Kingsley Plantation
I go to Kingsley Plantation, near Jacksonville, every year. I write about it every year, too, so skip all this if you want. The Plantation is such a good reminder of how easy it is for us humans to fall into evil and how we, and society, find ways to justify it.
Zephaniah Kingsley was a slave trader who "married" a 13-year-old slave. She, Anta Madgigine Jai Kingsley, was freed by Zephaniah at 18 and became a capable, independent woman, in charge of his sea island cotton plantation when he was away. She owned property--and slaves--of her own.
Zephaniah advocated against cruel, punishment-based slave systems. He figured that a reasonably happy slave, with some control over his own destiny, would work harder and cause less trouble than an angry, bitter slave. So he allowed his slaves (200 or so of them) to earn some money, own guns and hunt, have their own tiny patches of garden, and work toward being freed. He didn't believe in whipping, and he didn't believe in separating families. Zephaniah treated his biracial children, by Anna and probably three other wives, as his own and provided for them.
But. He owned people. He--and doubtless she--believed that it was in the slaves' best interest to be enslaved. They thought slavery was necessary and inevitable. Maybe that was the best a person could be in that time and place.
Today the site is serene and park-like. It's hard to remember that slaves had to pick the sea cotton piece by piece--it grows on tall shrubs--in 100+ heat. They had to bring their little ones into the fields, where there was no shade. They had to work the sugar cane and indigo operations, both of which were brutal, back-breaking work.
Even Anna, running things from her kitchen, would have been working over an open fire in a tiny space.
The walls of the slave quarters remain. They were sturdy, made of a sort of cement created by burning the lime out of oyster shells, but the houses are tiny, just two small rooms with a brick fireplace, and had buggy thatch roofs.
(First photo and slave quarters sketch from the Florida State Library and Archive.)
Zephaniah Kingsley was a slave trader who "married" a 13-year-old slave. She, Anta Madgigine Jai Kingsley, was freed by Zephaniah at 18 and became a capable, independent woman, in charge of his sea island cotton plantation when he was away. She owned property--and slaves--of her own.
Today the site is serene and park-like. It's hard to remember that slaves had to pick the sea cotton piece by piece--it grows on tall shrubs--in 100+ heat. They had to bring their little ones into the fields, where there was no shade. They had to work the sugar cane and indigo operations, both of which were brutal, back-breaking work.
The walls of the slave quarters remain. They were sturdy, made of a sort of cement created by burning the lime out of oyster shells, but the houses are tiny, just two small rooms with a brick fireplace, and had buggy thatch roofs.
(First photo and slave quarters sketch from the Florida State Library and Archive.)
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