Anna Kingsley: a Free Woman

Lesson Plan_KathyTilford Anna A Free Woman Kingsley: In the of the nineteenth the of early years century, population significant number of free people of African descent in East Florida. Florida was small but diverse. Americans and Spanish Europeans They included farmers, craftsmen, and members of a black militia. came wealth land and seeking by obtaining establishing planta Some of these people, likeAnna, owned slaves. Although slavery was the forced labor of enslaved Africans secured that race tions; furthermore, supported, Spanish policies encouraged manumission and self wealth. Those Africans who were freed their owners or who was not a by purchase and slavery necessarily considered permanent their own freedom became or black purchased farmers, tradesmen, condition. The free black population held certain rights and privi militiamen who the On the helped protect colony. frontier, away leges, and they had opportunities to take an active part in the from the settlements and the Seminole Indians and the plantations, economic development of the colony. Anna Kingsley was determined Black Seminoles an on the kept uneasy vigil encroaching develop to be an independent businesswoman, selling goods and poultry to ment of Florida. neighboring settlers. those for freedom and in Among striving security Spanish Her blossoming business lasted only months. During an effort Florida was Anna Anna was the African wife of Kingsley. plantation to wrest East Florida from the Spanish, armed American forces owner At an she survived the Middle Zephaniah Kingsley. early age, entered the province. Together, with a number of rebellious Florid to Passage and dehumanizing slave markets become the property of ians, they looted and occupied the homesteads of planters and settlers After manumission her Anna became a Kingsley. by husband, to obtain supplies and set up bases. If these insurgents succeeded and landowner and slaveholder. She raised her four children while an American system replaced the comparatively liberal Spanish a managing plantation that utilized African slave labor. She survived policies, what would become of the freed people and their rights? brutal in race and social attitudes changes policies brought by When the Americans approached, Anna herself lit the fire that successive in but survival demanded governments Florida, difficult, consumed her house and property. Then she escaped with her often dangerous, choices. children and slaves on a Spanish gunboat. The insurrection later Anna was a woman of and determination. She Kingsley courage ended in failure and, as it turned out, Anna's loss was not total. is an of the active role that of color in example people played shaping Although a Spanish commandant reported of Anna's property "the own our in an era their destinies and country's history of slavery, flames devoured grain and other things to the value $1,500," the no oppression, and prejudice. She left, however, personal descrip governor rewarded her loyalty with a land grant of 350 acres. tions of her life. She was not a famous or who powerful person figured Laurel Grove was also destroyed as a result of the conflict. In in accounts of that era. we must find Anna in the prominently Today 1814 Zephaniah and Anna Kingsley, along with their children and official documents of her time and in the historic structures that she slaves, moved to Fort George Island, a sea island near the mouth of inhabited. There her be discovered. story may the St. Johns River. On this thousand-acre island with palm-fringed beaches, birds of every description, and ancient Indian mounds of Anna A Free Woman Kingsley: oyster shell, they restored an abandoned plantation. In a fine, On the first ofMarch in the of East day 1811, Spanish province comfortable house with views of the tidal marsh and ocean beyond, white owner his Florida, plantation Zephaniah Kingsley put signature Anna spent the next twenty-three years of her life. on a document that forever the life of a African changed young During the years at Fort George, Zephaniah Kingsley's Florida woman. was a manumission The document paper which ensured her landholdings increased to include extensive timberland and orange freedom. The woman, a native of whom sea legal young Senegal Kingsley groves, and four major plantations producing island cotton, rice, in a in was had purchased slave market Havana, Cuba, his eighteen and provisions. He also owned ships that he captained on trading wife and the mother of his three children. That not year-old paper voyages. Kingsley had managers at his various properties to whom he marked the of the woman's freedom in the only beginning young entrusted his business operations when he was away. At the Fort New it was also the of the written record of a World, beginning George plantation, Anna took this responsibility and, Kingsley later remarkable life. Her name was Anna Madgigine JaiKingsley. declared, "could carry on all the affairs of the plantation in my A free Anna the woman, Kingsley petitioned Spanish govern absence as well as I could myself." These "affairs" included oversee ment for and land records show that in 1813 she was land, grant ing the lives of about sixty men, women, and children who lived on title to five acres on the St. River. The was granted Johns property Fort George Island in slavery. The labor of the Kingsley slaves located across the river from her husband's Laurel plantation, Grove, provided the wealth of the Kingsley family. south of Anna and livestock to today's Jacksonville. purchased goods Conditions for all of Florida's people of color, free and enslaved, a and she slaves. She became one of a begin business, purchased changed drastically when Florida became a territory of the United OAH Magazine of History Fall 1997 35 States in 1821. An influential Mayorasgo De Koka andAnna rea planter, Zephaniah Kingsley Kingsley, for unknown to was appointed to the 1823 sons, returned Florida. She not return to territorial legislative council. could Fort He tried to persuade lawmak George Island; that plantation ers to adopt policies similar to had been sold years before. near those of the Spanish, provid She settled her daugh ing for liberal manumission ters who had married and in more and rights for the free black stayed Florida. Once on population. He published his Anna lived the St. Johns a opinions inA Treatise on the River, this time in young town called Patriarchal, orCo-operativeSys Jacksonville. tern of Society As It Exists in When the Civil War di Some Governments, and Colo vided the country, Anna and nies in America, and in the her daughters' families sup UnitedStates, Under theName ported the Union. With of Slavery, with Its Necessity Florida's secession and hostil and Advantages in 1828. But ityfrom Confederates intensi The Kingsley plantation residence on Florida's Fort George Island, late 1800s. not Anna had to leave her Kingsley's arguments did (Photo courtesy National Park Service.) fying, convince Florida legislators. home again. In 1862, she to to Legislative councils used fear of slave rebellion to justify policies that traveled with relatives New York. They returned Florida later were increasingly oppressive. Legislation of the 1820s and 1830s that year, but, to be safe, lived inUnion-occupied Fernandina until reflects racial discrimination that blurred the distinction between the end of the conflict. In 1865 Anna Kingsley returned to the St. freeman and slave until there was virtually no difference. Johns River for the final time. The cession agreement between the U.S. and Spain was Anna Madgigine JaiKingsley died in 1870. No intimate letters, or on are to exist. supposed to protect the status of free people of color living in Florida diaries, other personal reflections her life known in 1821, but the Kingsleys had reason to be concerned. Parish No portrait or photograph of any kind remains of her. Even her grave records reveal that a fourth child was born to Zephaniah and Anna isunmarked. Her story, however, endures. In the legal petitions and in 1824. Their new son was subject to the harsh enactments that official correspondence, probate and property records, the details of on near Zephaniah Kingsley called "a system of terror." Even Anna and her her life emerge. And Fort George Island, the mouth of the were not secure as she lived for still older son and two daughters necessarily racism St. Johns River, the house where twenty-three years increased. Anna decided to leave Florida and go to Haiti. Slave stands. revolution had made Haiti the first independent black republic of the Lesson Procedures a New World, the "Island of Liberty" as Kingsley called it.Anna and To enhance this lesson plan, teachers may borrow slide or to a her sons intended to start a plantation on the northern coast of the program of Kingsley Plantation. To request slides arrange field island. Their work force would consist of more than fifty of their trip, contact the National Park Service, Kingsley Plantation, 11676 former Florida slaves, freed towork as indentured servants to comply Palmetto Ave., Jacksonville, Florida, 32226. with Haitian lawwhich prohibited slavery. In 183 7Anna Kingsley 1. Students should read the Anna Kingsley article and receive left Florida and sailed to "Mayorasgo De Koka," her new home in copies of the two included documents. Haiti. 2. Have students use maps to trace Anna's life and travels. to a to one Zephaniah Kingsley described Mayorasgo De Koka as "heavily 3. Ask students draw time line from 1775 1875. On events timbered with mahogany all round; well watered; flowers so beauti side of the time line students should identify important of ful; fruits in abundance, so delicious that you could not refrain from Anna's life and when they occurred and on the other side students some stopping to eat..." Roads and bridges were built and the Kingsley's should note the dates and major events of American and (with events in planned a school for the community, but they did not live happily ever research) Florida history.

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