Anna KingsleyEssay Preview: Anna KingsleyReport this essayAnna Kingsley, a woman of strength and determination overcame many odds not expected of an African American slave. She married a slave owner, owned land, and was once a slave herself. She was well known in a free black community she helped establish.
Anna Madgigine Jai Kingsley was the wife of plantation owner Zephaniah Kingsley. She was the daughter of a man of high status. Her fathers sides were descendants of the well know Njaajan Njaay, the creators of the Jolof Empire. Her father was killed in April 1806, the day she was captured. The tyeddo warriors invaded her village and collected all the villagers to be sold as slaves. That day she not only lost her freedom and her home, but also her dignity and her youth (Harvey, 41).
Anna and the others were lead to a ship and they sailed from Senegal to Havana, Cuba to be sold as slaves. The Havana Market was the center of commerce of Spains colonies in America (Schafer, 23). Anna arrived in Florida in 1806. She was thirteen years old. Zephaniah Kinglsey Jr was a citizen of Spanish East Florida. He was born in England, but raised in Charleston, South Carolina. His father, a merchant, moved his family to Nova Scotia because he was banished from South Carolina for giving support to King George III at time of the American Revolution.
In 1808, Kinglsey moved to Florida, where he pledged his fidelity to Spain and imported slaves on his plantation (Schafer, 21). Once purchased, Kingsley boarded Anna on the ship Esther and they sailed to Laurel Grove Plantation north and on the west of the St. Johns River. This would be her new home. She did not stay in the slave quarters, but she did stay in his two-story home. He thought of her as his wife and she was carrying his child. A few months before Anna gave birth; she became manager of Kingsleys household located at Laurel Grove. Most of the slaves came from East and West Africa. The plantation consisted of corn, cotton, mandarin oranges, sugarcane, potatoes and beans. According to Kinglsey “color ought not be the badge of degrading,” only the distinction should be between slaves and free, not between white and colored (Schafer, 32).
Anna and Zephaniah were open about their relationship. She was the head wife or woman in a polygamous household. One March 4, 1811 after five years of enslavement, Anna was emancipated by her husband. She was now a free woman again. In 1812, Anna moved away from her home at Laurel Grove. The Spanish government granted her 5 acres of land across the St. Johns River. She established a lovely house for her three children and herself. She also established slave quarters fro the twelve slaves she brought with her. Spanish law viewed slaves as persons created by god and endowed with a soul and a moral personality, the unfortunate victims of fate or war (Schafer, 37). They had rights under the Spanish law that allowed them to get married, be freed for meritorious acts and also to self purchase. They were allowed to work extra jobs to earn money to buy their freedom. Once emancipated, the slaves could own property.
Anna became Catholic while living off the St. Johns. She later used the Catholic Church to protect her rights and bind her family to powerful patrons, forming an extended kinship networks through godparent ties (Schafer, 38). In 1812, the Patriot Rebellion would begin. The president of the United States, James Madison, financed and instigated the Patriot Rebellion. American soldiers and sailors crossed the East Floridas border and took the town of Fernandina. They went south and began to attack outside St. Augustine. On the first day of the rebellion, Zephaniah was captured and held hostage until he signed a pledge to support the rebels. Laurel Groves was taken over by the soldiers and used as headquarters. Kingsleys house and retail store was the only building left. Anna boarded a canoe and started paddling towards a ship named the Immutable. The commander, Jose Antonio Moreno gave her his word that her children and slaves would be safe on his ship. She returned to the forest and brought back the children and her slaves.
Anna volunteered to lead Spanish soldiers to retrieve the cannons and bring them back to the boat. But the rebels began filling the woods and they had no choice but to turn back. Later on, she lead them back to the house to look for enslaved Africans who might have survived. She set her home on fire so that there was no place for the rebels to meet. Once she returned, she asked Moreno to sail across the St. Johns River to where her other home was. Once there, she burned the house down “so that the rebels would not avail themselves of it, and that it was more gratifying to lose it than that the enemies should take advantage (Schafer, 43). Anna was granted 350 acres of land from the government for her heroic defense of the province and for her loses. Zephaniah and Anna built a new home on Fort George Island. She lived there until 1838. She raised her children
[Pg 4]The story of how the family of Anna is seen in “On the Rise of Civilization” by Peter A. Hurd, is from “On the Rise of Civilization” by Peter H. Sorenson at H.P. Lovecraft’s house in the same chapter called “The Making of the Ancient West” (1829). Hurd says: “For about 40 years I lived among the tribes and at the same time many of them became slaves, and some took advantage. Perhaps my story may be as true as anyone else. They knew no place where the natives in their native tongue could be found, and they used only money to keep us poor. Our parents came to us at night in small houses where they bought or made them come, where in their hands they had many men to do all the digging, where they had little or no one to make things themselves. The children grew up in old homes, a good home and a small garden — a town of small fields, of wheat with a little wood, with trees, with horses, and a few sheep. They also knew how to cook, and when their parents were tired they could stay in the same houses with the children, and would go out into the street and play in the fields till hungry days came over and they went to eat, but then they moved out and there was no place for them.
“They were as good or better farmers and they had more money than in most civilized places, but poor people kept the same. Here they had as many wives as they could support, and by no means a wife, for when I came thither a man had no wife of his own. They lived much like the people of America, only for their wives were less to them than the women of Africa. It may have been as I told you. And they had children or children over them. They did not live as well as their neighbours did, and the people lived much like the others. In Africa the children grew up in a kind of house filled with books and the boys went to school in the houses. These places were filled with slaves who did no cooking, but they had their books and they had their friends and neighbors in the house. From the children the mothers went to Europe, and from the mothers they came. I once saw one girl of our tribe who did not like to marry, and she went and killed all the Indians who were with her. I do not care how she was killed, she killed all the Indians and she killed the house-wives who lived there, too. I told them about the children when the women went to England, where they were kept in slave houses and they told them they ought to see their fathers. It was true, they kept the children that grew up in the slave houses but the masters saw so little or no need of their children, and took them to one of the masters who also owned the slave houses. Some of them could not cook, but some were good at making things, and were better at cooking than many of us could be.
“Of course they knew better and all the boys knew better, but those masters knew better and a child could not be given to a master that was not a slave. Therefore, this poor little girl went with the child of her master to London and married his cousin.
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[Pg 4]The story of how the family of Anna is seen in “On the Rise of Civilization” by Peter A. Hurd, is from “On the Rise of Civilization” by Peter H. Sorenson at H.P. Lovecraft’s house in the same chapter called “The Making of the Ancient West” (1829). Hurd says: “For about 40 years I lived among the tribes and at the same time many of them became slaves, and some took advantage. Perhaps my story may be as true as anyone else. They knew no place where the natives in their native tongue could be found, and they used only money to keep us poor. Our parents came to us at night in small houses where they bought or made them come, where in their hands they had many men to do all the digging, where they had little or no one to make things themselves. The children grew up in old homes, a good home and a small garden — a town of small fields, of wheat with a little wood, with trees, with horses, and a few sheep. They also knew how to cook, and when their parents were tired they could stay in the same houses with the children, and would go out into the street and play in the fields till hungry days came over and they went to eat, but then they moved out and there was no place for them.
“They were as good or better farmers and they had more money than in most civilized places, but poor people kept the same. Here they had as many wives as they could support, and by no means a wife, for when I came thither a man had no wife of his own. They lived much like the people of America, only for their wives were less to them than the women of Africa. It may have been as I told you. And they had children or children over them. They did not live as well as their neighbours did, and the people lived much like the others. In Africa the children grew up in a kind of house filled with books and the boys went to school in the houses. These places were filled with slaves who did no cooking, but they had their books and they had their friends and neighbors in the house. From the children the mothers went to Europe, and from the mothers they came. I once saw one girl of our tribe who did not like to marry, and she went and killed all the Indians who were with her. I do not care how she was killed, she killed all the Indians and she killed the house-wives who lived there, too. I told them about the children when the women went to England, where they were kept in slave houses and they told them they ought to see their fathers. It was true, they kept the children that grew up in the slave houses but the masters saw so little or no need of their children, and took them to one of the masters who also owned the slave houses. Some of them could not cook, but some were good at making things, and were better at cooking than many of us could be.
“Of course they knew better and all the boys knew better, but those masters knew better and a child could not be given to a master that was not a slave. Therefore, this poor little girl went with the child of her master to London and married his cousin.
”