Once an important commercial and military location, Bruinsburg, also spelled Bruinsburgh and Bruensburg, played roles in the territorial-era interregional slave trade, the Burr conspiracy of 1806, and the Vicksburg campaign of the American Civil War.

According to Mann Butler, drawing from the account of British West Florida colonist Calvin Smith, there were a total of six white families in the Petit Gulf and Bayou Pierre settlements in 1776.

"[11] Bruinsburg was one of the endpoints of the ancient trail that was surveyed by the U.S. government as the "highway from Nashville in the State of Tennessee to the Grindstone ford of the Bayou Pierre in the Mississippi Territory," now known as the Natchez Trace.

[13][14][15][16] A old resident of Rodney, Mississippi, wrote that in those early days, Jackson "often in company with Bruin, Price, Crane, Freeland, Harmon and others, would engage in running races, wrestling and all those manly exercises common to new countries.

"[17] According to a history published in the Port Gibson Reveille newspaper, "A tiny village grew up [at Bruinsburg] containing several stores, a tavern, &c., and the place became a lively trading point for the interior country.

As retold by J. F. H. Claiborne, "Early in January, of the coldest winter ever known here, Colonel Burr, with nine boats, arrived at the mouth of Bayou Pierre, and tied up on the western or Louisiana shore.

He crossed over to the residence of Judge Bruin, (whom he had known in the revolutionary war) and there learned, for the first time, that the Territorial authorities would oppose his descent, though his landing on the Louisiana side would seem to indicate that he apprehended some opposition.

He immediately wrote to Governor Mead, disavowing hostile intentions towards the Territory or the country; that he was en route to the Ouachitta to colonize his lands, and that any attempt to obstruct him would be illegal and might provoke civil war.

"[22] A witness at Burr's trial stated that Judge Bruin's place was a mile and a quarter below Bayou Pierre and had a cotton gin.

[23] A traveler of 1808 reported that Bruin had recently sold "Bruinsbury [sic]...together with a claim to about three thousand acres of the surrounding land to Messrs. Evans and Overaker of Natchez, reserving to himself his house, offices and garden.

[27] In 1841, Rice C. Ballard was the trustee selling the 2,300-acre Bruinsburg plantation in Claiborne County and the enslaved people who worked the land in order "to pay three promissory notes" that were owed Rowan & Harris, a major slave-trading firm in Natchez.

[33] The following day, April 30, 1863, Union soldiers began landing at Bruinsburg, marking the beginning of the Battle of Port Gibson, part of the larger Vicksburg Campaign.

[39] In the first few years of the 20th century "several dozen families lived in the Judge's burg, and buildings included not only houses but also a church, school and post office.

"[40] There was still one derelict building standing on pilings at Bruinsburg in the 1980s, and "a metal sign nailed to a tree, but growth had covered all but the word Bruins.