The Devil's Punchbowl was a refugee camp created in Natchez, Mississippi after the American Civil War in an attempt to address a huge influx of self-emancipated enslaved persons. A number of compounding issues, such as poor administration and substandard sanitation, led to a large number of deaths. The exact number of deaths is unknown and often disputed; estimates range from 2,000 to 20,000.
In order to house the large numbers of formerly-enslaved African Americans, the Union Army created a 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. It has been suggested by some that over 18,000 formerly enslaved people died here in one year. 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, 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.