After the 1836 death of Mississippi plantation owner Isaac Ross, his will decreed that his plantation, Prospect Hill, should be liquidated in order to pay for his 200 slaves to go to Liberia. Disputed by his relatives, the will remained in litigation for years, prompting a slave uprising at Prospect Hill, but eventually a number of the Prospect Hill slaves would emigrate to Liberia, joining other slaves who would go on to become Liberia's elite, modeling their society on the Old South of their birth. Investigative journalist Huffman traces the fates of the families that stayed behind and those that emigrated, recounting his own travels to the area of Prospect Hill and to Liberia, and reflecting on how the events of years ago echo in the social conflicts and political realities of the American South and the war-torn African country. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
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. (Jan.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
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Alan Huffman is a freelance journalist and the author of the highly acclaimed Mississippi in Africa. He has appeared on numerous NPR shows and has contributed to many publications, including Smithsonian magazine, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, and the Washington Post Magazine. He lives in Bolton, Mississippi.
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April 21, 2004:
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 with the United States. The book is well written and a page turner. My only critique is that by focusing on one particular group of individuals, Huffman necessarily sacrifices the proverbial forest for a very impressive tree. This book would best be read by the non-specialist who has first taken a look through a good political history of Liberia like the ones written by Professors Sawyer, Ellis, or Pham.
