Isaac Ross (planter)
For the rugby player from New Zealand, see Isaac Ross.
| Isaac Ross | |
|---|---|
| Born |
January 18, 1760 Orangeburg County, South Carolina |
| Died |
January 19, 1836 Jefferson County, Mississippi |
Resting place | Prospect Hill Plantation, Jefferson County, Mississippi |
| Occupation | Planter |
| Title | Captain |
| Spouse(s) | Jane (Brown) Ross |
| Children |
Margaret Allison Ross Reed Martha B. Ross Alison Ross Isaac Ross Arthur Alison |
| Parent(s) |
Isaac Ross Jean Brown Ross |
| Relatives |
Thomas Buck Reed (son-in-law) Isaac Ross Wade (grandson) Walter Ross Wade (grandson) |
Isaac Ross (1760-1836) was an American plantation owner. Even though he died prior to the American Civil War of 1861-1865, he decided to free his slaves and send them back to Liberia, in what came to be known as Mississippi-in-Africa.
Biography
Early life
Isaac Ross was born on January 18, 1760 in Orangeburg County, South Carolina.[1][2] He was named after his father, Isaac Ross.[1] His mother was Jean Brown Ross (1756-1823).[1]
Career
In the American Revolutionary War of 1775-1783, he rose to the rank of Captain under the leadership of General Thomas Sumter (1734–1832).[3][2][4]
In 1808, together with his brother, he moved from South Carolina to the Mississippi Territory.[1][2] He purchased the Prospect Hill Plantation near Port Gibson, Jefferson County, Mississippi.[3][2] He owned 3,881 acres of land and 133 slaves in 1818; 158 slaves in 1820; and 4,240 acres of land and 113 slaves in 1830.[1] By 1828, he also owned several other plantations.[2] Shortly before his death, he owned around five thousand acres of land, 160 slaves, and an estimated wealth of US$100,000.[1]
In 1830, he was one of the financial supporters of Oakland College in Lorman, Mississippi, a Presbyterian college whose President was Presbyterian minister Jemeriah Chamberlain.[2]
Later on in the 1830s, together with Chamberlain and three other planters, Edward McGehee, Stephen Duncan, and John Ker, he co-founded the Mississippi Colonization Society, whose aim was to send freedmen to Liberia on the African continent.[2][5] The organization was modeled after the American Colonization Society, but it focused on freedmen in Mississippi, a large slave state.[2][5]
Personal life
He married Jane (Brown) Ross (1762-1829).[1][2] They had two sons and three daughters:
- Margaret Allison Ross Reed (1787-1838).[3] Her second husband was Thomas Buck Reed (1787–1829), who served as United States Senator from Mississippi from January 28, 1826 to March 4, 1827, and again from March 4, 1829 to November 26, 1829.[3]
- Martha B. Ross (1793-1818).[1][3]
- Alison Ross (1803-1834).[3] He married Octavia (Van Dorn) Ross Sulivane, daughter of General Earl Van Dorn (1820–1863), who served in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War of 1861-1865.[3] She later married Dr Vans Murray Sulivane (1810-1840); they had a son, Clement Sulivane (1838-1920), who served in the Confederate States Army during the Civil War and later served as a member of the Maryland Senate.[3]
- Isaac Ross (1796-1852).[1]
- Arthur Alison (1801-1834).[1]
However, he became widowed, losing not only his wife, but also a daughter and son-in-law as well as two sons.[2]
Death
He died on January 19, 1836 in Jefferson County, Mississippi.[3] He was buried in the Wade Family Cemetery in Lorman, Mississippi.[3]
Legacy
On April 14, 1845, the mansion on Prospect Hill Plantation was burned down.[2][6] A six-year-old girl died in the fire.[2] The origin or cause of the fire was never uncovered.[2] The mansion was later replaced by his grandson, Isaac Ross Wade (1814-1891), with a one-story cottage in the Greek Revival style.[2] His great-grandson, Thomas M. Wade (1860-1929), wrote about the family saga, suggesting slaves burned the first mansion down.[2]
True to his dedication to the colonization project, his will freed his slaves, paying for their journey to Liberia.[2][5][6] Even though his grandson Isaac Ross Wade contested the will for a decade, it was eventually enforced by the Supreme Court of Mississippi.[1][2][6] However, the will stipulated that, should they choose not to return to Africa, slaves should be sold to the highest bidder, with the proceeds going to the American Colonization Society to build a new university in Liberia for them, with the caveat that families could not be separated.[5] Out of his 160 registered slaves, 123 chose to be repatriated to Africa.[5] Leaving from Natchez, Mississippi on a boat, they arrived in Liberia and settled in what came to be known as Mississippi-in-Africa in 1847.[2][5] Most of them could read and write, and corresponded with their former master's family in Mississippi.[5] Once in Liberia, many of them died of "African fever."[5]
In Mississippi in Africa: The Saga of the Slaves of Prospect Hill Plantation and Their Legacy in Liberia Today, author Alan Huffman argues this repatriation may have led to the First Liberian Civil War of 1989-1996 and the Second Liberian Civil War of 1999-2003, even though the ancestor of ousted President William R. Tolbert, Jr. (1913–1980) had moved to Liberia from a plantation in South Carolina, not Mississippi.[6]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 1.10 Mississippi Department of Archives & History
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 2.9 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13 2.14 2.15 2.16 2.17 Mary Carol Miller, Lost Mansions of Mississippi, Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 2010, Volume II, pp. 53-56
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 3.9 FindAGrave: Isaac Ross
- ↑ Bobby Gilmer Moss, Roster of South Carolina Patriots in the American Revolution, Genealogical Publishing Com, 2009, Volume I, A-Jp. 319
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 Dale Edwyna Smith, The Slaves of Liberty: Freedom in Amite County, Mississippi, 1820-1868, Routledge, 2013, pp. 15-21
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 Project Muse
Further reading
- Huffman, Alan. Mississippi in Africa: The Saga of the Slaves of Prospect Hill Plantation and Their Legacy in Liberia Today. Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi. 2010.
- Steen, Michael Kirk. Manumission and Mississippi's Defense of Slavery: The Isaac Ross Will : a Thesis. New Orleans, Louisiana: University of New Orleans. 1968. 88 pages.
- Miles, Melissa. Burning Prospects: Based on a True Story. Hillcrest Press, 2014.