Under the Indian Removal Act of 1830, they were forced by the United States to cede their lands and to move west of the Mississippi River to what became Indian Territory (today's state of Oklahoma).

This was one of the first counties organized in central Mississippi after Indian Removal, and it was originally much larger in geography.

The Big Black River forms the county's northern border.

These were periods of the Great Migration from the South by African Americans, who first moved to jobs in industrial cities in the North and Midwest.

In the 1940s and after, they moved to the West Coast for jobs in the rapidly growing defense industry.

But Black people also migrated to escape the violence and social repression of Mississippi, where they had been essentially disenfranchised since 1890 and lived under Jim Crow laws and the threat of violence; the state had a high rate of lynchings.

As of the 2020 United States census, there were 8,246 people, 3,228 households, and 2,010 families residing in the county.

25.00% of all households were made up of individuals, and 12.20% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older.