The Devil's Punchbowl was a refugee camp created in Natchez, Mississippi during the American Civil War to provide temporary housing and assistance to the freed slaves.
In order to house the large numbers of formerly-enslaved African Americans, the Union Army created a refugee camp for them at a location known as the Devil's Punchbowl, a natural pit surrounded by bluffs. Many of the formerly enslaved there died of starvation, smallpox, and other diseases.[1] It has been suggested by some that over 20,000 formerly enslaved people died here in one year.[2] [3] However, the scale of the tragedy has been disputed by multiple historians, with history professor Jim Wiggins arguing the 20,000 estimate is baseless and inflated tenfold,[4] and author and activist Ser Seshsh Ab Heter-Clifford M. Boxley referring to the story as "concocted Confederate propaganda" aiming to cast the Union Army in a negative light.[5]