Kingsley Plantation facts for kids
Quick facts for kids |
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Kingsley Plantation
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 Location in Florida
Location in the United States
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| Location | within the Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve, Jacksonville, Florida |
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| Nearest city | Jacksonville, Florida, U.S. |
| Area | 60 acres (24.3 ha) |
| Built | 1797 or 1798 |
| NRHP reference No. | 70000182 |
| Added to NRHP | September 29, 1970 |
Kingsley Plantation is a historic place on Fort George Island in Duval County, Florida. It's named after Zephaniah Kingsley, who owned it for 25 years. This plantation is part of the Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve, managed by the U.S. National Park Service.
Kingsley's house is the oldest plantation house still standing in Florida. The village of slave cabins, built very strongly, is one of the best preserved in the United States. It's also known as the oldest surviving Spanish Colonial plantation in the U.S.
The plantation originally covered most of Fort George Island, about 750 acres. Today, the park area is about 60 acres. Before Europeans arrived, the Timucua people lived here. Later, a Spanish mission called San Juan del Puerto was built. Under British rule in 1765, a plantation started here. Over time, Florida changed hands between Spain, Britain, and the United States. Kingsley and his family owned the plantation for the longest time. His family was diverse, including people of different backgrounds.
Kingsley's main business at the plantation was buying, selling, and training enslaved people. He also grew cotton, but this was less important. The enslaved people also grew their own food in small gardens. Kingsley treated the enslaved people in a way that was considered unusual for his time. He even married one of them, Anna Madgigine Jai.
After Kingsley, free Black people and other owners lived at the plantation. The State of Florida bought it in 1955, and the National Park Service took it over in 1991.
The most important parts of Kingsley Plantation are the owner's house, built around 1797 or 1798, and the remains of 25 slave cabins. These cabins are important for understanding history. The foundations of the house, kitchen, barn, and slave quarters were built using a strong material called tabby concrete. Archeologists have found items in the slave cabins that teach us about African traditions kept alive by enslaved people who came to North America.
Zephaniah Kingsley wrote about his ideas on slavery and a social system that recognized the rights of free people of color. He believed this system, which existed in Florida under Spanish rule, was better. He briefly served on the Florida Territorial Council but resigned when they didn't agree with his views on free Black people's rights.
Kingsley Plantation was not Kingsley's only plantation. He had others, including one on Drayton Island. In the 1830s, he moved his family from Florida to a plantation in what is now the Dominican Republic. He did this because free Black people faced more restrictions in Florida.
Contents
A Look Back: History of the Plantation
Early Days and European Rule
Fort George Island is a marshy island near Jacksonville, Florida. For about 12,000 years, the north Atlantic coast of Florida was home to people. When Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León arrived in 1513, he met the Timucua people. They were the largest group of Native Americans in the area, with about 14,000 people. The Timucua lived in complex societies, fishing, hunting, and farming. They left behind huge mounds of discarded shells, mostly oysters, on Fort George Island.
In 1763, Florida became a British territory. The Spanish had built missions, including one on Fort George Island called San Juan del Puerto. When the British took control, they started several plantations. Richard Hazard owned the first plantation on Fort George Island in 1765, growing indigo with enslaved Africans. Spain got Florida back in 1783 after the American Revolution. They offered free land to new American settlers.
In 1793, John "Lightning" McQueen, an American Revolution veteran, moved to Fort George Island. The Spanish government gave him the island. McQueen settled with 300 enslaved people and built a large house. He later went bankrupt, and John McIntosh from Georgia took over in 1804. McIntosh was involved in the Patriot Rebellion, an attempt by Americans to make Florida part of the United States. The rebellion failed, and McIntosh left Florida.
Kingsley's Family and Life
Zephaniah Kingsley (1765–1843) was born in England and grew up in South Carolina. He became a slave trader and ship owner, traveling widely. He leased Fort George Island in 1814 and bought it in 1817 for $7,000. Kingsley owned several plantations in Florida. His wife, Anna Madgigine Jai (1793–1870), was a former enslaved person from West Africa. Kingsley married Anna in 1806 when she was 13. He freed her in 1811 and put her in charge of his Laurel Grove plantation.
Kingsley's legal document freeing Anna stated: "Let it be known that I ... possessed as a slave a black woman called Anna, around eighteen years of age, bought as a bozal [newly imported African] in the port of Havana from a slave cargo, who with the permission of the government was introduced here; the said black woman has given birth to three mulatto children: George, about 3 years 9 months, Martha, 20 months old, an Mary, one month old. And regarding the good qualities shown by the said black woman, the nicety and fidelity which she has shown me, and for other reasons, I have resolved to set her free ... and the same to her three children."
Marriages between white plantation owners and African women were common in East Florida. The Spanish government allowed a separate class of free people of color and encouraged enslaved people to buy their freedom. Many free Black people owned their own enslaved people and were involved in the economy. Anna oversaw 60 enslaved people on Fort George Island. They grew sea island cotton, citrus, corn, sugarcane, beans, and potatoes. Kingsley also had children with other women. Anna Jai remained an important figure in his diverse family.
Kingsley was proud of his multiracial family and gave his children the best education he could. In 1828, he published a defense of slavery, arguing it was necessary for society and beneficial to both owners and enslaved people. He believed race should not be the only factor determining someone's status. In 1823, President James Monroe appointed Kingsley to Florida's Territorial Council. Kingsley tried to get them to define the rights of free people of color, but when they didn't, he resigned. The council passed laws that limited the rights free Black people had under Spanish rule. Kingsley's writings were his response to these changes.
To avoid problems with the new government, Kingsley sent his wives, children, and some enslaved people to Haiti, which was a free Black republic. His two daughters had married white planters and stayed in Florida. In 1839, he sold the plantation to his nephew, Kingsley Beatty Gibbs. Kingsley started a new plantation in Haiti where former Fort George Island enslaved people worked as indentured servants, earning their freedom over nine years.
Kingsley died in 1843. Anna returned to Florida in 1846 to settle a dispute over his will. Since the will was made under Spanish law, which allowed inheritance by free Black people, the court sided with Anna. She and her children kept control of Kingsley's Florida properties for several years. Kingsley Beatty Gibbs sold the Fort George Island plantation in 1852.
After the Kingsley Family
Anna Jai moved to Jacksonville with about 70 former enslaved people. After the American Civil War, the Freedmen's Bureau managed the island. Recently freed people lived in the former slave quarters and farmed the land.
In 1869, John Rollins bought the island. He made many changes to the plantation house, which had been empty. When farming didn't work out, he turned the island into a tourist resort. He built a large luxury hotel, the Fort George Hotel (1875), and attracted famous people. The slave quarters were shown as tourist attractions. The hotel burned down in 1888 and was not rebuilt. The Rollins family then tried growing citrus until a freeze in 1894 destroyed their trees. Rollins' daughter's family was the last to live in the main house. She sold the island to private investors in 1923.
Two clubs were built on the island for wealthy Jacksonville residents. The Fort George Club used the plantation house as an annex and later as a clubhouse. This clubhouse burned down in 1936 but was rebuilt. However, due to the Great Depression and an aging membership, the club closed in 1948.
The Ribault Club, built in 1928 and restored in 2003, is now the Visitor Center for Fort George Island.
The Florida Park Service bought most of Fort George Island in 1955, including the plantation houses and slave quarters. They started restoring the property in 1967. The Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve was created by the National Park Service in 1988. Kingsley Plantation became part of the National Park Service in 1991.
Life and Labor: Slavery on Fort George Island
Kingsley's plantations were centers for his slave trading business. He owned ships that brought enslaved Africans to the plantation. Here, newly arrived enslaved people were taught some English and trained in farming. This training made them more valuable when sold to other planters.
Work at Kingsley Plantation used the "task system." Each enslaved person had specific tasks to complete each day, like processing a certain amount of cotton. Once their tasks were done, they were free to do as they wished. This was different from the "gang system" used on other plantations, where enslaved people worked all day under an overseer.
Enslaved people on Fort George Island were from Africa or were first-generation African Americans. Records show they came from areas like modern-day Nigeria and Guinea. Archeologist Charles H. Fairbanks studied items found at the slave quarters. His findings showed cooking pots, animal bones from food, and other tools.
Fairbanks described Kingsley as an "unusually permissive slave owner." Kingsley wrote about the strength of Africans and even gave enslaved people padlocks for their cabins. He also encouraged dancing and celebrations on weekends.
Kingsley used the plantation to train enslaved people for specific jobs, like skilled artisans or farmers. Those trained by Kingsley sold for much higher prices, sometimes 50 percent more than the market price.
The Slave Cabins: Homes and History
The slave houses were built using tabby, a strong material made from oyster shells, sand, and water. Enslaved people likely built them in the 1820s or 1830s. Tabby made the houses very durable, resistant to weather and insects, and well-insulated. The ingredients were cheap and easy to find, though building with tabby took a lot of work. The slave quarters at Kingsley Plantation are some of the best examples of tabby construction.
Each cabin had one room, a fireplace, and a sleeping loft. Originally, there were 32 cabins arranged in a semicircle, with a main road, Palmetto Avenue, cutting through. This unique layout may have given families some privacy or allowed overseers to watch all the enslaved people from the owner's house. Some historians suggest Anna Jai might have influenced this design, as West African villages often had circular patterns.
In the 1890s, John Rollins tore down some cabins to use the tabby for a boathouse.
The site is very important for archeology because most slave quarters in the Southern United States were not built with such strong materials and were destroyed after slavery ended. In 2010, a cemetery believed to contain enslaved Africans was discovered by Dr. Brittany Brown. Six graves were later unearthed by archeologists from the University of Florida.
An excavation in 2006 found tools and other items in the slave cabins. In one cabin, archeologists found a sacrificed chicken on top of an egg, suggesting that African traditions were kept alive. They also found evidence of a porch added to one cabin, facing away from the main house. This was unusual, as owners usually wanted to see the quarters at all times.
Kingsley's House and Other Buildings
The main house at Fort George Plantation is a unique two-story building constructed between 1797 and 1798 by John McQueen. It looks like 17th-century British homes. It has a large center room and four one-story sections at each corner. These sections, called pavilions, helped air circulate to keep the house cool in summer. Each pavilion was a bedroom with a fireplace for winter warmth. The second floor has two large rooms. The house faces Fort George Inlet and has porches on the front and back. When Kingsley owned it, a brick path connected the porch to a dock on the inlet. It is the oldest surviving plantation house in Florida.
The main house protected John McQueen's family and neighbors during attacks in 1802. In 1813, during the Patriot Rebellion, the house was damaged. When Kingsley arrived, it was missing metal fixtures, and the wooden slave quarters had been burned. Later, John Rollins added sections to the house in the 1890s. One of the clubs that owned the island in the 1920s added electricity.
Next to the main house was a two-story kitchen house, called "Ma'am Anna House" when Anna Jai lived on Fort George Island. It was likely built in the 1820s. The ground floor was for cooking, and Anna Jai lived with her children on the second floor. In West Africa, it was common for wives to live in separate quarters from their husbands. Kingsley's nephew also lived on the grounds. The main house and Ma'am Anna House were surrounded by fruit trees and ornamental plants.
A barn made of tabby is located about 150 feet from the owner's house. Two wells from Kingsley's time still exist. There are also two tabby tombs of unknown origin near the plantation. According to a 1928 history book, these were the 1808 tombs of a daughter and sister of John McIntosh, who owned the plantation before Kingsley. Ruins of another tabby house are near the entrance of Palmetto Avenue. Park information says it's called the Munsilna McGundo House, named for Kingsley's fourth wife.
Visiting and Preserving Kingsley Plantation
Kingsley Plantation today shows the remains of 23 slave houses out of the original 32. They are about 1,000 feet south of the main house. One slave house has been restored to look like it did in the early 1800s. Others are in different states of repair. The kitchen house has displays about slavery on the island, and the garden is also open to visitors.
Keeping the historical buildings in good condition is a major effort at Kingsley Plantation. The kitchen and owner's house were closed in 2005 due to damage from termites and humidity. The kitchen building was restored in 2006. The owner's house is now open for guided tours on some weekends. The barn has also been renovated and is open. Even though the slave quarters are durable, they can be damaged by vandalism.
Since 1998, Kingsley Plantation has hosted an annual event called the Kingsley Heritage Celebration, which often includes a Kingsley family reunion. This event now takes place in February during Black History Month. It features music, storytelling, and talks by park rangers about history and archeology.
Many of Kingsley and Anna Jai's relatives are notable. Kingsley's youngest sister's daughter, Anna McNeill, tried to stop Anna Jai from inheriting Kingsley's property. Anna McNeill was the model for her son, the artist James Whistler, in his famous painting Arrangement in Grey and Black: The Artist's Mother, also known as Whistler's Mother.
Another branch of Kingsley's descendants lives in the Dominican Republic. Kingsley and Anna Jai are the great-grandparents of Mary Kingsley Sammis, who married Abraham Lincoln Lewis. He was one of Florida's first Black millionaires and an early investor in the all-Black community of American Beach. The Kingsley-Sammis-Lewis-Betsch family has been very active in Jacksonville's Black community for many years. Spelman College's first Black female president, Johnnetta Betsch Cole, is a descendant of Lewis and Sammis.
Images for kids
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These tabby slave cabins, today roofless, were home to hundreds of enslaved people and still stand at Kingsley Plantation. Photo from 1865, post-Kingsley.
