Mississippi in Africa
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The gripping story of two hundred freed Mississippi slaves who sailed to Liberia to build a new colony where the colonists' repression of the native tribes would beget a tragic cycle of violenceWhen a wealthy Mississippi cotton planter named Isaac Ross died in 1836, his will decreed that his plantation, Prospect Hill, should be liquidated and the proceeds from the sale be used to pay for his slaves' passage to the newly established colony of Liberia in western Africa. Rosss heirs contested the will for more than a decade in the state courts and legislature, prompting a deadly revolt in which a group of slaves burned Ross' mansion to the ground, but the will was ultimately upheld. The slaves then emigrated to their new home, where they battled the local tribes and built vast plantations with Greek Revival style mansions in a region the Americo- Africans renamed Mississippi in Africa. The seeds of resentment sown over a century of cultural conflict between the colonists and tribal peoples exploded in the late twentieth century, begetting a civil war that rages in Liberia to this day.
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Tracking down Prospect Hill's living descendants, deciphering a history ruled by rumor, and delivering the complete chronicle in riveting prose, journalist Alan Huffman has rescued a lost chapter of American history whose aftermath is far from over.
Liked Mississippi in Africa? Here’s where I’d start.
These suit anyone who liked Mississippi in Africa. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.
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Another America: The Story of Liberia and the Former Slaves Who Ruled It Shares Africa, history, Liberia -
The River Congo: The Discovery, Exploration & Exploitation of the World's Most Dramatic River Shares Africa, history, nonfiction -
Mansa Musa and the Empire of Mali Shares Africa, history, nonfiction -
Negro President: Jefferson and the Slave Power Shares history, nonfiction, American history
