Tennessee-Alabama state line
Natchez Trace

In 1663 King Charles II of England granted the colony of Carolina all land between 31 and 36 degrees north latitude from the Atlantic Ocean west in a direct line as far as the South Seas. The separation of North and South Carolina fixed the boundary between them at 35 degrees in 1735. North Carolina's release of land claims west of the Appalachian Mountains permitted establishment of the state of Tennessee with the same southern boundary. John Coffee, one of Andrew Jackson's generals at the Battle of New Orleans, supervised the surveys of the line between 1817 and 1822.