Natchez Trace Parkway presents Native American history
A cultural anthropologist and tribal liaison hosted a presentation about some of the 25 tribal nations associated with the Natchez Trace.
NATCHEZ TRACE PARKWAY, Miss. (WCBI) – The Natchez Trace Parkway is not just a place where one gets stuck behind slow traffic, it is a historic natural travel corridor that has been used for thousands of years.
Commissioned as a national park in 1938, the trace was traveled, and occupied by thriving tribal nations for 10,000 years.
Many tribal nations even helped build the road and established thriving economies along the trace.
But the relationship between indigenous people and the Natchez Trace is not just ancient history, tribal nations still play a critical role in protecting the lands, and cultural sites along the trace.
The Parkway’s tribal liaison and cultural anthropologist, Cheyenne Bennett, hosted a presentation about some of the 25 tribal nations associated with the Parkway’s lands.
“One of the things I hear often is that they (native people) feel invisible, that people don’t know that they exist,” ” Bennet said. “So the fact that the parkway even hired me and that they have a platform for me to stand here and talk about them is amazing.”
The Natchez Trace is a unique national park said Amber DeBardelaben, the lead interpretation ranger at the Natchez Trace Parkway visitor center.
“The cool thing about the Natchez Trace is that a lot of people have daily contact with the Trace,” DeBardelaben said. “So they grow up with it being part of their lives, and that’s really unique to this park because it stretches across so much of Mississippi.”
Bennett described why she is passionate about sharing the stories of Native Americans.
“One of the very first meetings I went to involved sitting and listening to some tribal nations crying and talking about their experiences where their ancestors may have been removed in the past,” Bennet said. “And seeing how that impacted them made me really want to do my job and to really help work with them and to make sure their voices are heard.”
DeBardelaben said it surprises people that the first people to use the Trace were indigenous.
“The first people to use the trails that became the old Natchez Trace were actually the indigenous people in Mississippi,” DeBardelaben said. “It surprised quite a few people so we wanted to get that word out there.”
Kevin Steele, an attendee, said that he is going to be more aware of history after the presentation.
“What she said about the Trail of Tears and how many Americans tend to just lump all of the removals together as one big event,” Steele said. “I’m going to try to be more aware of that and how each one (tribal nation) has their own individual tragic history. It’s not just one conglomerated history that can be interchangeably used for all of them.”
Bennett shared what she hopes people take away from the presentation.
“Native people are still alive, that they are not extinct,” Bennet said. “Hopefully Americans can move away from stereotypes about native peoples and and just know that they’re here, and they’re not going anywhere.”
The Natchez Trace Parkway stretches 444 miles through three states.
For more events or information about the Trace, visit the Natchez Trace Parkway website and Facebook page.
