KINGSLEY PLANTATION National Park Service Timucuan Preserve
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Department of the Interior KINGSLEY PLANTATION National Park Service Timucuan Preserve During the eighteenth and nineteenth FREEDOM AND SLAVERY centuries, many people came to Florida. IN PLANTATION-ERA FLORIDA Some, like Zephaniah Kingsley, sought to make their fortunes by obtaining land and establishing plantations. Others were forced to come to Florida to work on those plantations, their labor providing wealth to the people who owned them. Some of the enslaved would later become free landowners, struggling to keep their footing in a dangerous time of shifting alliances and Plantation House, post-Civil War era politics. All of these people played a part in the history of Kingsley Plantation. major plantation complexes and more than 200 slaves. The Kingsley Family Changing Times In 1814, Zephaniah Kingsley moved to Fort George Island and established a plantation. The United States acquired Florida from He brought a wife and three children (a Spain in 1821. Radical political, economic, fourth would be born at this plantataion). and social reforms swept in along with the His wife, Anna Madgigine Jai, was from new government. The Spanish had relatively Senegal, Africa, and was purchased by liberal policies regarding issues of race, but Kingsley as a slave. She actively participated American territorial law brought many in plantation management, acquiring her changes. At a time when many slaveholders own land and slaves when freed by Kingsley feared slave rebellions, oppressive laws were in 1811. enacted and conditions for Florida’s black population, free and enslaved, deteriorated. With an enslaved work force of about 60, the Fort George plantation produced Sea Kingsley was against the restrictive laws, Island cotton, citrus, sugar cane, and corn. arguing the importance of free blacks in Kingsley Plantation Slave Quarters, Kingsley continued to acquire property in society. He advocated Spain’s three class post-Civil War era northeast Florida and eventually possessed system, where enslaved people existed at more than 32,000 acres, including four the bottom tier, free blacks the middle, and white people as the top class. His pleas The Slave Community were ignored, and over the next two “Few, I think will deny that color and decades, laws were enacted that severely condition, if properly considered, are two A fifth of a mile from the plantation restricted the civil liberties of free blacks. very separate qualities… our legislators… home of Zephaniah Kingsley are the have mistaken the shadow for the remains of 25 tabby cabins. Arranged in Despite the danger of being ostracized, substance, and confounded together two a semicircle, there were 32 cabins, 16 on Kingsley crusaded to alter the views of very different things; thereby substantiating either side of the road. southern law makers. He wrote a series of by law a dangerous and inconvenient editorials, speeches, and addresses, which antipathy, which can have no better This area represents the slave became public and widely circulated. He foundation than prejudice.” community, homes of the men, women, became best known for a series of and children who lived and worked on Treatises published in four editions Zephaniah Kingsley, A Treatise on…Slavery, 1829 Kingsley Plantation more than 170 years between 1828 and 1834. His words were ago. read throughout the North and the South. Kingsley’s writings warned of the dangers Slave labor on this Sea Island cotton of a society based on racial prejudice, but, plantation was performed according to at the same time, advocated the the “task system.” Under this system, continuance of slavery. each slave was assigned a specified amount of work for the day and upon Frustrated that his words were falling on completion of this task, the slave was deaf ears, and to escape what he called a permitted to use the balance of the day “spirit of intolerant prejudice,” Kingsley as he or she chose. moved his family to Haiti, the only free black republic in the hemisphere, in 1837. Under the task system, it was assumed There, Kingsley established a colony for that slaves would raise a variety of crops his family and some of his former slaves. in their own gardens. These products could supplement the slaves’ plantation In 1839, Fort George Island was sold to his rations, or be traded or sold through the nephew Kingsley Beatty Gibbs. plantation owner. Zephaniah Kingsley continued to own slaves until his death in 1843. Slave Daily Life Visiting Kingsley Plantation Most aspects of slave family life were Kingsley Plantation is a 60-acre unit of the influenced by the needs and attitudes of the 46,000-acre Timucuan Ecological and plantation owner. Legally, slave marriages Historic Preserve in Jacksonville, Florida, which is managed by the National Park were not recognized; the law dealt more Service. with the issues of ownership. Children of enslaved parents belonged to the mother’s Visitors can explore the grounds, which owner. Financial difficulties or death of the include the oldest standing plantation house owner could prompt sales of slaves, in Florida, the kitchen, barn, and waterfront. separating families. The still-standing remains of 25 slave cabins offer perhaps the most graphic evidence of Medical attention for slaves varied from slave living quarters and daily life experiences home remedies to physicians hired by the in the state. plantation owner – and could depend on the economic impact of the disability. Kingsley Plantation is open seven days a week, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., except Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, and New Tasks often brought slaves into close contact Years Day. Admission is free. with their owners. One example is a slave’s task to care for the owner’s child on a daily The plantation is located off of Heckscher basis, spending more of the day with that Drive/A1A north of the St. Johns River ferry child than her own. Unidentified slave woman and George Gibbs landing. Some aspects of slave life were not controlled by the plantation owner. Within double meanings and secret religious For more information, contact: their community, slaves created a culture services. that included elements of their African Kingsley Plantation Timucuan Ecological & Historic Preserve heritage. Slaves expressed themselves in Many aspects of American culture are National Park Service music, dance, and religious practices that directly linked to the plantation period. 11676 Palmetto Avenue were their own and did not reflect the From southern cooking to popular music, Jacksonville, Florida 32226 customs of their owners. Frequently these aspects of African culture survived slavery 904.251.3537 expressions were hidden, as in lyrics with and are present today. http://www.nps.gov/timu .