Project Proposal — Isaac Ross: The American Patriot
For the last twenty years of my life, the name Isaac Ross has meant nothing to me. My home is filled with a dozen family portraits and my family member’s houses are filled with more family portraits. I walk past many of them everyday. Occasionally my Mom, whose Mom was a history junky, would share a few words about some of the portraits. She would relay that it was so-in-so that was there when my Grandmother was fleeing from Panama during World War II, or this lady is the reason we’re distantly related to a set of family friends; there are too many portraits and too many stories to keep straight
This past summer there were a bunch of people at my house one night. As the party died down, one of my friends took one of the portraits off the wall claiming it had been staring at him all night making him uncomfortable. Unbeknownst to me, the portrait had a manilla envelope on the back with a sheet of paper that stated who the person was and how we were related to them. I decided to google the man that was behind the vexatious looking portrait, “Isaac Ross II.” The first thing that came up for Isaac was a massive wikipedia page of his father detailing his biography and mentioning something about Liberia, but the title dettered me: “plantation owner.” Great. Embarrassed, I just put everything back and didn’t mention what I saw.
Upon searching Ancestry.com, I once again came across the name Isaac Ross. Upon first glance, I assumed Ross to be just another classic plantation owner of the South, but his story is so much more. Ross was a member of the Sons of Liberty, a Captain in the American Revolution, and a founder of the Mississippi Colonization Society, a sub branch to the American Colonization Society which supported the emigration of African Americans back to Africa to be free. The man who I was just recently embarrassed by due to a weak first impression proves to be a leader of his community with a story that makes me proud to be related to him, just as many of my other family members are.
It is the American Revolution. The unknown Revolution that occurred in the South. Everyone hears of the battles and events that occurred in the North: the Battle of Saratoga, the Battle of Trenton, the Boston Massacre. Yet one-third of all combat during the American Revolution actually occurred in the state of South Carolina. These encounters were crucial to the colonies victory in the Revolutionary War.
Early South Carolina epitomized the American Dream (for white people). Cheap land, abundant opportunity, and lush backcountry filled with all kinds of game. The men that had the most to lose were the ones most invested, and you bet these undertrained landowners were willing to fight for their freedom. Isaac Ross was a large landowner, and he was thrusted into a leadership position to ensure the freedom for all South Carolinians.
Retreating to the North after failing to reconquer the southern colonies, the infamous General and Lord Charles Cornwallis proved to be no match for the fighting gamecock of South Carolina, Thomas Sumter. Underneath General Sumter fighting these wars in the South, included one of his commissioned officers, Captain Isaac Ross. During the Battle of Blackstock’s Farm near Corss Anchor, South Carolina, the Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton had been ordered by Cornwallis to stop Sumter’s conquest to gather Patriot support in the South. Sumter and Ross gave Tarleton his first defeat which turned the tide of the War in the South.
After fighting in South Carolina, Ross packed up his things and along with his brother Thomas and many freed blacks he fought with in the war, he moved to the Mississippi Territory. This is where Ross’s story becomes special. He purchased and developed what has become known as the Prospect Hill Plantation located near Port Gibson and Lorman in Western Mississippi. Although Ross did own 160 slaves and around 5,000 acres of land at the time of his death in 1836, his will requested these slaves to be freed and sent back to Africa by using funds from selling his land. His son contested the will for nearly a decade, yetthe will was upheld by the Supreme Court of Mississippi in 1845. It took nearly a decade for these slaves to be freed. 123 of these freedmen elected to travel back to Africa while the rest stayed in the South. That same year in 1845 a fire burned the mansion down and it was rebuilt in 1854 when a relative reacquired the land following its sale from the will. The mansion sustained damage from Hurricane Katrina in 2005, but it still stands today.
The Mississippi Colonization Society strived to free oppressed black slaves and relocate them to America’s colony in West Africa: present day Liberia. Ross, a cofounder, was dedicated to protecting these African slaves. For one, Ross was one of the biggest donors to a presbyterian black male school, Oakland College. Located near Lorman Mississippi, this school was bought by the state during the reconstruction era, and its name was changed to Alcorn College. Alcorn College is the first land-grant institution for blacks in the United States. You might know the Alcorn Braves due to their division I sports teams or simply as an HBCU (Historically Black College or University).
To analyze my routes, many of Ross and I’s ancestors came from London in the 1600’s. At the time another wave of the plague was sweeping over the city providing just another reason for many of these city dwellers to pack up and move to the land of opportunity. Captain of the Speedwell, a ship that made voyages to the Americas alongside the Mayflower, John Thomas Chappell II was one of these ancestors. Originally taking root in Virginia, all of my ancestors slowly migrated and dispersed amongst the South as the centuries passed. Among the dozens and dozens of ancestors I have tracked, all of them leaked into Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, or Mississippi.
Moving forward I plan on researching various sources that discuss slavery in the south and present day Liberia to trace Ross’s impact overseas. In addition, I plan on interviewing my mother to find out any information about Ross, and see the importance family history has played in her life. My mom’s maiden name is ironically Neal and is lived on through her brother. Conveniently, the two of them have always been interested in ancestry. The number of times people ask me if my name would have been Neal Neal might shock you. I can only assume my parents would not have put that evil on me had the opportunity presented itself.
The goal of this research project is to not only honor Isaac Ross’ legacy, but more importantly to research his relationship with the Mississippi in Africa movement and impact in Liberia. In addition I would like to get a sense of my family’s southern identity to know who I am and how I got here.
Interview questions for Mom
What’s your name?
What’s your hometown?
Where did you go to school, both highschool and college?
Where are your parents from?
How would you describe your mother?
What about your Father?
Is there anything you can you say about your parent’s parents or ancestors?
Does the name Isaac Ross or the last name Ross mean anything to you?
Before telling you a couple months back at the start of this project, were you aware that we had a portrait of Isaac Ross in our house?
Are you aware of the lingering conflict in Liberia?
So based on the aftermath of this story, what are your thoughts on Isaac Ross as person? Did he do anything wrong?
Working Bibliography
Chua, Amy, and Jed Rubenfeld. The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of Cultural Groups in America. Penguin Books, 2015.
Harrold, Stanley. The Abolitionists and the South: 1831–1861. Univ. Press of Kentucky, 1995.
Huband, Mark. The Liberian Civil War. Cass, 2005.
Huffman, Alan. Mississippi in Africa: The Saga of the Slaves of Prospect Hill Plantation and Their Legacy in Liberia Today. University Press of Mississippi, 2010.
Huffman, Alan. “Tumult and Transition in ‘Little America.’” Smithsonian.com, Smithsonian Institution, Nov. 2003, www.smithsonianmag.com.
Kinder, Donald R., and Cindy D. Kam. Us against Them: Ethnocentric Foundations of American Opinion. University of Chicago Press, 2010.
Libby, David J. Slavery and Frontier Mississippi: 1720–1835. University Press of Mississippi, 2004.
Supreme Court. Brown v Board of Education. 17 May 1954.
The Allman Brothers Band. “Whipping Post.” 7 Aug. 1969.
“The Cannibal Warlords of Liberia.” Vice, 13 June 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRuSS0iiFyo.
U.S. Constitution. Amend XIV, Sec 1.
Weah, George. “George Weah: Don’t Forget About Liberia.” New York Times, 22 Apr. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/04/19/opinion/george-manneh-weah-liberia.html.
