Anna Madgigine Jai Kingsley: African Princess, Florida Slave, Plantation Slaveowner

by Daniel L. Schafer

"Undoubtedly the best documented record of a slave born in Africa,who married her owner in East Florida, operated a plantation after her husband's death, and ruled as matriarch over an extended family until the Civil War. Schafer has reconstructed Anna Madgigine Jai Kingsley's story in a remarkable way."--Bruce L. Mouser, editor, A Slaving Voyage to Africa and The Log of the Sandown,  1793-1794 "Provides an unexpectedly thorough account that traces the life of a woman from a Wolof village in Senegal, across the Atlantic via the middle passage, to a Florida community of African slaves and white slave owners."-- Southern Historian "An absorbing account of Anna Madgigine Jai Kingsley, an African woman who was enslaved, forcibly transported to Florida, held in bondage, freed, and married to her white master; she bore several of his children and then rose to prominence as a slaveholder. . . . Brings a wider understanding to the lives of enslaved and free women in the nineteenth century South."-- Journal of American History "Contributes to a growing literature on the possibilities for slave women's emancipation, especially in Spanish territory, and for propertied women’s social and economic power in the Old South."-- Journal of Southern History "Reminds the reader of the variations of the slave experience, the possibilities of forging racial bonds, and the debilitating effects of the racial divide in American society."-- Georgia Historical Quarterly "Fosters understanding of the differences and similarities in the institution of slavery, in the distinction between free and enslaved, and in attitudes of racial prejudice between Spanish Florida and the United States."-- North Carolina Historical Review
Anna Kingsley's life story adds a dramatic chapter to histories of the South, the state of Florida, and the African diaspora. Working from surprisingly extensive records, including information and photographs from extended-family members and descendants, Daniel Shafer reconstructs and documents one slave’s remarkable story. Both an American slave and a slaveowner--and possibly an African princess--Anna was a teenager when she was captured in her homeland of Senegal in 1806 and sold into slavery. Zephaniah Kingsley, Jr., a planter and slave trader from Spanish East Florida, bought her in Havana, Cuba, and took her to his St. Johns River plantation in northeast Florida, where she soon became his household manager, his wife, and eventually the mother of four of his children. Her husband formally emancipated her in 1811, and she became the owner of her own farm and twelve slaves the following year. For 25 years, life on her farm and at the Kingsley plantation on Fort George Island was relatively tranquil. But when Florida passed from Spanish to American control, and racism and discrimination increased in the American territories, Anna Kingsley and her children migrated to a colony in Haiti established by her husband as a refuge for free blacks. Amid the spiraling racial tensions of the antebellum period, Anna returned to north Florida, where she bought and sold land, sued white people in the courts, and became a central figure in a free black community.  Such accomplishments by a woman in a patriarchal society are fascinating in themselves. To have achieved them as a woman of color is remarkable. Daniel L. Schafer is professor emeritus of history at the University of North Florida, Jacksonville.

Genres: History, Biography, Nonfiction, Senegal, Africa

192 pages, Hardcover

First published May 5, 2003

Reviews

[Jeanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story is fascinating; however, the writing is not. There is much repetition and the complex genealogy would be greatly enhanced with some family tree diagrams. Nevertheless, I learned a lot - it's easy to read the informative parts and skip the redundancies.

[Nitya Iyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this book up a couple of weeks ago when we drove up to Kingsley Plantation for a bike ride around the island. I had heard bits and pieces of the history of the place before and the idea of a free African woman running a plantation intrigued me no end.

The book begins with some background about the slave trade on the African side of the ocean, an angle I've never learned enough about. Then it follows the life of Anta Majigeen Ndiaye as she grows from Senegalese teenager to Floridian plantation owner. The writing, though scholarly and fact based, does fair justice to the drama fraught life Anna seemed to have lived as the matriarch of a mixed race family in antebellum Florida.

To write about this time and these people could not have been easy, particularly since they embody contradictions that are quite unimaginable to the modern mind. How does a woman who was once a slave bring herself to then own slaves? How do men who have fathered and fondly raised mulatto children treat children who look much like them as chattel? But the author answers many of these questions with clear explanations of slavery under Spanish rule. And the questions he cannot answer, he boldly accepts cannot be answered without personal insights into another man's mind, which historic record simply doesn't give us.

My only major struggle with the book came towards the end when the generations began multiplying and names began changing. I struggled to keep track of the families and their locations, and truly wished there was a family tree I could refer back to for guidance. It wouldn't have to be an exhaustive one, but a few names aligned by their main home would have been of great help. Also I would have loved to see a modern map outlining approximate holdings, but that's mostly because like some of the people in the book, I live along the banks of Pottsburg creek, so I would love to know whose footsteps mine may have crossed.

Sadly, so much I would have liked to know seems to be lost of the ravages of history. I would love to look once into Anna's eyes, even if in a photograph, but we simply don't have such an artifact, which is devastating, but understandable. It was still thrilling to read about paths that I have walked, and areas that I have visited often since I moved to Jacksonville. Reading this book has made me desperate to return to Kingsley Plantation and perhaps even to drive up to Clifton Cemetery to pay proper respect to that magnificent African Princess, Anna Madgigine Jai Kingsley.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

This should have been boring, but for some reason I stuck with it and enjoyed it! The writing itself was very factual, and lots of details were repeated in various places, but the underlying story was so intriguing that even a "bare bones historian" approach couldn't keep me away.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this while visiting the Kingsley Plantation (whoever selects books for the National Parks bookstores does a really spectacular job.) If you haven't been there, you really ought to go. It has the oldest plantation house in Florida AND the largest known amount of slave quarters still standing anywhere in the US. The guided tour we took was just of the plantation house, and the Ma'am Anna house/kitchen behind it was only open on the bottom floor for private perusal. The tabby slave quarters quietly ring the back part of the plantation, and you're left to wander them alone. My traveling companion wished the guided tour had included those. I felt it was less obtrusive to approach them on ones own, rather than having a tour group with impatient children standing around and staring at the remnants.

The entire tour left me out of sorts and very confused and I *had* to read Anna's biography to learn more. The book is very well researched and does an excellent job of tracing her life, but it still leaves the biggest question unanswered: How could a former slave turn around an own her own slaves? There is evidence that her treatment of them was in keeping with the Spanish method - slaves could purchase their own freedom at half their going rate. They worked on a task system, rather than a gang system, which meant once they finished their assigned tasks, the rest of the day was theirs to spend as they wished, mostly tending to their own gardens where they could in turn sell produce at a local market to save their own money. Each of the slave quarters had fireplaces and at least two rooms to accommodate the four people on average in each building. But they were owned - bought and sold. There is also evidence that while Anna and her husband favored certain slaves, there are other families they broke apart - mothers separated from children, husbands separated from wives.

This book doesn't answer the biggest question, nor does it pretend to try to get into Anna's head. But it does a fine job of detailing the events that made her who she was.

This book also contains an extremely well-annotated works cited section. I love a good annotation.

[Carly Amendolare · Rating 4 out of 5]

a truly inspiring girlboss

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Academic account of a woman born at the end of the 18th century into African nobility, sold into slavery at the age of 13, who became the mistress of an East Florida plantation. Anna Madgigine Jai Kingsley was from Senegal. Her father fought to be ruler in a dynastic clash, but lost. She was taken during a raid on Jolof - to Goree Island off the coast of Senegal, transported to Havana, and purchased by Zephaniah Kingsley of Spanish East Florida. They lived in a compound designed much like the compounds of the Wolof - that she lived in as a child - with wives and children living in homes separate from the husband.

The story of her early life is undocumented. Oral histories in both Senegal and Florida are, however, in synch. Recordkeeping of slaves purchased, born, died, or taken as wives, is spotty.

Anna was taken to be Kingsley's wife. She was a very bright woman who ran his plantation while he traveled. Her children were raised as free people and were given education and inheritance. There was then, as there is now, racism. There were political upheavals. Freeing of slaves was controversial. Kingsley was an abolitionist and believed that intermarriage created stronger, healthier people.

Anna was an intrepid soul. Her life was filled with challenges, horrors, and surprises. She survived capture, lawsuits and wars. Florida seceded from the Union. The family moved to Haiti. The family moved back to Florida and lived and farmed from Fernandina to St Augustine and west to Jacksonville. From royalty, to slavery, to plantation life, to the loss of her property, she lived one heck of a full life.

[Brittany Kilcrease · Rating 3 out of 5]

This has great facts and information. While I do understand that it was hard to base this on one person of African decent, it would have done better with less intrusions of random facts. I am not saying that they are not needed for all readers, but those that would find this book interesting may have already had the background information. It just seemed a little all over the place with here's a bunch of facts about these people we didn't really talk about, and here is how Anta would have lived based off these random people.

[Erica Blake · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this book at the visitor center at the Kingsley Plantation and I was intrigued by the history of the area and the story of the owner’s wife.
This fell VERY FLAT. This read like it was written by a teenage aspiring writer. The info was all over the timeline. Why it could not have been chronological is beyond me. The headings of most chapters had a location and a person’s name below it. These names did not line up with that which the chapter focused; very confusing.
I wish it were written better as her story was an incredible one.

[Jindřich Zapletal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Once upon a time, in northeastern Florida there lived a slave trader with four black wives he purchased and a cohort of slaves. And he did not like the newly arrived US administration, calling it racist and absurd, so he emigrated to the land of freedom. Which was Haiti.

This is just one of the vertiginous turns of the story in this well-researched brief book. A great reading in Atlantic and Florida history.

[Joan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Having lived in Africa and now living in Florida, I was delighted to find this book and looked forward to reading it. What a disappointment!

I trust the story/facts as told, am sure it was well researched, but even an amazing life story can not save this turgid writing.

I couldn't make myself finish the book.

[Barbara Edwards · Rating 4 out of 5]

Incredible book. Such thorough research turns up the life of an African princess. So much I didn't know about the history of Jacksonville FL. Anna Kingsley is buried in my old neighborhood. Now I need to go back to the Clifton Cemetery and pay respects to the people named on those headstones

[Janine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book on my hysterically correct of the Kingsley plantation near Jacksonville Florida. If you go to visit the kingsly plantation you need to read this book they do sell out there at the store.

[Mary Thomas]

Very interesting. Goes beyond what you learn at the Kingsley Plantation [ which you should visit if near Jachsonville, FL ]. And inpriring sometimrs sad, but amazing how munch resilience of people especially enslaved, during that time period.

[sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had the opportunity to visit the Kingsley Plantation last year and purchased this book at the bookshop. Anna Madgigine Jai Kingsley, born Anta Majigueen Ndiaye, is a very interesting human being. Her journey from princess to slave to free black woman is well documented here.

[Teresa Kartheiser · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing story! What rich history to preserve!! I am so thankful to have read this book. Highly recommend, especially if you live around the Jacksonville area.

[Amelia Fuller · Rating 2 out of 5]

(2.5)

[Sandra Oldfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well written and researched book about a very complex woman

[DaniPhantom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very well researched and interesting, I had no clue she existed before this!

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Born a Jolof princess in Senegal before being kidnapped and enslaved in 1806 and forced to endure the transatlantic passage, Anta Madjiguène Peya Fall Ndiaye found herself at thirteen unofficially "married" to the forty-year-old merchant who now owned her. From such traumatic beginnings, the woman thereafter known as Anna Madgigine Jai Kingsley rose to become a plantation (and slave) owner in her own right, a respected businesswoman who'd coolly torch her own property rather than see it fall into rebel hands, and a matriarch who'd help found a free black community in what's today the neighborhood of Arlington in Jacksonville, FL.

Such a baller life - save for the 25 years spent on the Kingsley Plantation on Fort George Island peripatetic, as Anna and her family attempted to stay one step ahead of the racism that threatened their rights and lives - deserves a biography of at least 800 pages. Unfortunately, as UNF professor emeritus Dan Schafer points out in his postscript, documentation about the lives of the enslaved in Northeast Florida is thin on the ground. And thus we have only these 170 brief pages, in which Schafer heroically labors to recreate every step of Anna's journey from property and tax records, census takings and burial markers, and the occasional personal letter or journal from friends and family. From Anna herself we hear but once, in the form of her shrewdly practical last will and testament.

Around this absent center, Schafer diligently fills in the gaps, from contextualizing his subject's childhood by offering an overview of the traditions and dynastic struggles of Senegal to retracing her path as she fled the Civil War, and through his conscientious efforts Anna's outline at least emerges. It's a silhouette rather than the oil painting we'd want, but it's something at least to commemorate this amazing woman's life, though you're bound to finish the book with serious questions about how Anna felt about all of it.

This 2018 edition is an ever-so-slightly revised and expanded version of the 2003 original. I read the latter at the beginning of the year before realizing the former existed, and - aside from the author's comment in the acknowledgements that he's now forever done with this project and a few late-breaking updates regarding plans for a documentary in the postscript - I could not tell you how the two differed without a close side-by-side comparison. Schafer's prose is clear and readable, though he has an academic's tendency to restate things he's already covered extensively in previous chapters (one suspects most of the chapters began as articles in some journal), and the latter half of the book is so thick with lists of descendants and relatives and extended kin-groups that you may want to sketch a Kingsley family tree for reference to keep track since the author mysteriously neglected to provide one.

Schafer seems to believe that perhaps one day more material on Anna Kingsley will turn up. I certainly hope so; particularly toward the end she fades out of her own story, which I feel reflects more on society's lack of interest in older women than any diminution in her spirit as she aged. Until then, read what Schafer can give us of her story, and remember her name.

[Bobbi · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating book. Anna Jai was snatched from Senegal when she was 13 and from the royal family. She was taken to the US on a slave ship, bought by Zephaniah Kingsley in Cuba and acted as his wife, although not legally married. Zephaniah was extremely interesting,himself. As a young man, he owned a slave ship. When the Atlantic slave trade was outlaws in the early nineteenth century, he became a plantation owner in northeast Florida. He treated his slaves relatively well, however, and believed that they should be able to buy their freedom. He had several other slave "wives" and many children. Never a white wife, however. When the Americans took over that area from the Spainish, he feared that they would be treated badly so bought several thousand acres in Haiti and moved them there, along with most of his slaves. By then he had freed his wives, children and some of his slaves. When he died, his will, which divided his vast property and wealth among his wives and children, was challenged by his sister in court. Anna returned to Florida and won her lawsuit. Anna was a good businesswoman and ran several of his plantations along with his slaves. She did not free all of them; her family had owned slaves in Senegal.

The plantation buildings are now part of the National Park Service just north of Jacksonville and the buildings are open to the public. A great story and wonderfully researched and written book. Schafer has written several other books including one about Zephaniah which I'm reading as well.

[Joe Mojoguzzi · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a great story: Anna Madgiginr JainKingsley, captured in Africa and enslaved, sold to an American who freed her and made her his wife. She rose to prominence as a slaveholder herself and plantation owner, ultimately becoming the matriarch of a huge family.

The book showcases the complex nature of US slavery--a clash of cultures led to Africans in America sometimes being slaveowners themselves. It also highlights the privilege and plight of free blacks, and it shows how free blacks in Florida suffered when the territory changed hands from Spain to the US.

I didn't give it more stars, because:

* A couple of chapters
Read as if they were originally separate papers repurposed as chapters--recursive writing should have been edited better.
* The last 25% reads like the chapter Numbers from the Bible, listing who begat whom. Too, the focus drifted from Anna.
* at the end, we don't learn about the path to save the Kingsley plantation and bring it into the National Park Wevjce. That would have been a nice addition.

However, if you want to read a nuanced account of slavery, freedom, Southern economy, and the little-known Patriot's War of 1812-1814, read Schafer's book.

[Yvonne Clippinger · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little hard to follow but a good read for the history.