Natchez built a thriving and complex community long before the first Europeans ever stepped foot in the New World , living here between A.D. 700 and 1730. As with many southeastern Indian groups, descent in the Natchez tribe was traced through the female family line. Membership in different classes was determined by heredity. The highest ranking members of the community were those of the Sun lineage, followed by the Honored people, and then the Commoners. Individual men could advance in the class system through acts of bravery in war, or by sacrificing a child from their family at the funeral of a tribal leader.

The hereditary chief of the Natchez tribe was called the Great Sun. At the death of a member of the Sun clan, the spouses and those who had earlier pledged their lives, along with any others who wished to do so, were strangled so they could accompany the Sun into the afterworld. The Natchez created burial mounds, which can still be seen at the 128 acre Grand Village of the Natchez Indians, located at 400 Jefferson Davis Boulevard in Natchez. The village includes a small museum with artifacts from the Natchez people, and a path that wanders past several ancient mounds and a reconstructed Indian house. Admission is free to the Grand Village .

Spanish explorer Hernando De Soto led his band of cutthroats and pillagers through this region in the mid 1500s before continuing on north and west. With half his men either dead from disease or killed in their constant battles with the Indians they encountered along the way, De Soto returned to the Mississippi River just a few miles south of the chief village of the Natchez Indians. Here De Soto died from fever, and what was left of his proud army promptly dumped his body in the river and fled down the Mississippi River in crude canoes and dugouts, with the Indians in hot pursuit.

Given their first experience with white men, it is not surprising that the Natchez would be wary of the next Europeans who showed up. The French explorer LaSalle stopped at the Natchez village on his exploration of the Mississippi River, and in 1716 the French established Fort Rosalie near Natchez. For a time relations between the Indians and the French were cordial but things became strained, and in 1729 the Natchez , encouraged by the English, massacred the French at Fort Rosalie. Retribution was swift and severe, and within a year the French had killed off most of the tribe. The few survivors fled their homeland and were assimilated into the Choctaw and Creek tribes. Today the Grand Village of the Natchez Indians is a National Historic Landmark and is administered by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.

In 1763 the British seized Natchez from the French in the aftermath of the French and Indian War, but their hold would be relatively short, and by 1779 the region was under Spanish control. In 1798 Natchez became part of the United States .

In the late 1700s Natchez became the southern terminus of the Natchez Trace, an overland route that ran from the Mississippi River to present-day Nashville, Tennessee. Flatboats and keelboats would carry produce and supplies downriver to sell their wares in Natchez and New Orleans, including the boats themselves, which were dismantled and sold for lumber. Then they began the long, arduous journey back home over the Natchez Trace on foot.

During this period, the area on the riverfront known as Natchez Under-the-Hill was filled with saloons, gambling dens, and bordellos. It was here that the riverboat men would have a last fling before setting off on the long journey up the Natchez Trace. Many an unfortunate “Kaintuck” fell victim to the area’s thugs, gamblers, and prostitutes and returned home penniless after having one last fling at Under-the-Hill.

The invention of the steamboat greatly reduced traffic on the Natchez Trace, but it only helped Under-the-Hill grow in size and reputation. From the early 1800s until well into the twentieth century hundreds of steamboats docked in Natchez, and the swindlers, smugglers, thieves, and whores made a good living off the river trade. So terrible was the area’s reputation that it was well known as the rowdiest port on the Mississippi River, and one evangelist called it “the worst hell hole on earth.” Natchez ’s naughty heritage lived on until fairly recent years – the last organized bordello disappeared when Nellie Jackson’s place was burned by a drunken customer that its octogenarian Madame had turned away. The fire killed Nellie, who was loved by many in town in every strata of society.

Today Natchez Under-the-Hill is a tourist destination, where visitors come to enjoy saloons with sawdust floors and gamble at the floating Isle of Capri Casino, and pretend that they are experiencing a bit of the old rowdy Natchez. The old outlaws are all gone, but the accountants with MBAs who now run the place will be just as happy to take your money and send you away broke as their predecessors were. The “proud” heritage of Under-the-Hill’s party days are relived every June with the Steamboat Jubilee, which includes lots of fun and food, and even a Best Floozie Contest.

The rich alluvial soil on the Louisiana side of the Mississippi River was cheap and perfect for growing cotton. Natchez planters established huge plantations there. As rich as the land was, it was also a perfect breeding ground for the mosquitoes that spread malaria, and thousands of field hands were killed by the disease every year.

Natchez , on the high bluffs across the river, was cooler, healthier, and the breezes kept the mosquitoes away. So while they left their slaves and overseers to deal with disease and make them rich, the wealthy cotton planters built luxurious mansions in the city, many of which remain today as stately testament to the days when cotton was king. Several of these old homes are open for tours and give visitors the opportunity to see what life was like in a time period the likes of which we will never see again. Some of the finest examples of these mansions that remain are Dunleith, now an inn and restaurant; Rosalie, headquarters of the Union Army during the war years; elegant Stanton Hall; Auburn; and Longwood, owned by cotton mogul Haller Nutt and his wife Julia. Longwood was never finished. Nutt fell onto hard times and died during the Civil War.

Today most these homes are under private ownership or are operated by non-profit foundations, but one, Melrose, is operated by the National Park Service and a tour of the home and grounds makes an excellent morning or afternoon outing. Built by John T. McMurran in the 1840s, Melrose was the center of his extensive business operations and the McMurran family home until 1866, when the family was forced to sell it due to financial reversals that started with the Civil War.

Natchez became an import cotton shipping port and slave market. In the years just before the Civil War, more than half of the millionaires in the United Stated lived in Natchez. While many of its citizens prospered, life in Natchez was a contrast in the years before the Civil War. While the wealthy planter families lived in elegance and comfort, and the merchant class prospered, the more common people had a much less serene existence, and the slaves whose labors supported much of the community often fell ill with fever and disease brought on by living conditions that were barren at best, and sometimes harsh.

Not all of Natchez ’s well to do were white slave owners. One prominent businessman was William Johnson, born to a mulatto slave woman in 1809. At the age of eleven his white owner (who was presumed to be his father) emancipated Johnson. James Miler, a free black barber, apprenticed the boy and eventually Johnson opened his own barbershop in Natchez in 1830. He was a shrewd businessman and soon owned three barbershops and a bathhouse. Johnson owned several slaves himself, who worked in his various commercial enterprises. He was a prolific writer, documenting the everyday life of the people of Natchez, and his diaries give us a good view into his life and times.

Today William Johnson’s handsome brick home, located near the riverfront at 210 State Street, is part of the Natchez National Historical Park, and is administered by the National Park Service.

The Civil War spared Natchez for the most part, because unlike Vicksburg some 70 miles upriver, which stubbornly resisted Union forces, Natchez promptly surrendered. Following the war, the local economy took a sharp decline. Without slave labor, growing cotton was no longer profitable, and many of the rich planters went broke. Some industrious Natchez families turned their fancy homes into boarding houses to provide housing for the legions of carpetbaggers who flooded into the area at the end of the war.

These days Natchez is the best preserved antebellum town in America, and tourists come to visit the old homes, to gamble, and to shop in the many interesting local galleries and antique shops.

The days of slavery are recalled at the notorious old slave market, known as Forks of the Road, located a mile east of downtown Natchez at the junction of Liberty Road , St. Catherine Drive, and D’evereux Drive. A historical display tells of the days when thousands of enslaved human beings were traded, bought, and sold here.

There are several nearby points of interest, including the Natchez Trace, Windsor Ruins, and the Rodney ghost town. Across the Mississippi River, Ferriday , Louisiana , is home to the Delta Music Museum. Ferriday is the hometown of several notables, including pioneer television newsman Howard K. Smith, the Today Show’s Campbell Brown, World War II Flying Tiger leader General Claire Chennault, television evangelist Jimmy Swaggert, his cousin rockabilly legend Jerry Lee Lewis, and country singer Mickey Gilley. Just a couple of miles west of Ferriday is Frogmore, an 1800 acre working cotton plantation, complete with cotton gins, slave row and outbuildings.

The Natchez Visitor Reception Center, on Canal Street just before the bridge that carries US Highways 65 and 84 across the Mississippi River, is a good place to start your visit to Natchez. Here you can pick up all sorts of helpful information on the city and local events, book a tour of the city, and watch a video about the history of Natchez. The Visitor Center has a large parking lot capable of accommodating any size RV, and a free dump station.

Natchez has several very nice walking tours, and the park overlooking the river and Under-the-Hill is a great place to picnic and enjoy the views while you watch the river traffic pass by far below. The historic Natchez Cemetery has gravestones dating back over 150 years.

There is a lot to see and do in Natchez, and any time of year is good for a visit. When you do visit, allow yourself several days to take in all that this friendly and historic city has to offer.