Anna Kingsley
| Anna Madgigine Kingsley | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Anna Madgigine Jai Kingsley 18 June 1793 Africa, where is now Senegal |
| Died | April or May 1870 Florida |
| Nationality | Wolof or Fula and American |
| Occupation | Slave and slaveholder |
Anna Madgigine Jai Kingsley (born Anta Madjiguene Ndiaye) (18 June 1793 – April or May 1870) was a West African slave from present day Senegal turned slaveholder and planter in early 19th-century Florida. When she was 13 years old, she was captured and sent to Cuba, where she was purchased by and married to Zephaniah Kingsley, a slave trader and plantation owner. They had four children together. Kingsley freed Anna in 1811 and gave her responsibilities for his plantations in East Florida. For 25 years, Kingsley's unusual family lived on Fort George Island in modern-day Jacksonville, where Anna managed a large and successful planting operation. After gaining freedom, she was given a Spanish land grant for 5 acres (20,000 m2) and held 12 slaves. She later was awarded a land grant of 350 acres (1.4 km2) by the Spanish government.
After the United States took control of Florida and American discriminatory laws threatened the multi-racial Kingsley family, most of them moved to Haiti. Kingsley died soon after, and Anna returned to Florida to dispute her husband's relatives' contesting Kingsley's will; they sought to exclude Anna and her children from their inheritance. The court honored a treaty between the United States and Spain, and Anna was successful in the court case, despite a political climate hostile toward blacks. She settled in the Arlington neighborhood of Jacksonville, where she died in 1870 at 77 years old. The National Park Service protects Kingsley Plantation, where Anna and Kingsley lived on Fort George Island, as part of the Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve.
Daniel L. Schafer, the biographer of Anna Kingsley, has based his account of her early life on conjecture given his research into the history of the area. She was born Anta Majigueen Ndiaye in 1793 in present-day Senegal, in a portion of West Africa that was rent by a fierce war between the majority Wolof people and the minority Fula. Slave raids were frequent occurrences during incessant violence that left many small villages deserted, as people were abducted to be sold into slavery or they fled in fear for their lives. Following an intensifying of the crisis in 1790, Anta was captured in 1806 when she was about 13 years old, probably by Tyeddo raiders from the Futa Toro. Wolof tradition holds that a mythological figure named Njaajaan Ndiaye established the Jolof Kingdom that existed between 1200 and 1550. Through her father, Anta was a Ndiaye descendant and carried that name. Her mother also had ancestors who had held the title of the Buurba Jolof, or king of the Wolofs. Although lineages are disputed, there is a belief that Anta may have been the daughter of a still ruling (as opposed to formerly ruling) branch of the royal family.
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