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46-647: The Mississippi Free Trader was a newspaper in Natchez, Mississippi , United States that was published from August 4, 1835 until 1861. According to the Historical Records Survey it is distinct from the Mississippi Free Trader and Natchez Gazette that published from 1835 until 1851, but the Library of Congress considers them related publications. J. F. H. Claiborne , known for his Mississippi histories,

92-733: 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. 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 Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree and other business classes from its Natchez campus. The MBA program attracts students from

138-719: A campus in Natchez. Adams County is in the district of Copiah–Lincoln Community College and has been since 1971. The city of Natchez and Adams County are in the boundary of one public school system, the Natchez-Adams School District . 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

184-552: A general decline in population 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 km ), of which 13.2 square miles (34 km ) are land and 0.6 square miles (1.6 km ) (4.62%) is water. Natchez has a humid subtropical climate ( Cfa ) under the Köppen climate classification system. As of

230-552: A number of 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 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,

276-463: 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

322-488: 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. 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. Copiah-Lincoln Community College also operates

368-660: Is a PK-3 school affiliated with Holy Family Catholic Church. Natchez is amid the Alexandria, Louisiana and Jackson, Mississippi television markets. U.S. 61 runs north–south, parallel to the Mississippi River, linking Natchez with Port Gibson , Woodville , Mississippi and Baton Rouge , Louisiana . U.S. 84 runs east–west and bridges the Mississippi, connecting it with Vidalia , Louisiana and Brookhaven , Mississippi . U.S. 425 runs north from Natchez after crossing

414-593: Is sometimes instead considered part of the US Atlantic Midland . By the late 1840s, following the Mexican–American War , the term American Southwest referred mainly to the southern portion of the Mexican Cession . The region's climate and soils favored commodity agriculture over industrial development. Industrialization around the world made processing raw goods easier, and after the invention of

460-580: Is the 28th-largest city in the state. The city was named for the Natchez people , who with their ancestors, inhabited much of the area from the 8th century AD through the French colonial period. 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 near territory to Great Britain in

506-609: The 1790 census there were over 100,000 American settler-colonists in Kentucky and Tennessee alone, and by the 1800 census there were about 400,000 Americans in this region (including enslaved people). Members of Indigenous Nations were not US citizens until the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 and thus were not counted in the census. The US waged several wars of extermination against the Indigenous people of this region, including

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552-561: The Battle of Vicksburg in July 1863, many refugees, including former slaves, 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 freed slaves on government leased plantations,

598-502: The Cherokee , Chickasaw , Choctaw , Creek , Seminole as well as the Shawnee . The European empires of Spain , France , and Great Britain competed with one another for monopolies on resource extraction and the allegiance of Native leaders in this region. In 1763, following the French and Indian War , France made peace with Great Britain and surrendered all its territorial claims east of

644-649: The Cherokee wars , the Creek War , and the Seminole Wars . Following the Indian Removal Act of 1830, the American Indian Nations of this region were all but annihilated, surviving mainly in isolated rural pockets of land that were often unsuitable for agriculture and thus of little value to American settler-colonists. The only federally recognized American Indian groups in this region in the 21st century are

690-585: The Commonwealth of Kentucky in 1792. Settlers in portions of North Carolina's western claims briefly attempted to organize as the state of Franklin in the 1780s. In 1790, all of North Carolina west of the Appalachians was organized as the Southwest Territory , and in 1796 this territory joined the union as the state of Tennessee. In the same decade, Georgia politicians conspired to sell off western land in

736-825: The Mississippi Choctaw , the Poarch Band Creek in Alabama, and the Seminoles and Miccosukee in Florida. Their combined population was approximately 18,000 in 2020—over 11,000 of which were Mississippi Choctaw. Following the 1803 Louisiana Purchase , this region and the Old South gradually came to be collectively known as the Southeast , although the northeast portion of the Old South

782-893: The Mississippi River . That same year, the Royal Proclamation of 1763 set the western border of the American colonies at the Appalachian mountains , but many settlers defied the order and occupied parts of the territory. After the American Revolutionary War , in the Treaty of Paris of 1783 , Britain ceded most of its North American territory to the United States, while Spain, a U.S. ally, took over in West and East Florida . In 1787

828-437: 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 style of living to

874-702: The United States Congress organized the Northwest Territory and established rules for founding new states, but the Old Southwest proved more difficult to manage. As was the case with the Northwest Territory, the states to the east each claimed overlapping territory extending to the Mississippi River. Settler colonialists in Virginia's western territory separated in 1790 and entered the union as

920-669: 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 prevalent slave trading city in Mississippi, and second in the United States only to New Orleans. 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,

966-592: The Yazoo land scandal . After this, the state relinquished its western claims to the federal government in 1802, in exchange for a promise to acquire all property belonging to Indians in Georgia. The federal government organized this acquisition as the Mississippi Territory , which was eventually divided and joined the union as Mississippi in 1817 and Alabama in 1819. The Spanish province of West Florida extended along

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1012-401: The census of 2020, there were 14,520 people, 6,028 households, and 3,149 families residing in the city. As of the census of 2000, there were 18,464 people, 7,591 households, and 4,858 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,398.3 inhabitants per square mile (539.9/km ). There were 8,479 housing units at an average density of 642.1 per square mile (247.9/km ). In 2000,

1058-561: 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 documents this period in Natchez's development vividly; the photographs are now preserved as the Thomas and Joan Gandy Collection in special collections of the library of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. During the twentieth century,

1104-640: The Gulf Coast from the Mississippi River to the Apalachicola River . American incursions between 1811 and 1818 gradually absorbed most of West Florida. American troops annexed the port of Mobile in 1813, then occupied Pensacola . In 1819 Spain ceded all its Florida land to the United States. Despite the Proclamation of 1763 prohibiting Anglo-American settlement in this region until the Treaty of Paris in 1783, by

1150-423: The Mississippi, connecting Ferriday with Clayton , at which point U.S. 65 follows the west bank of the Mississippi, connecting to Waterproof north to St. Joseph , Newellton , and Tallulah , Louisiana . U.S. 98 runs east from Natchez towards Bude and McComb , Mississippi . Mississippi 555 runs north from the center of Natchez to where it joins Mississippi Highway 554. Mississippi 554 runs from

1196-550: The Old Southwest as bounded by the Mississippi River to the west, the Ohio , its tributary, to the north, the body of water these rivers flow into—the Gulf of Mexico —to the south, and to the east, the western boundaries of Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia. Much of northern, western, and southern Georgia is part of the Old Southwest, as the state did not grow into its modern boundaries until 1827. Historians usually include West Florida in

1242-415: The Old Southwest, but the peninsula of Florida, or East Florida , is often excluded. The Apalachicola River was the boundary between West Florida and East Florida until 1820. The Florida Parishes of Louisiana, lying east of the Mississippi, are part of the Old Southwest. The Old Southwest includes the homelands of numerous American Indian nations, including the five so-called " Five Civilized Tribes ,"

1288-581: 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 river fronts of Mississippi and Louisiana, where they grew large commodity crops of cotton and sugarcane using slave labor . Natchez became the principal port from which these crops were exported, both upriver to Northern cities and downriver to New Orleans, where much of

1334-474: The South. From 1870 to 1871, Robert H. Wood served as Mayor of Natchez; he was the one of only five African Americans to serve as mayor during the Reconstruction-era, and he was one of the first black mayors in the entire country. Natchez was also home to politicians Hiram Rhodes Revels and John R. Lynch , both African Americans. The vitality of the city and region was captured most significantly in

1380-472: 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

1426-506: The area. Beginning 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, they were more interested in advancing their power at

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1472-570: 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

1518-486: 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 because of well-preserved antebellum architecture , Natchez has had

1564-426: 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 slaves by the possibility of being sold "down Natchez way," that is, into harshest slavery. Old Southwest After numerous wars and an ethnic cleansing campaign , this region

1610-399: The day, Franklin and Armfield sold slaves individually, with the buyers allowed to survey the people much like items in a modern retail store. 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 due to slave deaths not traditionally being counted in

1656-574: The enlistment of able-bodied males who were willing to fight in the Union Army and the establishment of refugee camps where former slaves 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 former slaves and refugees, died of hunger, disease, overwork or were killed in

1702-404: The expense of Britain. 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

1748-532: The fighting during this period. In order to manage the tens of thousands of freed Black slaves, 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. After the American Civil War, the city's economy rapidly revived, mostly due to Natchez having been spared the destruction visited upon many other parts of

1794-571: The most active slavers in the United States, John Armfield and Isaac Franklin began a program of arbitraging low slave prices in the Middle Atlantic area by sending thousands of slaves to Deep South markets in Natchez and New Orleans. Their company, Franklin and Armfield sent an annual caravan of slaves, called a coffle, from Virginia to the Forks of the Road in Natchez, as well as sending others by ship through New Orleans. Unlike other slave sellers of

1840-577: The north side of the city to where it joins Highway 61, northeast of town. Natchez is served by the Natchez Railway, which interchanges with Canadian National . Natchez is served by the Natchez-Adams County Airport , a general aviation facility. The nearest airports with commercial service are Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport , 85 miles (137 km) to the south via US 61 and Alexandria International Airport , 82 miles (132 km) to

1886-595: 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

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1932-577: The racial and ethnic makeup of the city was 54.49% African American , 44.18% White , 0.38% Asian , 0.11% Native American , 0.02% Pacific Islander , 0.18% from other races , and 0.63% from two or more races. 0.70% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. Since then, with the publication of the 2020 census, its racial and ethnic makeup was 60.12% African American, 35.51% non-Hispanic white, 0.11% Native American, 0.5% Asian, 0.01% Pacific Islander, 2.36% other or mixed, and 1.38% Hispanic or Latino of any race. Adams County Correctional Center ,

1978-453: The west via US 84 to LA-28W. Various movies have been shot here, including The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1974), Crossroads (1986), Raintree County (1957), Horse Soldiers (1959), Rascals and Robbers: The Secret Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn (1981), The Ladykillers (2004), Get On Up (2014) and Ma (film) (2019). In the opening narration of The Apartment (1960), C.C. Baxter mentions

2024-415: Was 14,520 at the 2020 census . Located on the Mississippi River across from Vidalia, Louisiana , Natchez was a prominent city in the antebellum years , a center of cotton planters and Mississippi River trade. Natchez is approximately 90 miles (140 km) southwest of the capital of Jackson and 85 miles (137 km) north of Baton Rouge, Louisiana , located on the lower Mississippi River. Natchez

2070-535: Was editor at one time. The Free Trader was associated with the Democratic Party during the Second Party System era. This article about a Mississippi newspaper is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Natchez, Mississippi Natchez ( / ˈ n æ tʃ ɪ z / NATCH -iz ) is the only city in and the county seat of Adams County, Mississippi , United States. The population

2116-638: Was eventually divided among six states that joined the union as Kentucky , Tennessee , Mississippi , Alabama , West Virginia and Florida . The portions of Georgia furthest from South Carolina and the Atlantic are usually considered part of this region. Conversely, the Florida peninsula (i.e. not including the Florida Panhandle ) and the Appalachian portions of Tennessee and Kentucky are not always considered part of this region. Historians usually describe

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