Claiborne and Jefferson counties lie along the Mississippi River between Vicksburg and Natchez. They are now two of the state's poorest, most heavily African-American, and most sparsely populated counties, but back in the Antebellum era they were among the wealthiest plantation areas in the state, big spreads owned by dandies who spent much of their time in more urbane and less malarial Natchez while prospering off the toil of the huge workforce they owned. The area is now a complete backwater, like a place left back in time. It doesn’t get more Deep South than this!

Port Gibson is Claiborne County’s courthouse town and is known for its handsome antebellum county courthouse, churches, inns, and even a synagogue used by local Jewish merchant population that lived in the town during its heyday but has since moved . A few miles outside of town on a twisty road through the woods are two other local sites, Rosewood Plantation and the ruins of Windsor Plantation. Windsor is something thoroughly Southern Gothic, like a scene out of an Ann Rice novel, a set of Corinthian pillars in a green field surrounded by a moss draped forest that is all that remains of a once grand plantation house.

Part of the distance south to Natchez I traveled on the Natchez Trace, a scenic parkway that runs from near Nashville to Natchez that’s part of the National Park system similar to the more famous Blue Ridge Parkway. It follows trails (trace) used by Indians and then early settlers past several interpretive sites, and although not scenic in the way of the Blue Ridge Parkway, it’s a way of traveling through forested and farm countryside without seeing all the cookie-cutter modern blight and traffic signals along more standard thoroughfares. One such site along the parkway north of Natchez is Emerald Mound, the second largest known ceremonial mound built by ancient Indians that is 70 feet tall and covers several acres.