Date of Award

5-1986

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

M.A.

Degree Program

History

Department

History

Major Professor

Michael L. Lanza

Second Advisor

Michael D. Clark

Third Advisor

Raphael Cassimere, Jr.

Abstract

Kirk Steen investigates Mississippi's response to Captain Isaac ross's 1856 will which manumitted over three hundred slaves to settle them in Liberia under the direction of the American Colonization Society. The paper focuses on the danger that mos Mississippians believed the colonization movement presented to the system of slavery. It pays special attention to a case heard by the Mississippi high court over the will's legality, an anti-colonization state law which resulted from the will, a slave uprising on the Ross plantation that occurred when some of the slaves thought they would not be freed, and the Ross slaves' description of their experience in Liberia. Mr. Steen analyzes the event in terms of its relation to Mississippi's positive-good defense of slavery during the 1830's and 1840's, Mississippi's manumission policy, and the state's distrust of the free black caste and the Mississippi Colonization Society.

Rights

The University of New Orleans and its agents retain the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible this dissertation or thesis in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. The author retains all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis or dissertation.

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