Wholesale Death Along the Natchez Trace

The Natchez Trace is the “Path of Nations,” a 450-mile-long game trail stamped into the earth by primeval bison. Once the domain of the Natchez, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek and Cherokee tribes, the Trace nurtured these groups, but it was also watered with the blood of tribesmen long before any white man trod on it. European settlers eventually used the path to navigate between the backwoods Cumberland settlements and the cosmopolitan city of Natchez, with Spanish gold clinking in the seams of their clothes and wads of tough jerky turning in their cheeks. Today, the Natchez Trace stands as one of the prettiest and most history-soaked pathways in the United States. Join authors Ryan Starrett and Josh Foreman as they look at the myriad ways people have lived and died along it.