Anna Kingsley: A Remarkable Story
Kimberley DeBessonet
ENC 1102
Prof. Sandra McDonald
Everest University
October 4, 2011

Anna Kingsley, was born Anta Majigeen Ndiaye in Senegal, West Africa in 1793. She helped establish some of the communities in modern day Jacksonville and Orange Park, Florida. Daniel L. Schafer, Professor of History at the University of North Florida, spent nearly twenty-five years researching about her life. Early accounts of her life are based on history memorized by a griot, the oral historian of the village, who passes down the historical accounts through generations. “Mamadou Diouf, a Senegal Historian, speculated that at some point Anta Majigeen Ndiaye may have been recognized as a child of royalty and received special treatment at the time she was sold” (Schafer, 2003, p.18). However, early aspects of her life lack written evidence and the accounts of her being a “royal princess” are just legends. Anna Kingsley overcame the adversity of slavery because, she gained her freedom, she became the respected wife of a plantation owner and she was a successful business woman. By all accounts about that era, her story as an African slave to matriarch of the Kingsley family is a remarkable story. In April 1806 Anta, her mother and the others from her Wolof family village were captured, rounded up and herded to the coast for sale into slavery. She survived the transatlantic crossing, called the “Middle Passage” to Cuba and then was later purchased by Zephaniah Kingsley. “Some would call this luck because Kingsley, unlike most American slave owners and traders, considered slavery more of an economic and temporary condition and completely unrelated to race” (McTammy, 2000). In late October, Kingsley and Anta sailed into Doctors Lake and docked at Laurel Grove, today known as Orange Park. Also, Anta was already carrying her first child when they arrived at the plantation. Kingsley and Anta would live openly together in the dwelling house as husband and wife. He called her Anna and she became known as Anna Madgigine Jai Kingsley, reflecting the African surnames translated in Spanish and English. “A similar path to freedom was for a slave woman to marry their owner and give birth to their children” (Schafer, 1997, p.15). Whether or not this was her intention it was the opportunity that Anna needed to gain her freedom. On March 1, 1811 Kingsley signed the manumission document papers which ensured her legal freedom. In this document he recognized her as his eighteen year-old wife and the mother of his three children which marked the beginning of a written record of her remarkable life. (“Anna Kingsley,” p.4).
Not very long after arriving at the Laurel Grove Plantation, Anna was managing the household staff. Because Zephaniah had other slave wives, Anna was considered the first wife, the respected authority of the polygamous household. This type of co-wife relationship was well tolerated by Anna since it was a customary practice in Africa. Most visitors to the plantation considered Anna a free person of color and did not know she was Kingsley’s slave. Anna assumed the responsibilities of managing the plantation when Kingsley was away on trading trips. “She supervised more than 100 slaves to maintain the business activities of the Laurel Grove Plantation” (McTammy, 2000). In 1812 a young and independent Anna moved across the St. Johns River to start her own plantation. The Spanish government had granted her a 5-acre farm in Mandarin. She built a two story house, the bottom floor was for storage and the second floor was the living quarters for Anna and her three children George, Martha and Mary. She purchased farm animals and had a poultry yard including a chicken house that was the “envy of the neighborhood” (McTammy, 2006). She also purchased 12 slaves and built houses for them just like the ones at Laurel Grove Plantation. “She became one of a significant number of business owners of free people of African descent in East Florida” (Anna Kingsley, p.4). Her successful business only lasted until November of 1813 when “Patriot Rebels” marched towards Anna’s plantation. Instead of giving the rebels the opportunity to set up a command post using her plantation and using her supplies, she burnt everything to the ground. After both plantations where destroyed, Zephaniah and Anna reunited in Fernandina and waited there until the rebels were gone and it was safe to travel again. In March of 1814, they moved to Fort George Island and restored the abandoned plantation, now called Kingsley Plantation. And once again, Anna would assume the responsibilities of running the plantation, while Kingsley was away on trading trips. In a Florida Superior Court Claim, Kingsley states that Anna “could carry on all the affairs of the plantation in my absence as well as I could myself” (Anna Kingsley, p.5).
In 1821 Florida became a territory of the United States. Under the cession treaty the status of free people of color was suppose to be protected. Inter-racial marriages were prohibited and children of mixed-race were not allowed to inherit their white parent’s estate (Schafer, 1994, p.30). Also white men found guilty of having sexual relations with a colored woman were severely punished. Concern for himself and his family’s safety, Kingsley started a new plantation on the northern coast of Haiti in 1836. In 1837 Anna and family, a total of about sixty people moved to the” Island of Liberty” as George Kingsley called Haiti. The George Kingsley settlement on “Mayorasgo de Koka” would be where she would call home until 1847 when she returned to Florida (“Anna Kingsley, p.6). Anna Kinsley purchased a 22-acre farm called Chesterfield located between her two daughters’ estates. Today a parcel of the farm is part of the Jacksonville University campus, in Arlington section of Jacksonville (Schafer, 2003, p.75). She would spend the rest of her life as the matriarch of the Kingsley family who lived in a rural community of free blacks in Arlington. The descendants of Anna Kingsley would later become influential in the African American community. Dr. Johnnetta Betsch Cole, a seventh-generation descendant of Anna Kingsley and former President of Spelman College, called her a”shero, a female hero of special note because of her gender and the extraordinary obstacles of slavery, racism, sexism, and patriarchy in the 1800s that she had to overcome in order to achieve her desired goal” (Jackson, 2009). Her story is unique because she turned the adversity of slavery into opportunities to succeed in life.

References
Anna Kinsley: A Free Woman. Retrieved from http://www.nps.gov/timu
Jackson, A.T. (2009). The Kingsley Plantation Community in Jacksonville, Florida: Memory and place in a southern American city. CRM, 6, 23-33.
McTammy, M.J. (2001, June 21). Admiration for a former slave’s self-disciplined, tenacious life. Florida Times-Union, pM-4.
Schafer, D.L. (1994). Anna Kingsley. St. Augustine, Florida: St. Augustine Historical Society.
Schafer, D.L. (1997). Anna Kingsley (Revised and Expanded Edition). St. Augustine, Florida: St. Augustine Historical Society.
Schafer, D.L. (2003). Anna Madgigine Jai Kingsley: African princess, florida slave, plantation slaveowner. Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida.