Zephaniah Kingsley
Encyclopedia
Zephaniah Kingsley, Jr. was a plantation
owner, slave trader, and merchant who built several plantations in the Spanish colony of Florida
in what is now Jacksonville
. A plantation he owned and lived at for 25 years is preserved as Kingsley Plantation
, part of the Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve
that is run by the United States National Park Service
.
Kingsley was a relatively lenient slave owner who gave his slaves the opportunity to earn their freedom. He married a total of four women in a polygamous relationship. His first wife, Anna Madgigine Jai Kingsley
, was thirteen years old when Kingsley purchased her. He later charged her with running his plantation when he was away on business. His interracial family and his business interests caused Kingsley to be heavily invested in the Spanish system of slavery, which recognized a class of free people of color
and allowed multi-racial children to inherit property.
Kingsley became involved in politics when control of the Florida colony passed from Spain to the United States, and he attempted to persuade the new territorial government to maintain the status of the free black population. When this did not come to fruition, he wrote a treatise that defended a system of slavery in 1828 that would allow slaves to purchase their freedom and give rights to free blacks and mixed-race people. When faced with American laws that forbade interracial marriage, Kingsley relocated his family to Haiti
between 1835 and 1837. After his death, his estate was the subject of dispute between Anna Jai and other members of Kingsley's family.
, and Isabella Johnstone of Scotland
. The elder Kingsley moved his family to the Colony of South Carolina
in 1770. His son was educated in London during the 1780s; Zephaniah Kingsley, Sr. purchased a rice plantation near Savannah, Georgia
and several other properties throughout the colonies and Caribbean islands, owning probably around 200 slaves in all. Like other British loyalists
, Kingsley, Sr. was forced to leave South Carolina without his family, for New Brunswick, Canada in 1782 following the American Revolutionary War
.
Zephaniah Kingsley, Jr. returned to Charleston, South Carolina
in 1793, swore his allegiance to the United States, and began a career as a shipping merchant. His first ventures were in Haiti, during the Haitian Revolution
where coffee dominated his interests. He lived in Haiti for a brief period while the fledgling nation was developing a social system of former slaves transitioning into free citizens. Kingsley traveled frequently, prompted by recurring political unrest among the Caribbean islands. The instability affected his business interests but a sharp increase in demand for slaves in the Southern U.S. occurred around the same time and Kingsley began to travel to West Africa to procure Africans to be traded as slaves between America, Brazil
, and the West Indies. In 1798 he became a Danish
citizen in the Danish West Indies; he continued to make his living trading slaves and shipping other goods into the 19th century. He became a citizen of Spanish Florida
in 1803.
, south of where Orange Park
is located today. Kingsley arrived with ten slaves and began to cultivate it immediately. Another source stated he received a substantial land grant because he brought 74 slaves to Florida. The plantation grew oranges, sea island cotton
, corn, potatoes, and peas. Kingsley's first slaves were from his family's estate in South Carolina. By 1811, he had acquired a total of 100 slaves at Laurel Grove, obtained from Africa via Cuba
. Kingsley trained the slaves at Laurel Grove in agricultural vocations for future sale; Kingsley provided slave buyers with skilled artisans, which allowed him to charge 50 percent more than market price per slave. At Laurel Grove, slaves were trained not only in farming, but blacksmithing, carpentry, and cotton ginning.
In 1806, Kingsley took a trip to Cuba and purchased Anna Madgigine Jai
(born as Anta Majigeen Ndiaye), a 13-year-old Wolof
girl from what is now Senegal
. He married her in an African ceremony in Havana soon after purchasing her, although the union was not legally recognized during their lives. Kingsley took Anna to Laurel Grove and made it her responsibility to run the plantation in his absence.Mark Fleszar writes that how much Anna managed Laurel Grove "deserves caution" as Kingsley's letters indicate white overseers were responsible for the day to day issues of the plantation when he was away on business. Kingsley told abolitionist Lydia Child in an interview that Anna was "was very capable, and could carry on all the affairs of the plantation in my absence, as well as I could myself", but either deliberately misrepresented other details in his life or Child's reporting was inaccurate, calling into question other statements Kingsley was reported to have said. (Fleszar, p. 72.) In 1811, he petitioned the colonial Spanish government to free Anna and their three children and the request was granted. The Laurel Grove plantation during one year earned $10,000 ($ in 2009), which was an extraordinary amount for Florida. With his earnings, Kingsley purchased several locations on the opposite side of the St. Johns River, including St. Johns Bluff, San Jose, and Beauclerc in what is now Jacksonville, and Drayton Island
farther south near Lake George
. After gaining freedom, Anna was awarded five acres in a land grant by the Spanish government, and she purchased slaves to help farm it. Kingsley was furthermore involved in the shipping industry, related to his large-scale slave trading. While at Laurel Grove, Kingsley was attempting to smuggle in 350 slaves (the international slave trade was abolished in 1807) when the ship was captured by the U.S. Coast Guard. Not knowing what to do with so many indigent people, the Coast Guard turned them over to Kingsley, who was the only person in the area who could care for such a number.
During an insurgency that became known as the Patriot Rebellion, in an attempt to annex Florida to the United States, American forces, American-supplied Creeks, and renegades from Georgia crossed the border into the Spanish colony and began raiding the few settlements in North Florida, capturing black people and enslaving them. In 1813, the Americans captured Kingsley and forced him to sign his endorsement of the rebellion.John McIntosh, owner of the Fort George Plantation before Kingsley, accused him in 1826 of financially supporting the war, although the accusation may have been politically motivated, as Kingsley suddenly resigned his position from the Territorial Council, and McIntosh was angry about the public treatment he had received since the war for his role in it. (Fleszar, p. 135.) They took Laurel Grove and used it as a base to raid other plantations and nearby towns. Kingsley left the area. After assuring her safety with the Spanish forces, Anna burned the plantation down so the rebels could not use it, and took her children and a dozen of her slaves aboard a Spanish gunboat. For her loyalty, Anna received a reward of 350 acres (1.4 km²) by the Spanish colonial government.
in 1814 and they remained there for 25 years. Anna and Kingsley's fourth and last child was born on Fort George Island in 1824. Kingsley furthermore provided for three younger women and fathered children with at least two of them, totaling nine in all. All three women were slaves he eventually freed named Flora Kingsley, Sarah Kingsley, who brought her son Micanopy; and Munsilna McGundo, who brought her daughter, Fatima. The Kingsley family was, according to historian Daniel Stowell, "complex at best". In his will, the only woman Kingsley named as his wife was Anna. Primary documentation by Kingsley is scarce, but historians consider Flora, Sarah, and McGundo as "lesser wives", or "co-wives" with Anna. Stowell suggests "concubines" is a more accurate description. Nonetheless, Kingsley lavished all his children with affection, attention, and luxury. They were educated with the best European teaching he could afford and he entertained visitors at his Fort George plantation with Anna sitting "at the head of the table" and "surrounded by healthy and handsome children" in a parlor decorated with portraits of African women.
The plantation featured a main house and a two-story structure with a kitchen on the ground floor and living quarters on the second called the "Ma'am Anna House", where Anna lived with her children, a custom among the Wolof people. The plantation produced oranges, sea island cotton, indigo
, okra
, and other vegetables. Approximately 60 slaves were managed under the task system: each slave had a quota of work to do per day. When they were finished, they were allowed to do what they wished. Some slaves had personal gardens which they were allowed to cultivate, and from which they sold vegetables. Thirty-two cabins were constructed for and by the slaves, made from tabby
, which made them durable, insulated, and inexpensive although labor-intensive. The cabins were located about a quarter of a mile (400 m) from the main house, and slaves were allowed to padlock their cabins and build porches that faced away from the main house. Both of these features were unusual for slave quarters in antebellum America.
appointed Kingsley to serve on Florida's Territorial Council, which began to establish an American government. The Council focused primarily on allowing immigrants to Florida access to the 40000000 acres (161,874.4 km²) ceded by Spain, and removing the Seminole
s to Indian Territory
. Americans settled in the central portion of Florida and built productive plantations worked by slaves; the owners were used to the more strictly divided racial caste system that was practiced throughout the Southeastern U.S. This system contrasted with the standing practice in which Kingsley was invested, which, based on Spanish law as implemented in Florida, supported three social tiers of whites, free people of color
, and slaves. The Spanish government recognized interracial marriages and allowed mixed-race children to inherit property. Kingsley's first task with the Territorial Council was an attempt to persuade them to determine the place of free people of color in a U.S.-controlled Florida. He addressed the council stating, "I consider that our personal safety as well as the permanent condition of our Slave property is intimately connected with and depends much on our good policy in making it the interest of our free colored population to be attached to good order and have a friendly feeling towards the white population."
When it became apparent to Kingsley that the council could not make a decision on the rights of free blacks and mixed-race people, he resigned his position. Through the 1820s the council began to enact strict laws separating the races, and Kingsley became worried about his future and the rights of his family. To address these issues, in 1828 he wrote a pamphlet titled A Treatise on the Patriarchal or Co-operative System of Society as it Exists in Some Governments, and Colonies in America, and the United States Under the Name of Slavery With its Necessary Advantages crediting himself as "An Inhabitant of Florida", defending the system to which he had become accustomed. In it, he wrote, "Slavery is a necessary state of control from which no condition of society can be perfectly free. The term is applicable to and fits all grades and conditions in almost every point of view, whether moral, physical, or political." Kingsley asserted that when slavery is associated with cruelty it is an abomination; when it is joined with benevolence and justice, it "easily amalgamates with the ordinary conditions of life". He believed that Africans were better suited than Europeans for labor in hot climates, and that their happiness was maximized when they were rigidly controlled; their contentment was greater than whites of a similar class. He furthermore asserted that people of mixed race were healthier and more beautiful than either Africans or Europeans, and considered his mixed race children a barrier to an impending race war.
The treatise was published four times in all, the last printing in 1834. Reception to it was mixed. While some Southerners used it to defend the institution of slavery, others saw Kingsley's support of a free class of blacks as a prelude to the abolition of it. Abolitionists
considered Kingsley's arguments for slavery weak and wrote that the only logical conclusion Kingsley could come to was eradication of slavery. Lydia Child
, a New York-based abolitionist, included him on a list of people perpetuating the "evils of slavery" in 1836. Although Kingsley was wealthy, learned, and powerful, the treatise was a factor in the decline of his reputation in Florida. He became embroiled in a political scandal with Florida's first governor, William DuVal
when DuVal was quoted in newspapers making scathingly critical remarks about Kingsley's motives and his mixed-race family after Kingsley petitioned to have DuVal removed from his office for corruption.
became more attractive to Kingsley. Haiti's government was actively encouraging free blacks from across the Americas to settle the island, offering them land and citizenship. Kingsley highlighted its successes as a nation of free blacks in his treatise, writing "...under a just and prudent system of management, negroes are safe, permanent, productive and growing property, and easily governed; that they are not naturally desirous of changes, but are sober, discreet, honest and obliging, are less troublesome, and possess a much better moral character than the ordinary class of corrupted whites of a similar condition." Kingsley's praise of Haiti's new system—which outlawed slavery—combined with his defense of slavery, is notable to author Mark Fleszar, who comments that the paradox in Kingsley's thinking indicated a "disordered worldview". Nevertheless, he was determined to create the society he had written about and defended.
Kingsley's son George and six of his slaves arrived in Haiti to scout for land and found a suitable location on the northeastern shore of the island, in what is today the Puerto Plata Province of the Dominican Republic
. By 1835 it became evident that Kingsley's marriage to Anna would not be recognized in the United States, and that in the event of his death, holdings in the name of Anna, Flora, Sarah, McGundo, and their mixed-race children might be confiscated. Over the next two years, most of Kingsley's extensive family relocated — two of his daughters stayed in Florida, as they had married local white planters — to a plantation named Mayorasgo de Koka
, which was worked by more than 50 slaves transplanted from the Fort George Island plantation. In Haiti, they were contracted to work as indentured servant
s, who would earn their full freedom after nine years of labor.
to conduct business there. His death of pulmonary disease at 78 years old was recorded in New York City, where Kingsley was buried in a Quaker cemetery. He left much of his land to his wives and children, a bequest which was immediately contested on racial grounds by his white relatives. Kingsley's niece, Anna McNeill
(who married George Whistler; they bore a son named James Whistler who became an artist and painted his mother in the iconic Whistler's Mother
) was among the family members who attempted to remove any of Kingsley's family of African descent from his will. Kingsley's will stipulated that no remaining slaves should be separated from their families, and that they should be given the opportunity to purchase their freedom at half their market price. Anna Madgigine Jai, who kept her African name through the marriage, returned to Florida in 1846 to oppose Kingsley's white relatives in court in Duval County
; she was successful, which was also extraordinary in light of the state and local policy that was hostile toward freed slaves or blacks of any status.
After a brief period during the U.S. Civil War (1861–1865), Anna fled to New York for supporting the Union. Anna Madgigine Jai died in April or May 1870 on a farm in the Arlington neighborhood of Jacksonville
, where she is buried in an unmarked grave.
Plantation
A plantation is a long artificially established forest, farm or estate, where crops are grown for sale, often in distant markets rather than for local on-site consumption...
owner, slave trader, and merchant who built several plantations in the Spanish colony of Florida
Spanish Florida
Spanish Florida refers to the Spanish territory of Florida, which formed part of the Captaincy General of Cuba, the Viceroyalty of New Spain, and the Spanish Empire. Originally extending over what is now the southeastern United States, but with no defined boundaries, la Florida was a component of...
in what is now Jacksonville
Jacksonville, Florida
Jacksonville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Florida in terms of both population and land area, and the largest city by area in the contiguous United States. It is the county seat of Duval County, with which the city government consolidated in 1968...
. A plantation he owned and lived at for 25 years is preserved as Kingsley Plantation
Kingsley Plantation
Kingsley Plantation is the site of a former estate in Jacksonville, Florida, that was named for an early owner, Zephaniah Kingsley, who spent 25 years there. It is located at the northern tip of Fort George Island at Fort George Inlet, and is part of the Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve...
, part of the Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve
Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve
The Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve is located in the city of Jacksonville, Florida, in the United States. The park was established in 1988, and covers 46,000 acres...
that is run by the United States National Park Service
National Park Service
The National Park Service is the U.S. federal agency that manages all national parks, many national monuments, and other conservation and historical properties with various title designations...
.
Kingsley was a relatively lenient slave owner who gave his slaves the opportunity to earn their freedom. He married a total of four women in a polygamous relationship. His first wife, Anna Madgigine Jai Kingsley
Anna Kingsley
Anna Madgigine Jai Kingsley was a West African slave turned slaveholder and plantation owner in early 19th century Florida. At 13 years old, she was captured and sent to Cuba where she was purchased by and married to Zephaniah Kingsley, a slave trader and plantation owner. They had four children...
, was thirteen years old when Kingsley purchased her. He later charged her with running his plantation when he was away on business. His interracial family and his business interests caused Kingsley to be heavily invested in the Spanish system of slavery, which recognized a class of free people of color
Free people of color
A free person of color in the context of the history of slavery in the Americas, is a person of full or partial African descent who was not enslaved...
and allowed multi-racial children to inherit property.
Kingsley became involved in politics when control of the Florida colony passed from Spain to the United States, and he attempted to persuade the new territorial government to maintain the status of the free black population. When this did not come to fruition, he wrote a treatise that defended a system of slavery in 1828 that would allow slaves to purchase their freedom and give rights to free blacks and mixed-race people. When faced with American laws that forbade interracial marriage, Kingsley relocated his family to Haiti
Haiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
between 1835 and 1837. After his death, his estate was the subject of dispute between Anna Jai and other members of Kingsley's family.
Early life
Kingsley was born in Bristol, England, the second of eight children to Zephaniah Kingsley, Sr., a Quaker from LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, and Isabella Johnstone of Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
. The elder Kingsley moved his family to the Colony of South Carolina
Colonial period of South Carolina
The history of the colonial period of South Carolina focuses on the English colonization that created one of the original Thirteen Colonies. Major settlement began after 1712 as the northern half of the British colony of Carolina attracted frontiersmen from Pennsylvania and Virginia, while the...
in 1770. His son was educated in London during the 1780s; Zephaniah Kingsley, Sr. purchased a rice plantation near Savannah, Georgia
Savannah, Georgia
Savannah is the largest city and the county seat of Chatham County, in the U.S. state of Georgia. Established in 1733, the city of Savannah was the colonial capital of the Province of Georgia and later the first state capital of Georgia. Today Savannah is an industrial center and an important...
and several other properties throughout the colonies and Caribbean islands, owning probably around 200 slaves in all. Like other British loyalists
United Empire Loyalists
The name United Empire Loyalists is an honorific given after the fact to those American Loyalists who resettled in British North America and other British Colonies as an act of fealty to King George III after the British defeat in the American Revolutionary War and prior to the Treaty of Paris...
, Kingsley, Sr. was forced to leave South Carolina without his family, for New Brunswick, Canada in 1782 following the American Revolutionary War
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...
.
Zephaniah Kingsley, Jr. returned to Charleston, South Carolina
Charleston, South Carolina
Charleston is the second largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. It was made the county seat of Charleston County in 1901 when Charleston County was founded. The city's original name was Charles Towne in 1670, and it moved to its present location from a location on the west bank of the...
in 1793, swore his allegiance to the United States, and began a career as a shipping merchant. His first ventures were in Haiti, during the Haitian Revolution
Haitian Revolution
The Haitian Revolution was a period of conflict in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, which culminated in the elimination of slavery there and the founding of the Haitian republic...
where coffee dominated his interests. He lived in Haiti for a brief period while the fledgling nation was developing a social system of former slaves transitioning into free citizens. Kingsley traveled frequently, prompted by recurring political unrest among the Caribbean islands. The instability affected his business interests but a sharp increase in demand for slaves in the Southern U.S. occurred around the same time and Kingsley began to travel to West Africa to procure Africans to be traded as slaves between America, Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
, and the West Indies. In 1798 he became a Danish
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
citizen in the Danish West Indies; he continued to make his living trading slaves and shipping other goods into the 19th century. He became a citizen of Spanish Florida
Spanish Florida
Spanish Florida refers to the Spanish territory of Florida, which formed part of the Captaincy General of Cuba, the Viceroyalty of New Spain, and the Spanish Empire. Originally extending over what is now the southeastern United States, but with no defined boundaries, la Florida was a component of...
in 1803.
Laurel Grove
Spain was offering land to settlers in order to populate Florida, so Kingsley petitioned the governor for land but was turned away. After waiting, he decided to purchase a 2600 acres (10.5 km²) farm for $5,300 ($ in 2009). It was named Laurel Grove, and its main entrance was a dock on Doctors LakeDoctors Lake
Doctors Lake is a body of water located off the St. Johns River in Clay County, Florida. Despite its name, it is not a true lake, as it is actually an inlet, openly connected to the St. Johns. Because of the estuarine nature of the St. Johns, Doctor's Lake is itself somewhat brackish.Many docks...
, south of where Orange Park
Orange Park, Florida
Orange Park is a town in Clay County, Florida, USA, and a suburb of Jacksonville. The population was 8,412 at the 2010 census. The name "Orange Park" is additionally applied to a wider area of northern Clay County outside the town limits, covering such communities as Fleming Island, Lakeside, and...
is located today. Kingsley arrived with ten slaves and began to cultivate it immediately. Another source stated he received a substantial land grant because he brought 74 slaves to Florida. The plantation grew oranges, sea island cotton
Gossypium barbadense
Gossypium barbadense, also known as extra long staple cotton as it generally has a staple of at least 1 3/8" or longer, is a species of cotton plant. Some types of ELS cotton are American Pima, Egyptian Giza, Indian Suvin, Chinese Xiniang, Sudanese Barakat, and Russian Tonkovoloknistyi...
, corn, potatoes, and peas. Kingsley's first slaves were from his family's estate in South Carolina. By 1811, he had acquired a total of 100 slaves at Laurel Grove, obtained from Africa via Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
. Kingsley trained the slaves at Laurel Grove in agricultural vocations for future sale; Kingsley provided slave buyers with skilled artisans, which allowed him to charge 50 percent more than market price per slave. At Laurel Grove, slaves were trained not only in farming, but blacksmithing, carpentry, and cotton ginning.
In 1806, Kingsley took a trip to Cuba and purchased Anna Madgigine Jai
Anna Kingsley
Anna Madgigine Jai Kingsley was a West African slave turned slaveholder and plantation owner in early 19th century Florida. At 13 years old, she was captured and sent to Cuba where she was purchased by and married to Zephaniah Kingsley, a slave trader and plantation owner. They had four children...
(born as Anta Majigeen Ndiaye), a 13-year-old Wolof
Wolof people
The Wolof are an ethnic group found in Senegal, The Gambia, and Mauritania.In Senegal, the Wolof form an ethnic plurality with about 43.3% of the population are Wolofs...
girl from what is now Senegal
Senegal
Senegal , officially the Republic of Senegal , is a country in western Africa. It owes its name to the Sénégal River that borders it to the east and north...
. He married her in an African ceremony in Havana soon after purchasing her, although the union was not legally recognized during their lives. Kingsley took Anna to Laurel Grove and made it her responsibility to run the plantation in his absence.Mark Fleszar writes that how much Anna managed Laurel Grove "deserves caution" as Kingsley's letters indicate white overseers were responsible for the day to day issues of the plantation when he was away on business. Kingsley told abolitionist Lydia Child in an interview that Anna was "was very capable, and could carry on all the affairs of the plantation in my absence, as well as I could myself", but either deliberately misrepresented other details in his life or Child's reporting was inaccurate, calling into question other statements Kingsley was reported to have said. (Fleszar, p. 72.) In 1811, he petitioned the colonial Spanish government to free Anna and their three children and the request was granted. The Laurel Grove plantation during one year earned $10,000 ($ in 2009), which was an extraordinary amount for Florida. With his earnings, Kingsley purchased several locations on the opposite side of the St. Johns River, including St. Johns Bluff, San Jose, and Beauclerc in what is now Jacksonville, and Drayton Island
Drayton Island
Drayton Island is a privately owned heavily wooded island at the northern end of Lake George on the west side of the Saint Johns River's main channel in Putnam County, Florida, United States....
farther south near Lake George
Lake George (Florida)
Lake George or Lake Welaka is a broad and shallow brackish lake on the St. Johns River in the U.S. state of Florida.-Geography:Lake George is six miles wide and eleven miles long, with an average depth of 8 feet . The west side of the lake is encompassed in the Ocala National Forest...
. After gaining freedom, Anna was awarded five acres in a land grant by the Spanish government, and she purchased slaves to help farm it. Kingsley was furthermore involved in the shipping industry, related to his large-scale slave trading. While at Laurel Grove, Kingsley was attempting to smuggle in 350 slaves (the international slave trade was abolished in 1807) when the ship was captured by the U.S. Coast Guard. Not knowing what to do with so many indigent people, the Coast Guard turned them over to Kingsley, who was the only person in the area who could care for such a number.
During an insurgency that became known as the Patriot Rebellion, in an attempt to annex Florida to the United States, American forces, American-supplied Creeks, and renegades from Georgia crossed the border into the Spanish colony and began raiding the few settlements in North Florida, capturing black people and enslaving them. In 1813, the Americans captured Kingsley and forced him to sign his endorsement of the rebellion.John McIntosh, owner of the Fort George Plantation before Kingsley, accused him in 1826 of financially supporting the war, although the accusation may have been politically motivated, as Kingsley suddenly resigned his position from the Territorial Council, and McIntosh was angry about the public treatment he had received since the war for his role in it. (Fleszar, p. 135.) They took Laurel Grove and used it as a base to raid other plantations and nearby towns. Kingsley left the area. After assuring her safety with the Spanish forces, Anna burned the plantation down so the rebels could not use it, and took her children and a dozen of her slaves aboard a Spanish gunboat. For her loyalty, Anna received a reward of 350 acres (1.4 km²) by the Spanish colonial government.
Fort George Island
Kingsley and Anna moved to a plantation on Fort George Island at the mouth of the St. Johns RiverSt. Johns River
The St. Johns River is the longest river in the U.S. state of Florida and its most significant for commercial and recreational use. At long, it winds through or borders twelve counties, three of which are the state's largest. The drop in elevation from the headwaters to the mouth is less than ;...
in 1814 and they remained there for 25 years. Anna and Kingsley's fourth and last child was born on Fort George Island in 1824. Kingsley furthermore provided for three younger women and fathered children with at least two of them, totaling nine in all. All three women were slaves he eventually freed named Flora Kingsley, Sarah Kingsley, who brought her son Micanopy; and Munsilna McGundo, who brought her daughter, Fatima. The Kingsley family was, according to historian Daniel Stowell, "complex at best". In his will, the only woman Kingsley named as his wife was Anna. Primary documentation by Kingsley is scarce, but historians consider Flora, Sarah, and McGundo as "lesser wives", or "co-wives" with Anna. Stowell suggests "concubines" is a more accurate description. Nonetheless, Kingsley lavished all his children with affection, attention, and luxury. They were educated with the best European teaching he could afford and he entertained visitors at his Fort George plantation with Anna sitting "at the head of the table" and "surrounded by healthy and handsome children" in a parlor decorated with portraits of African women.
The plantation featured a main house and a two-story structure with a kitchen on the ground floor and living quarters on the second called the "Ma'am Anna House", where Anna lived with her children, a custom among the Wolof people. The plantation produced oranges, sea island cotton, indigo
Indigo
Indigo is a color named after the purple dye derived from the plant Indigofera tinctoria and related species. The color is placed on the electromagnetic spectrum between about 420 and 450 nm in wavelength, placing it between blue and violet...
, okra
Okra
Okra is a flowering plant in the mallow family. It is valued for its edible green seed pods. The geographical origin of okra is disputed, with supporters of South Asian, Ethiopian and West African origins...
, and other vegetables. Approximately 60 slaves were managed under the task system: each slave had a quota of work to do per day. When they were finished, they were allowed to do what they wished. Some slaves had personal gardens which they were allowed to cultivate, and from which they sold vegetables. Thirty-two cabins were constructed for and by the slaves, made from tabby
Tabby (cement)
Tabby is a building material consisting of lime, sand, water, and crushed oyster shells. It was developed and used by English colonists in Beaufort County and on the Sea Islands of coastal South Carolina, in coastal Georgia, and in northern Florida in the Southern United States...
, which made them durable, insulated, and inexpensive although labor-intensive. The cabins were located about a quarter of a mile (400 m) from the main house, and slaves were allowed to padlock their cabins and build porches that faced away from the main house. Both of these features were unusual for slave quarters in antebellum America.
Restrictions under a new government
Following the transfer of Florida from Spain to the United States in 1821, President James MonroeJames Monroe
James Monroe was the fifth President of the United States . Monroe was the last president who was a Founding Father of the United States, and the last president from the Virginia dynasty and the Republican Generation...
appointed Kingsley to serve on Florida's Territorial Council, which began to establish an American government. The Council focused primarily on allowing immigrants to Florida access to the 40000000 acres (161,874.4 km²) ceded by Spain, and removing the Seminole
Seminole
The Seminole are a Native American people originally of Florida, who now reside primarily in that state and Oklahoma. The Seminole nation emerged in a process of ethnogenesis out of groups of Native Americans, most significantly Creeks from what is now Georgia and Alabama, who settled in Florida in...
s to Indian Territory
Indian Territory
The Indian Territory, also known as the Indian Territories and the Indian Country, was land set aside within the United States for the settlement of American Indians...
. Americans settled in the central portion of Florida and built productive plantations worked by slaves; the owners were used to the more strictly divided racial caste system that was practiced throughout the Southeastern U.S. This system contrasted with the standing practice in which Kingsley was invested, which, based on Spanish law as implemented in Florida, supported three social tiers of whites, free people of color
Free people of color
A free person of color in the context of the history of slavery in the Americas, is a person of full or partial African descent who was not enslaved...
, and slaves. The Spanish government recognized interracial marriages and allowed mixed-race children to inherit property. Kingsley's first task with the Territorial Council was an attempt to persuade them to determine the place of free people of color in a U.S.-controlled Florida. He addressed the council stating, "I consider that our personal safety as well as the permanent condition of our Slave property is intimately connected with and depends much on our good policy in making it the interest of our free colored population to be attached to good order and have a friendly feeling towards the white population."
When it became apparent to Kingsley that the council could not make a decision on the rights of free blacks and mixed-race people, he resigned his position. Through the 1820s the council began to enact strict laws separating the races, and Kingsley became worried about his future and the rights of his family. To address these issues, in 1828 he wrote a pamphlet titled A Treatise on the Patriarchal or Co-operative System of Society as it Exists in Some Governments, and Colonies in America, and the United States Under the Name of Slavery With its Necessary Advantages crediting himself as "An Inhabitant of Florida", defending the system to which he had become accustomed. In it, he wrote, "Slavery is a necessary state of control from which no condition of society can be perfectly free. The term is applicable to and fits all grades and conditions in almost every point of view, whether moral, physical, or political." Kingsley asserted that when slavery is associated with cruelty it is an abomination; when it is joined with benevolence and justice, it "easily amalgamates with the ordinary conditions of life". He believed that Africans were better suited than Europeans for labor in hot climates, and that their happiness was maximized when they were rigidly controlled; their contentment was greater than whites of a similar class. He furthermore asserted that people of mixed race were healthier and more beautiful than either Africans or Europeans, and considered his mixed race children a barrier to an impending race war.
The treatise was published four times in all, the last printing in 1834. Reception to it was mixed. While some Southerners used it to defend the institution of slavery, others saw Kingsley's support of a free class of blacks as a prelude to the abolition of it. Abolitionists
Abolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
considered Kingsley's arguments for slavery weak and wrote that the only logical conclusion Kingsley could come to was eradication of slavery. Lydia Child
Lydia Child
Lydia Maria Child was an American abolitionist, women's rights activist, opponent of American expansionism, Indian rights activist, novelist, and journalist and Unitarian....
, a New York-based abolitionist, included him on a list of people perpetuating the "evils of slavery" in 1836. Although Kingsley was wealthy, learned, and powerful, the treatise was a factor in the decline of his reputation in Florida. He became embroiled in a political scandal with Florida's first governor, William DuVal
William Pope Duval
William Pope Duval was the first civilian governor of Florida Territory, serving from April 17, 1822 until April 24, 1834.-Early life:...
when DuVal was quoted in newspapers making scathingly critical remarks about Kingsley's motives and his mixed-race family after Kingsley petitioned to have DuVal removed from his office for corruption.
Haiti
After attempting to persuade the new government of Florida to make it possible for his family to have rights as free blacks and his mixed race children to inherit his properties, the independent republic of HaitiHaiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
became more attractive to Kingsley. Haiti's government was actively encouraging free blacks from across the Americas to settle the island, offering them land and citizenship. Kingsley highlighted its successes as a nation of free blacks in his treatise, writing "...under a just and prudent system of management, negroes are safe, permanent, productive and growing property, and easily governed; that they are not naturally desirous of changes, but are sober, discreet, honest and obliging, are less troublesome, and possess a much better moral character than the ordinary class of corrupted whites of a similar condition." Kingsley's praise of Haiti's new system—which outlawed slavery—combined with his defense of slavery, is notable to author Mark Fleszar, who comments that the paradox in Kingsley's thinking indicated a "disordered worldview". Nevertheless, he was determined to create the society he had written about and defended.
Kingsley's son George and six of his slaves arrived in Haiti to scout for land and found a suitable location on the northeastern shore of the island, in what is today the Puerto Plata Province of the Dominican Republic
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of La Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries...
. By 1835 it became evident that Kingsley's marriage to Anna would not be recognized in the United States, and that in the event of his death, holdings in the name of Anna, Flora, Sarah, McGundo, and their mixed-race children might be confiscated. Over the next two years, most of Kingsley's extensive family relocated — two of his daughters stayed in Florida, as they had married local white planters — to a plantation named Mayorasgo de Koka
Mayorasgo de Koka
Mayorasgo de Koka was a tract of land purchased by Zephaniah Kingsley in 1837 as part of his "colonization experiment" in Haiti. It is located in the province of Puerto Plata, in the north coast of the Dominican Republic....
, which was worked by more than 50 slaves transplanted from the Fort George Island plantation. In Haiti, they were contracted to work as indentured servant
Indentured servant
Indentured servitude refers to the historical practice of contracting to work for a fixed period of time, typically three to seven years, in exchange for transportation, food, clothing, lodging and other necessities during the term of indenture. Usually the father made the arrangements and signed...
s, who would earn their full freedom after nine years of labor.
Death and property disputes
After visiting his family in Haiti in 1843, Kingsley boarded a ship going to New YorkNew York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
to conduct business there. His death of pulmonary disease at 78 years old was recorded in New York City, where Kingsley was buried in a Quaker cemetery. He left much of his land to his wives and children, a bequest which was immediately contested on racial grounds by his white relatives. Kingsley's niece, Anna McNeill
Anna McNeill Whistler
Anna Matilda Whistler was the mother of American-born, British-based painter, James McNeill Whistler, who made her the subject of his famous painting "Arrangement in Grey & Black", often titled, Whistler's Mother.-Biography:Anna McNeill Whistler was born in Wilmington, North Carolina, the...
(who married George Whistler; they bore a son named James Whistler who became an artist and painted his mother in the iconic Whistler's Mother
Whistler's Mother
Arrangement in Grey and Black: The Artist's Mother, famous under its colloquial name Whistler's Mother, is an 1871 oil-on-canvas painting by American-born painter James McNeill Whistler. The painting is , displayed in a frame of Whistler's own design, and is now owned by the Musée d'Orsay in Paris....
) was among the family members who attempted to remove any of Kingsley's family of African descent from his will. Kingsley's will stipulated that no remaining slaves should be separated from their families, and that they should be given the opportunity to purchase their freedom at half their market price. Anna Madgigine Jai, who kept her African name through the marriage, returned to Florida in 1846 to oppose Kingsley's white relatives in court in Duval County
Duval County, Florida
Duval County is a county located in the U.S. state of Florida. As of 2010, the population was 864,263. Its county seat is Jacksonville, with which the Duval County government has been consolidated since 1968...
; she was successful, which was also extraordinary in light of the state and local policy that was hostile toward freed slaves or blacks of any status.
After a brief period during the U.S. Civil War (1861–1865), Anna fled to New York for supporting the Union. Anna Madgigine Jai died in April or May 1870 on a farm in the Arlington neighborhood of Jacksonville
Jacksonville, Florida
Jacksonville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Florida in terms of both population and land area, and the largest city by area in the contiguous United States. It is the county seat of Duval County, with which the city government consolidated in 1968...
, where she is buried in an unmarked grave.
Post Civil War
The Fort George plantation was sold soon after Kingsley's death. After the Civil War, the Freedman's Bureau controlled the island until 1869, when it was purchased by another planter. The island changed hands under private ownership until 1955, when it was acquired by the Florida Park Service. Kingsley's house, "the oldest standing plantation house in Florida"; Ma'am Anna House, and the barn survived the years relatively intact. Most of the slave quarters did as well. The National Park Service established the Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve in 1988 and acquired 60 acre (0.2428116 km²) of land surrounding the Kingsley Plantation buildings in 1991.External links
- Kingsley Plantation Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve
- Zephaniah Kingsley Collection and the University of Florida