Natchez, Mississippi

Established by French colonists in 1716, Natchez is one of the oldest and most important European settlements in the lower Mississippi River Valley. After the French lost the French and Indian War (Seven Years' War), they ceded Natchez and the surrounding territory to Great Britain in the Treaty of Paris of 1763. (It later traded other territory east of the Mississippi River with Great Britain, which expanded what it called West Florida.) The British Crown bestowed land grants in this territory to officers who had served with distinction in the war. These officers came mostly from the colonies of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. They established plantations and brought their upper-class lifestyle to the area.

Beginning in 1779, the area was under Spanish colonial rule. After defeat in the American Revolutionary War, Great Britain ceded the territory to the United States under the terms of the Treaty of Paris (1783). Spain was not a party to the treaty, and it was their forces who had taken Natchez from British troops. Although Spain had been allied with the American colonists, it was more interested in advancing its power at Britain's expense. Once the war was over, they were not inclined to give up that which they had acquired by force.

In 1797, Major Andrew Ellicott of the United States marched to the highest ridge in the young town of Natchez, set up camp, and raised the first American flag, claiming Natchez and all former Spanish lands east of the Mississippi above the 31st parallel for the United States.

After the United States acquired this area from the Spanish, the city served as the capital of the Mississippi Territory and then of the state of Mississippi. It predates Jackson by more than a century; the latter replaced Natchez as the capital in 1822, as it was more centrally located in the developing state. The strategic location of Natchez, on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River, ensured that it would be a pivotal center of trade, commerce, and the interchange of ethnic Native American, European, and African cultures in the region; it held this position for two centuries after its founding.

In U.S. history, Natchez is recognized particularly for its role in the development of the Old Southwest during the first half of the 19th century. It was the southern terminus of the historic Natchez Trace, with the northern terminus being Nashville, Tennessee. After unloading their cargoes in Natchez or New Orleans, many pilots and crew of flatboats and keelboats traveled by the Trace overland to their homes in the Ohio River Valley. (Given the strong current of the Mississippi River, it was not until steam-powered vessels were developed in the 1820s that travel northward on the river could be accomplished by large boats.) The Natchez Trace also played an important role during the War of 1812. Today, the modern Natchez Trace Parkway, which commemorates this route, still has its southern terminus in Natchez.

In the decades preceding the Civil War, Natchez was by far the most infamous slave-trading city in Mississippi, and second in the United States only to New Orleans.^[5] The leading markets were located at the Forks of the Road, at the intersection of Liberty Road and Washington Road (now D'Evereux Drive and St. Catherine Street). In 1833, the most active enslavers in the United States, John Armfield and Isaac Franklin, began a program of arbitrage by buying enslaved people at low prices in the Middle Atlantic area and sending thousands to Deep South markets in Natchez and New Orleans. Their company, Franklin and Armfield, sent annual coffles from Virginia to the Forks of the Road in Natchez, and shipped others through New Orleans. Unlike other sellers of enslaved people of the day, Franklin and Armfield sold people individually, allowing buyers to survey them much like items in a modern retail store.^[6]

In 1840, the city was struck by a devastating tornado that killed 317 people and injured 109. It ranks today as the second-deadliest tornado in U.S. history, although the death toll may be higher because the deaths of enslaved people were not counted in the South at that time.

In the middle of the nineteenth century, the city attracted wealthy Southern planters as residents, who built mansions to fit their ambitions. Their plantations were vast tracts of land in the surrounding lowlands along the riverfronts of Mississippi and Louisiana, where they grew large commodity crops of cotton and sugarcane using the labor of enslaved people. Natchez became the principal port from which these crops were exported, both upriver to Northern cities and downriver to New Orleans, where much of the cargo was exported to Europe. Many of the mansions built by planters before 1860 survive and form a major part of the city's architecture and identity. Agriculture remained the primary economic base for the region until well into the twentieth century.

During the American Civil War, Natchez was surrendered by Confederate forces without a fight in September 1862. Following the Union victory at the Battle of Vicksburg in July 1863, many refugees, including formerly enslaved people, freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, began moving into Natchez and the surrounding countryside. The Union Army officers claimed to be short on resources and unable to provide for the refugees. The Army planned to address the situation with a mixture of paid labor for formerly enslaved people on government-leased plantations, the enlistment of non-disabled males who were willing to fight in the Union Army, and the establishment of refugee camps where formerly enslaved people could be provided with education. However, as the war continued, the plan was never effectively implemented, and the leased plantations were crowded, poorly managed, and frequently raided by Confederate troops who controlled the surrounding territory. Hundreds of people living in Natchez, including many formerly enslaved people and refugees, died of hunger, disease, overwork, or were killed in the fighting during this period.^[7] To attempt to manage the tens of thousands of formerly enslaved Black people, the Union Army created a refugee camp in Natchez in a natural pit known as the Devil's Punchbowl, where thousands died of starvation, smallpox, and other diseases.^{[unreliable source?][8][9]}

After the American Civil War, the city's economy rapidly revived, largely because Natchez had been spared the destruction visited upon many other parts of the South. From 1870 to 1871, Robert H. Wood served as Mayor of Natchez; he was one of only five African Americans to serve as mayor during the Reconstruction era and one of the first black mayors in the country.^[10][11][12] Natchez was also home to politicians Hiram Rhodes Revels and John R. Lynch, both African Americans.

The municipality regulated transportation and commerce with Vidalia, Louisiana, by setting tariffs on goods and fares for the ferry, even providing a monthly rate for schoolchildren.^[13]

The vitality of the city and region was most vividly captured in the 80 years or so following the war by the photographers Henry C. Norman and his son, Earl. The output of the Norman Studio between roughly 1870 and 1950 vividly documents this period in Natchez's development; the photographs are now preserved as the Thomas and Joan Gandy Collection in the special collections of the Louisiana State University library in Baton Rouge.

During the twentieth century, the city's economy experienced a downturn, first due to the replacement of steamboat traffic on the Mississippi River by railroads in the early 1900s, some of which bypassed the river cities and drew away their commerce. Later in the 20th century, many local industries closed in a restructuring that sharply reduced the number of jobs in the area. Despite its status as a popular destination for heritage tourism due to its well-preserved antebellum architecture, Natchez has experienced a general population decline since 1960. It remains the principal city of the Natchez micropolitan area.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 13.9 square miles (36 km²), of which 13.2 square miles (34 km²) are land and 0.6 square miles (1.6 km²) (4.62%) is water. The physical characteristics that control land use within the municipality are the natural drains, which locals call 'bayous', and the network of deep ravines across the landscape.^[14] The elevation of the Mississippi River at Natchez is approximately 46 feet, and the river gauge reference point for Natchez is 17.28 feet.^[15][16] The Natchez bluffs are composed of strata that might indicate a later geological event that cut a trench into the bluffs depositing a soil variation.^[17]

Adams County Correctional Center, a private prison operated by the Corrections Corporation of America on behalf of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, is in an unincorporated area in Adams County, near Natchez.^[29]

Natchez is home to Alcorn State University's Natchez Campus, which offers the School of Nursing, the School of Business, and graduate business programs. The School of Business offers a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree and other business classes from its Natchez campus. The MBA program attracts students from a wide range of academic disciplines and preparation from the Southwest Mississippi area and beyond offering concentrations in general business, gaming management and hospitality management.^[30] Both schools in the Natchez campus provide skills which has enabled community students to have an important impact on the economic opportunities of people in Southwest Mississippi.^[31]

Copiah-Lincoln Community College also operates a campus in Natchez.^[32] Adams County is in the district of Copiah–Lincoln Community College and has been since 1971.^[33]

The city of Natchez and Adams County are in the boundary of one public school system, the Natchez-Adams School District.^[34] The district comprises ten schools. They are Susie B. West, Morgantown, Gilmer McLaurin, Joseph F. Frazier, Robert Lewis Magnet School, Natchez Freshman Academy, Natchez Early College@Co-Lin, Central Alternative School, Natchez High School, and Fallin Career and Technology Center.

In Natchez, there are some private and parochial schools. Adams County Christian School (ACCS) is also a PK-12 school in the city. Adams County Christian School was founded as a segregation academy^[35] and is a member of the Mississippi Association of Independent Schools (MAIS). Cathedral School is also a PK-12 school in the city. It is affiliated with the Roman Catholic St. Mary Basilica. Holy Family Catholic School, founded in 1890, is a PK-3 school affiliated with Holy Family Catholic Church.

Various movies have been shot here, including The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1974), Crossroads (1986), Raintree County (1957), Horse Soldiers (1959),^[43] Rascals and Robbers: The Secret Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn (1981),^[44] The Ladykillers (2004),^[45] Get On Up (2014)^[46] and Ma (film) (2019).

In the opening narration of The Apartment (1960), C.C. Baxter mentions the company he works for "has 31,259 employees, which is more than the entire population of Natchez, Mississippi."

Ta-Nehisi Coates' 2019 novel, The Water Dancer, alludes constantly to the threat, in antebellum Virginia, represented to enslaved people by the possibility of being sold "down Natchez way," that is, into the harshest slavery.

Natchez (2025), directed by Suzannah Herbert, is a documentary that explores the unreconciled history of the city by following the lives of various people living and working in Natchez.