In 1869, the American Missionary Association of New York purchased five hundred acres of land from John Boddie, owner of the Boddie Plantation to establish a school for the training of young people "irrespective of religious tenets and conducted on the most liberal principles for the benefit of our citizens in general".
That plantation is now Tougaloo College.
Tougaloo College is a private, coeducational, historically black four-year liberal arts, church related, but not church controlled institution. It sits on 500 acres of land located on West County Line Road on the northern edge of Jackson, Mississippi. In Good Biblical Style, one might say that the Amistad, the famous court case which freed Africans who were accused of mutiny after they killed a part of the captor crew of the slave ship Amistad and took over the vessel, begat the American Missionary Association, and the American Missionary Association begat Tougaloo College and her five sister institutions.
