At milepost 128.4 of the Natchez Trace Parkway, the National Park Service marks a line of trees crossing the road as part of the boundary set by the Treaty of Doak's Stand, concluded on October 18, 1820. Andrew Jackson and Thomas Hinds negotiated it for the United States, and the Choctaw ceded more than five million acres in exchange for a tract west of the Mississippi between the Arkansas and Red Rivers. The treaty describes the line in woodsman's terms: from White Oak Spring on the old Indian path, north to a black oak on the Natchez road about forty poles, or 660 feet, east of Doak's fence, marked A. J. and blazed, with two large pines and a black oak as pointers.
Doak's Stand, the inn that gave the treaty its name, stood on the old Natchez Trace about five miles north of the parkway at the boundary marker. In October 1812 William Doak was recommended to keep a stand in the Choctaw Nation, and in 1820 a traveler was told that scarcely five nights a year passed without guests, with as many as 80 at once. The treaty ground lay about half a mile below the stand.
Jackson left Nashville on September 14, 1820 and arrived two weeks later. Pushmataha and Puckshenubbee were among the chiefs present, and Lieutenant William M. Graham with 17 soldiers represented the Army. Ten years later, at Dancing Rabbit Creek, the Choctaw ceded all their remaining land in Mississippi.
Getting there
32.6432, -89.7973
Locations are approximate and may be inaccurate, on private land, or otherwise inaccessible. Check before you travel.
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