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From: "Helen Fazio" <>
Subject: [GM] Southern Frontier
Date: Thu, 3 Oct 2002 13:04:12 -0500


A Way Through the Wilderness: The Natchex Trace and the Civilization of the Southern Frontier, William C. Davis, 1946, 1995, 1996. Illustrated softcover, 6x9, 381 pages, maps, illustrations, end notes, bibliography, index - This is a new book in new book condition; a wonderful book that I also have in my own personal library. Per the back cover:

"A Way Throught the Wilderness is a spirited history of the settlement of the Old Southwest, the area that today includes primarily Mississippi and Alabama. William C. Davis recounts the southward journey made by pioneers from the end of the revolutionary War through the 1830s along the most traveled course through that vast wilderness. A path teeming with adversity and hazards, it was a trail from Nashville to Natchez that became known as the Natchez Trace. Davis desctibes the difficulties travelers ebcountered on the Trace as well as the struggles and everyday experiences of the settlers, making a significant contribution to our understanding of this region and the people who inhabited it.

Davis adopts a soaring narrative voice that is seldom heard in the halls of academe, and he delights in the well-documented anecdote that often reads like a wild yarn told by a grizzled baotman around a campfire. And, almost incidentally, Davis succeeds in debunking much of what we think we know about the frontier.:

Another review states: "This is lively history, replete with colorful characters...Davis leaves no doubt that the Southern Frontier was just as wild as the Wild West."

Just the sheer building - actually cutting a way through the wilderness to form a path, hardly a road, was an overwhelming accomplishment! There were dense forests, swamps, Indians, cutthroat highwaymen, wild animals, total darkness, insects galore - a trek that only the most
courageous attempted. Over this trace, came the pioneer adventurers seeking new land; troops of soldiers moving to the south to counterattack the Indian threats; northern boatmen who had ferried their crops to New Orleans, sold their boats for the wood, and walked their way home - many never to reach it. Along this trail lurked those wanting to part the unwary from their money and their valuables, and killing their victims to do it. Panthers, bears, 'gators were always on the lookout for something weaker than themselves to eat. The Indians a constant threat. If you have ever stood on a part of the old trace, worn down 12-15 feet beneath ground lever by the horses, wagons and feet of those who trod there two hundred years ago, one is filled with a sense of awe at the realization of what ancestors endured. I cannot recommend this book enough!

$21 media mail postage paid

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