On July 9 we traveled the Natchez Trace beginning in Tupelo, Mississippi, crossing into Alabama for a short section, and ending in Tennessee. The Trace was a natural corridor for centuries- both for animal migration and human travel. It went through the homelands of the Natchez, Chickasaw, and Choctow nations. With the westward expansion, these nations were pushed out with the familiar tragic stories of that time period. The Trace hit its heyday in the early 1800s. It was a national post road and was often traveled by Kaintucks--those who floated goods down the Mississippi River and then walked back. If you walked the Trace you had to watch out for robbers, snakes, mosquitoes, and mud.
One of our first stops was at the Pharr Mounds. These peoples were part of the Hopewellian trade culture. This was an interesting connection to the Hopewell Mounds we saw in Ohio last year.
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