What Happened to Jefferson and Joseph Davis’ Plantations and Their Mississippi Slaves?

The Plantations

Brierfield was the plantation home of Jefferson Davis located on “Davis Bend” along the Mississippi River in Warren County, Mississippi, about 20 miles south of Vicksburg. Davis’ oldest brother, Joseph, acquired approximately 6,900 acres in the choice western and southern portions of the 11,000-acre peninsula, including the river frontage, in 1818. Joseph Davis gifted to his brother approximately 2,320 acres in 1835 (adjacent to his plantation- Hurricane), but never gave Jefferson a deed, which later caused legal problems.

In 1845, Jefferson erected a large frame house on the property that was home to himself, his second wife (Varina), their children, as well as his widowed sister and other relatives. Enslaved people cleared the property, constructed a home and other buildings, and cultivated cotton over the coming years. In 1859, Mississippi River flooding inundated the Davis peninsula with resultant narrowing of the peninsula’s neck.

In 1862 Joseph Davis and his wife, Eliza, left Hurricane leaving the slaves to fend for themselves. Ironically for Davis, his over three hundred slaves thrived without him, and kept the plantation fully operational. On June 24, 1862, Union soldiers advancing toward Vicksburg made a night landing on Davis Bend, and General Peter Osterhaus ordered the burning of Joseph Davis’s Hurricane plantation home, destroying the mansion and its contents. Although Union forces visited Brierfield, they did not set fire to it. Prior to the raid, Jefferson Davis’s parlor furniture, books, and family correspondence had been taken to Joseph Davis’s inland farms for safekeeping. During General Ulysses S. Grant’s initial thrust for Vicksburg from Memphis early in 1863, Rear Admiral David G. Farragut had assisted Grant by steaming upriver from the south. On Farragut’s approach, the fleet made a landing at Davis Bend in May, and sailors from the fleet were allowed on shore and ransacked Brierfield. Everything of value was either carried away or destroyed. A Vicksburg newspaper reported on July 1, 1863, that Yankees had rifled Brierfield, destroyed all farming implements, as well as household and kitchen furniture, and had defaced the premises. The house at Brierfield was used at various times as a Union field headquarters, a hospital, and a supply house for Union troops. After the war the Union Army took control of Brierfield and Hurricane for use by the Freedmen’s Bureau. In 1867, the surging river burst through crumbling banks, changing its course, and as a result Davis Bend became Davis Island, with the neck being completely eroded away.

**A newspaper map showing Davis Neck in 1965**

Joseph Davis, who had never given Jefferson Davis title to the property, negotiated its sale after the war to Benjamin Montgomery, his plantation manager, bequeathing the income from the mortgage, but not the real estate, to Jefferson in his will. The Montgomery family defaulted on the mortgage after Joseph’s death and the property reverted to his estate. The heirs to Joseph Davis’ Hurricane plantation (his grandchildren by an acknowledged illegitimate daughter) claimed ownership of the reverted Brierfield as well, a claim disputed by Jefferson Davis, resulting in a lengthy lawsuit that was ultimately decided in Jefferson Davis’ favor in 1881, giving him undisputed title to the Brierfield property for the first time, more than forty years after he first settled on the plantation. After the war Jefferson attempted unsuccessfully to make Brierfield profitable again. He was living there in the fall of 1889, when he developed pneumonia, and was transported to New Orleans by riverboat to receive medical attention. He died there a few weeks later. The house was destroyed by fire in 1931. A drainage canal converted what had been a peninsula jutting into the Mississippi River into an island. The surviving heirs of Jefferson Davis conveyed Brierfield in 1953 to two private individuals who then sold it in 1954 to new owners who made it a private hunting reserve (32.1554014, -91.1247555).

**The Brierfield Ruins at the Hunting Club**

In response to the 1927 flood on the Mississippi River, the Army Corps of Engineers constructed massive levees on both sides of the river, but deemed Davis Island too small and insignificant to barricade.

The Slaves

In the summer of 1863 when General Ulysses S. Grant’s forces began menacing Vicksburg, only a few miles from Davis’ property, Union troops attacked the Davis plantation directly. They spared the Davis mansion, but 137 slaves escaped to a Union camp at Chickasaw Bayou, and more soon followed.

When the emancipated slaves found their way to the safety of Union lines, sketch artist Frederick Schell was on hand to record the scene (shown below). On August 8, 1863, Leslie’s published a woodcut adaptation of his sketch along with a brief account of what had occurred, under the headline “The Slaves of Jefferson Davis coming on to the Camp at Vicksburg.” The article noted the “curious and instructive” incident “seemed in itself the doom of slavery.”

**The scene delineated in the engraving on this page represents** the arrival of the slaves of Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy, within the lines at Chickasaw Bayou. When the estate of Mr. Davis was overrun and his authority there destroyed, the slaves left the plantation and came in a troop, not knowing for what, to the Federal outposts. But the illustration might serve as well for a hundred similar scenes that were witnessed along the lines during the conquest of the Confederate States.

By the time the engraving appeared, Vicksburg had fallen, and most readers overlooked the seemingly minor incidents that had preceded its surrender. The published woodcut, retitled Arrival at Chickasaw bayou of the Negro slaves of Jefferson Davis, from his plantation on the Mississippi, offered a scene of breathtaking historic meaning: freedom cast wide, even to the doorstep of the slave republic’s own chief executive. But in the aftermath of the twin Northern triumphs at Vicksburg and Gettysburg, no one took much notice of this extraordinary pictorial confirmation of slavery’s impending doom and emancipation’s growing power.

Joseph Davis and his wife, Eliza, fled Davis Neck in 1862 leaving the slaves to fend for themselves. In his absence the over 300 slaves kept the plantation operational, allowing them to be self-sustained. Benjamin (Joseph Davis’s plantation manager) and Mary Montgomery fled to Ohio with their daughters, Rebecca and Virginia, in 1863 and were soon joined by their sons Isaiah and William. Benjamin worked at a canal boat yard in Cincinnati. The Freedmen’s Bureau assumed control of Davis Bend in 1865 and leased land to freedmen who in turn planted cotton. It became known as “Home Colony”. The Montgomerys returned to Davis Bend in 1865, and Benjamin Montgomery reassumed his leadership role among the former slaves. Showing their abilities, an infirmary, schoolhouse, and church were built by the growing town very quickly. Home Colony was one of the first black towns to form after the Civil War. Black lessees turned a profit and benefited from the protection of the Union army. In October 1866 Benjamin asked Joseph Davis to lease the Hurricane and Brierfield Plantations to him. Davis countered with an offer to sell his plantation holdings to his former slave. They agreed on a price of three hundred thousand dollars, with yearly interest-only payments of eighteen thousand dollars and the principal due in nine years. Self-government was established, including a court system, an elected sheriff, and a board of education. Montgomery called his property “The Association”. In 1867, Benjamin T. Montgomery placed an advertisement in the Vicksburg Times inviting former slaves to join the community. Montgomery became the first African-American official elected in Mississippi when he became Justice of the Peace of Davis Bend in 1867. Although damaging floods and pests plagued the first couple of years, the all-black Davis Bend plantations thrived during Reconstruction. The cotton produced there was deemed to be the best in the world at an International Exposition in 1870. Part of their success owed to the unique leadership of Benjamin Montgomery and his prior experience in plantation management. Poor cotton crops in 1875 and 1876 depleted Montgomery’s capital reserves. By 1875, the Davis Bend community began to decline as Reconstruction came to an end. When he failed to make a payment on the loan in 1876, the Davis Bend property reverted back to the Joseph Davis family. Register of Freedmen at Home Colony, Davis Bend, MS.

Jefferson Davis sued and reclaimed the Brierfield plantation. Benjamin was severely injured in late December 1874 when part of a wall fell on him as he was helping to demolish a house. His spinal cord was damaged, and he never recovered from the accident. He died on May 12, 1877. It was Benjamin Montgomery’s lifelong dream to establish a self-governing community for freed slaves but he died in 1877 shortly after the plantation reverted to the control of the Davis family. The Davis Bend community allowed the freedmen to prove themselves and make history, all on the land of those who enslaved them. Isaiah Montgomery managed Davis Bend after his father’s passing. This was a period of decline for the community, as falling agricultural prices, floods, insects destroying crops, and hostile political conditions were some of the issues that forced Isaiah to consider continuing his father’s legacy in a new location. The other issue impacting his decision was a severe labor shortage at Davis Bend, caused by 70 tenants leaving to partake in the Kansas Exodus (Exoduster movement). After visiting Kansas and witnessing this migration movement firsthand, Isaiah became even more determined to build a black town made up of Davis Bend residents. In 1887, ten years after the death of his father, Isaiah succeeded in realizing his father’s dream. He purchased 840 acres of land and along with a number of other former slaves founded the town of Mound Bayou, Mississippi in 1887. Isaiah became the first mayor. Mound Bayou, Mississippi One Place Study.

Davis Island today

The access point to reach the island is just over the levee from the Tensas Parish town of Newellton. Today, all on private property, several exclusive hunting clubs exist on the island- Brierfield, owned by the Dale family; Titanic, owned by the Coca-Cola Biedenharns of Monroe, Louisiana.; Rosedale, owned by the Parker group; Palmyra Hunting Club, owned by 20 owners located in various Louisiana cities; and Davis Island Hunting Club, known as Kelloggs, who bought their holdings from Anderson-Tully Lumber Company of Vicksburg after leasing it from them for 50 years. Kellogg shares run about $300,000; Brierfield shares anywhere from $650,000 to $700,000 (from a 2016 reference in the Vicksburg Post). Hurricane, owned by the Biedenharn family, who first bottled Coca Cola, doesn’t sell shares, and Rosedale sells leases, not shares.

The Brierfield Plantation Cemetery