What happened at Forks of the Road in Natchez Mississippi?
Once long forgotten by many outside the region, Forks of the Road was where tens of thousands of enslaved men, women and children were taken to work in homes and plantations. The domestic slave trade was such a central feature of the nation’s economy, and it made millionaires out of many Natchez residents.
What happened at Forks of the Road?
The slave market operated from 1833 until the arrival of Federal troops on July 13, 1863. In the fall of that year, members of the 12th Wisconsin Infantry, stationed in Natchez, were given orders to tear down the slave pens at the Forks of the Road.
What was Forks of the Road and what happened to them?
–For the 30 years it existed in the 1800s, Forks of the Road was where white dealers sold black slaves unloaded from riverboats docked at Natchez-Under-the-Hill and herded down St. Catherine Street to what was then the town’s outskirts, according to historical accounts.
Where were the forks of the road used for?
Catherine Street housed Natchez’s slave market after an 1833 city ordinance prohibiting the sale of slaves within Natchez’s city limits. The markets were moved to the eastern corporation line, to what became infamous as the Forks of the Road.
What was Forks of the Road slavery?
Slave sales at Natchez were held in a number of locations, but one market place soon eclipsed the others in the number of sales. This was the market known as “The Forks of the Road,” located at the busy intersection of Liberty Road and Washington Road about one mile east of downtown Natchez.
How many slaves were in Mississippi?
Slavery grew rapidly in Mississippi during the decades before the Civil War. By 1860, its enslaved population was well over 430,000 while there were only 350,000 White people in the state. Yet, most White people were not slaveholders and even those who were — other than plantation owners — enslaved fewer than ten.
Who were the Natchez descendants of?
The Natchez tribe was defeated by the French in the early 1700’s, and the survivors scattered. People of Natchez descent live in many different places today, but most of them live among the Chickasaw, Creek and Cherokee tribes of Oklahoma. Those three tribes absorbed many Natchez refugees.
Why is Natchez Mississippi significant and what is the forks in the road?
Situated about 1 mile east of downtown Natchez, “Forks of the Road” emerged as a top slave trading market during the 1830s and 1840s, with thousands of men and women sold into servitude during the period. “First, it would be one of the first interpretive sites dedicated to the interstate slave trade.
Why was Natchez not burned?
Gen. Ulysses S. Grant–during what locals often still call “The Great War”–didn’t think much of the strategic value of this little river town. So he spared Natchez the devastation he wrought on upriver Vicksburg and preserved its reputation as the oldest and most beautiful settlement on the Mississippi.
What to see at the forks of the road?
The Forks of the Road site was one of the largest slave market in the United States. Today, visitors will find information panels discussing the slave trade in Natchez and around the South, as well as slave chains laid in concrete.
When did the forks of the road slave market close?
The Forks of the Road was a slave market but slave auctions were not conducted on the site as the area acted much more like a slave store than an auction house. The slave market operated until shut down by Union troops and apparently demolished in 1863.
How was the slave market in Natchez described?
The slave market was never architecturally imposing, described by Joseph Holt Ingraham in 1834 as “a cluster of rough wooden buildings, in the angle of two roads,” with “a wide gate” leading into a narrow courtyard, “partially enclosed by low buildings.”