Anna kingsley biography

Johns River, selling goods Kingsley imported to planters up and down the river. Many thought she was a free black woman because of her competence, even though she was only eighteen. Zephaniah did free Anna and her three children that year, fearful they would be sold should he die at sea. One must understand the difference between racial politics in territorial Florida versus the southern United States to understand a man like Zephaniah Kingsley.

Spain recognized three castes of people — whites, free blacks, and slaves. Free blacks could intermarry, inherit property, own property, travel freely, and access the court system. Kingsley, a Quaker by birth, believed in manumission as well as the ability of enslaved people to purchase their freedom. At his plantations, Kingsley often employed people he had previously enslaved for straight wages.

With her freedom, Anna moved to a five-acre homestead across the river from Laurel Grove. After only one year of calm, chaos arrived. The Patriot War saw Zephaniah detained by rebels and the Laurel Grove home taken by marauders as a base of operations. Both free and enslaved blacks were in peril from Georgians running rampant across the territory.

As a Spanish gunboat passed by, Anna took it upon herself to canoe out and detain them. She told them of the marauders, now hiding in the trees, ferried out over twenty free and enslaved blacks, and went back to set Laurel Grove afire, followed by her own farm buildings. For this bravery, Anna was awarded acres of her own by the Spanish government.

She purchased goods and livestock to get her farm started, as well as 12 enslaved workers. Americans and American-supplied Creek Indians raided towns and plantations in north Florida, sending any blacks they captured into slavery, regardless of their legal status. The Patriots took Laurel Grove and 41 of its slaves, using the facilities as their headquarters while they carried out similar raids in the area.

Kingsley fled after being released, his whereabouts unknown. To evade the Americans, Anna approached the Spanish and negotiated her escape, bringing along her children and a dozen slaves. She burned Kingsley's plantation to the ground while the Spanish watched. For her actions, after the war the Spanish government granted Anna acres 1.

The main house is in the background. Johns River. The owner's house had been looted and vandalized, and every other structure on the property was destroyed. While the slave quarters and various other buildings were being rebuilt, Anna moved in, taking over managing the plantation while Kingsley was away on business. It had a room above it where Anna lived with her children.

Called the "Ma'am Anna House", this followed the common West African custom of wives' living separately from their husbands, particularly in polygamous marriages. Two of them brought children. Thirty-two slave cabins were constructed not far from Kingsley's house. They were constructed of tabby , made by pounding oyster shells into lime and adding water and sand.

The shells came from the massive middens left by the Timucua who previously inhabited the island. Anthropologists suggest that Anna may have had the knowledge to instruct her slaves how to form the tabby because it was widely used in West Africa. The slave quarters were arranged in a semi-circular pattern that was an anomaly in the South.

Some historians have suggested Kingsley arranged them to keep better watch over his slaves. Author Daniel Schafer hypothesized that Anna may have been responsible for the layout of the slave quarters: many African villages were similarly arranged in circular patterns. Anna befriended a white woman named Susan L'Engle, who was much impressed with Anna and called her "the African princess".

Susan L'Engle had the impression that Anna was quite lonely though her jobs at the plantation kept her constantly busy. It is unclear, but it seems possible that Zephaniah Kingsley married the thirteen-year-old Anna before leaving Cuba. During the Patriot Rebellion, pro-U.

Anna kingsley biography

Zephaniah Kingsley was abducted almost immediately after the rebellion started and was held hostage. Laurel Grove was destroyed by Seminole allies on the orders of the governor of Florida, and eventually Anna burned her own property to prove her loyalty to Spanish Florida. As a result, after the war the Spanish granted Anna acres for her loyalty.

The U. Anna Kingsley's status as a freed slave and land owner were threatened, and her interracial marriage was viewed as unacceptable in the new U. The Kingsleys fled to Haiti, where they ran a large plantation and created a colony for free blacks.