Mississippi in Africa (Paperback)

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Amazon.com Review
For most Americans, Liberia is a remote place in a distant continent with no connection to their daily lives. Few of us know that in the early 19th century, it was, in fact, an American colony, and to this day, contains communities called Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, Virginia, Kentucky, and Maryland founded by freed American slaves and populated by descendants of those slaves. Author Alan Huffman tells this story in his remarkable Mississippi in Africa: The Saga of the Slaves of Prospect Hill Plantation and Their Legacy in Liberia Today. The book begins as the author's attempt to flush out the details of a fascinating Mississippi family story about a prominent plantation owner's (Isaac Ross) desire to repatriate his slaves in Africa, but ends up being a complex and sensitive exploration of the legacy of slavery in the American South and Liberia. As Huffman traces Ross' descendants and those of his family's repatriated slaves, an intricate story of displacement, cultural identity, immigration, oppression, and racial politics unfolds. Ironically, when America's freed slaves immigrated to Africa, they brought with them the only social paradigm they knew, that of the Southern plantation. Overcoming severe hardship, they recreated that culture, and by the time Liberia became Africa's first independent republic in 1847, the minority American settlers had become the country's ruling class. Huffman adeptly shows how this legacy contributes to the current crisis in Liberia.

Mississippi in Africa is at once historical and contemporary, personal and universal, local and global. As Huffman indicates, slavery "has existed throughout Africa's recorded history, and still has not entirely passed from the scene." Its pernicious consequences continue to affect the lives of millions caught in the devastating and endless civil war in Liberia, just as they continue to impact American life. Yet, Huffman repeatedly shows that this extraordinary story cannot be simply reduced to a polemical rendering of white oppression of blacks. It is so much more about the powerful versus the powerless. Thus, Huffman presents the subtleties that have shaped both the politics and human relations in this story with profound humanity and nuance. --Silvana Tropea --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly
A former staff writer for the Jackson, Miss., Clarion-Ledger, Huffman tells two tales here. One concerns the life, legacy and legatees of Isaac Ross (1760-1836), "the man responsible for sending the largest group of freed-slave emigrants to the colony of Liberia." The other combines travelogue and reportage of current events as Huffman seeks their descendants in present-day Liberia. The former is a good yarn, but the latter makes for a plodding read as the diligent author reports all. Ross's will stipulated that on his daughter's death, his slaves should be freed and his Mississippi estate sold to pay for their transit to Africa. The daughter worked toward this goal; her cousin, against it. From probate and chancery to appellate courts and legislative halls, the case moved in Dickensian manner before the will was finally put into effect in the late 1850s. A suspicious fire and a death occurred at the house, but the emigration proceeded apace. In his sleuthing, Huffman meanders a bit, sometimes from one historic house to another or from one repatriate's letter to another and frequently from one person he meets along the way to another. A little less Huffman would have done more justice to the Ross story. Alternatively, a little less Ross might have freed Huffman to go ahead and write the account of his Liberian trip, one where the reader didn't have to wonder where al Qaeda and the Mississippi state flag controversy fit with Isaac Ross, his repatriated slaves and their descendants. Yet the idea behind this book - the who, what, when, how, and why of this body of retransported slaves and its effect upon Liberia today - is fascinating enough to keep readers going.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
sanctions debate, colonization society, colonization effort Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Prospect Hill, United States, Isaac Ross, Jefferson County, New York, Sinoe County, Port Gibson, Mamba Point, Thomas Wade, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, John Singler, New Orleans, South Carolina, Jane Ross, West Africa, American South, Broad Street, Mississippi River, Nathan Ross, Charles Taylor, Captain Ross, Duport Road, Thad Ross, United Nations New!
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15 Reviews 5 star:  (10) 4 star:  (3) 3 star:    (0) 2 star:    (0) 1 star:  (2)           Average Customer Review 4.3 out of 5 stars (15 customer reviews)		Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Most Helpful Customer Reviews   16 of 16 people found the following review helpful: 5.0 out of 5 stars Hard to put down, February 2, 2004 By A Customer This review is from: Mississippi in Africa: The Saga of the Slaves of Prospect Hill Plantation and Their Legacy in Liberia (Hardcover) Great example of true, hard-to-find storytelling. Very compelling. For those who love history combined with modern-day issues this is the book to read. Easy to see that a great deal of research went into telling the story of a group of Mississippi slaves and what became of them and their descendants over the course of a century and a half. Takes you back in time -- down a road of intrigue, sadness and hope for the future. Huffman does a nice job. Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)   11 of 11 people found the following review helpful: 4.0 out of 5 stars Forgotten History --- Why It Matters!, September 23, 2004 By  Andrew M. Maxey "Michael" (Fairfax, VA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)    This review is from: Mississippi in Africa: The Saga of the Slaves of Prospect Hill Plantation and Their Legacy in Liberia (Hardcover) Alan Huffman's book on the history of a group of freed slaves, their journey back to Africa and the modern story of Liberia is important and very interesting. Huffman gives us (1) a view of life and history that formed our society and culture in Mississippi, (2) provides an overview of Liberia's history and our connection to it (a chapter of US history that is seldom mentioned ... I never heard of Liberia and the US role in its founding before arriving in West Africa in 1978), and (3) shows that Faulkner was right in saying that the past continues to impact us. In 1978 I went to Guinea Bissau,West Africa, to work on a USAID (foreign aid) program in the country's rice growing region. It was there that I heard, for the first time, of a group of freed slaves returning to Africa and establishing a country, Liberia, in 1821 with it's capital named after the fifth US president James Monroe. By 1838, 20,000 American blacks (ex-slaves and freed men --- including the slave group from Jefferson County that was the subject of his research) made up the population of the Colonization Society and Liberia. Today the descendants of these settlers make up about 5 percent of Liberia's population. This elite group dominated the political and economic sectors for more that 150 years. A backlash against this group in 1980 by descendants of local tribesmen caused the chaos that grips modern day Liberia. It's important to me and you today because of the potential links that states in chaos have to terrorist groups (Huffman talks of the potential laundering of Al Queda money through diamond sales in Liberia and the attempt to use the country as a conduit for the purchase of illegal arms --- including stinger missles). Huffman brings the reader full circle and gives interesting details of his research and the people he meets along the way. He also provides details on our Mississippi history about slave and slaveholder interaction and the cultural values it imprinted on our society. I also liked the tidbits of history like the origin of Alcorn State University (evolving from a school for the sons of plantation owners to the first land grant college in the United States). This is a good book that I highly recommend. Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)   8 of 8 people found the following review helpful: 5.0 out of 5 stars A better understanding, February 21, 2004 By A Customer This review is from: Mississippi in Africa: The Saga of the Slaves of Prospect Hill Plantation and Their Legacy in Liberia (Hardcover) Recently I heard Huffman speak about his book. I was unfamiliar with the story he told. Although his talk was interesting enough to result in my purchase of the book, it did not prepare me for the journey i took once I read the book. This book is a must read for anyone interested in discovering an overlooked and fascinating piece of Mississippi history and the history of slavery. The story he tells is one we all should read for a better understanding of how the intentions of one country man in Mississippi a century later can influence a country in Africa. Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this) Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review › See all 15 customer reviews...		Most Recent Customer Reviews 1.0 out of 5 stars bad bad history This is a compelling story, but it's full of inference and excessively fluffy. From a historian's perspective Huffman does not have enough evidence to be legitimate. Read more Published on July 27, 2006 by J Toby Graves 5.0 out of 5 stars What a story! Huffman takes readers through quite a journey as he gives the history of abolitionists in Mississippi and the ultimate return of blacks to Africa. Read more Published on March 14, 2006 by S. Klopfer 5.0 out of 5 stars What a story! A 20th century Missisipian explores how the actions of a few slaveholders before the Civil war have affected modern history. A very good read. Published on May 3, 2005 by st. louis mom 4.0 out of 5 stars Very Interesting Story What a great story. This book covers so many subjects in a complete and interesting way. There is the detective story of the slaves of Prospect Hill Plantation and their lives, a... Read more Published on July 20, 2004 by G. Grisham 5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully written Having recently met a family of Liberian refugees, I wanted to learn more about the country. I really went in search of LIBERIA:PORTRAIT OF A FAILED STATE but came upon... Read more Published on May 20, 2004 by Ellismarie McLaughlin 5.0 out of 5 stars Reading into the wee hours! Wow! Thank you, Alan! I'm still reading this amazing book, which I began night before last. You make me feel like I am on the journey with you as you pursue the threads of this... Read more Published on May 19, 2004 4.0 out of 5 stars A Compelling Narrative Huffman spins a compelling narrative about the West African country whose destiny, for better or for worse, has been intertwined with its "stepchild-like" relationship... Read more Published on April 21, 2004 by Jonathan Weisman 5.0 out of 5 stars Truth is stranger than fiction. For me the tale of slavery in the two Mississippis was almost too macabre to fathom. The concept that people-like-me owned people-like-you was too painful to think about, much... Read more Published on April 2, 2004 by Art Minton 5.0 out of 5 stars Great mix of history and current events The first section of this book, in telling the events that led to the freedom of the Prospect Hill slaves, provides the reader with a detailed historical background regarding... Read more Published on February 24, 2004 5.0 out of 5 stars A story that needed telling Most folks don't realize the transition that has taken place in the deep South in the past 3 decades. Read more Published on February 19, 2004 Search Customer Reviews Only search this product's reviews › See all 15 customer reviews...

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