Milliken's Bend, Louisiana

Milliken's Bend is an extinct settlement that was located along the Mississippi River in Madison Parish, Louisiana, United States[1] for about 100 years.

In its heyday, the village had a boat landing, two streets of businesses, residences, churches, a four-room schoolhouse, a ferryman, and roads connecting it to Lake Providence, and Tallulah.

Mr. [Robert D.] Smith, who had married Miss Ann Mariah McClure in Vicksburg on the 11th of November, 1833, and who now had his home there, was selected for this important missionary field, as it was within twenty-five miles of his place of residence, so that he was not under the necessity of taking his family to the Swamp.

[6] During the American Civil War, William T. Sherman used Milliken's Bend as his base for "his ill-fated attempt to storm Chickasaw Bluffs and capture Vicksburg.

I was, therefore, surprised on nearing the Delta ferrylanding, to find the banks of the river covered with colored people and their little stores of worldly goods.

The crowd awaiting transportation at this point was estimated at 300, but I learn it was swollen to 500 yesterday, when the people took their departure on the St. Louis packet Grand Tower for Kansas.

Numerous reasons are alleged for this remarkable exodus, but so far as I have been able to learn, the real cause is an apprehension of undefined danger in the near future.

They religiously believe that the Constitutional Convention bodes them no good; that it has been called for the express purpose of abridging their rights and liberties, and they are fleeing from the wrath to come.

There is no doubt in my mind that this movement has assumed formidable shape, and, unless some means are devised to arrest it, this portion of the State will soon be entirely depopulated of its laboring classes.