Brierfield Plantation, Plantation in Mississippi, US
Brierfield Plantation is a former cotton plantation on Davis Island in Warren County, Mississippi, along the Mississippi River, roughly 20 miles (32 km) south of Vicksburg. The main house was built in 1845 and burned down in 1931, and the land today is a private hunting reserve.
Joseph Davis bought the land at Davis Bend in 1818 and gave part of it to his younger brother Jefferson Davis without ever formally signing over the deed. Jefferson only received clear legal ownership in 1881 after years of disputes that followed the Civil War and a period when the land was managed by Benjamin Montgomery, a formerly enslaved man.
After the Civil War, Davis Bend became one of the first self-governed Black communities in the country. Benjamin Montgomery and his son Isaiah built a settlement with its own courts and schools, which stood as a model for other freed people trying to build independent lives.
Davis Island is private property today and is not open to the public. Those interested in the history of the site can learn more at nearby museums and archives in Vicksburg, which hold records and exhibits related to the Civil War and the Davis family.
The Mississippi River gradually shifted its course and eroded the neck of land connecting Davis Bend to the shore, turning what was once a peninsula into an island. Today the land is divided among a handful of exclusive hunting clubs, with shares that can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
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