Table Of ContentZephaniah Kingsley Jr. and the Atlantic World
University Press of Florida
Florida A&M University, Tallahassee
Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton
Florida Gulf Coast University, Ft. Myers
Florida International University, Miami
Florida State University, Tallahassee
New College of Florida, Sarasota
University of Central Florida, Orlando
University of Florida, Gainesville
University of North Florida, Jacksonville
University of South Florida, Tampa
University of West Florida, Pensacola
Zephaniah Kingsley Jr.
and the Atlantic World
Slave Trader, Plantation Owner, Emancipator
Daniel L. Schafer
University Press of Florida
Gainesville
Tallahassee
Tampa
Boca Raton
Pensacola
Orlando
Miami
Jacksonville
Ft. Myers
Sarasota
Copyright 2013 by Daniel L. Schafer
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America on recycled, acid free paper
Frontispiece: “A View of Charles-Town, the Capital of South Carolina,” by Thomas Leitch,
circa 1770. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division,
Washington, D.C.
This book may be available in an electronic edition.
18 17 16 15 14 13 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Schafer, Daniel L.
Zephaniah Kingsley Jr. and the Atlantic world : slave trader, plantation owner, emancipator
/ Daniel L. Schafer.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8130-4462-0 (alk. paper)
1. Kingsley, Z. (Zephaniah), 1765–1843. 2. Slavery—Florida. 3. Slave trade—United
States—History. 4. Kingsley family. I. Title.
E445.F6S33 2013
975.9'04092—dc23
[B]
2013020093
University Press of Florida
15 Northwest 15th Street
Gainesville, FL 32611-2079
http://www.upf.com
Contents
List of Illustrations vii
Preface and Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1. The Kingsley Family, Charleston, and the American Revolution 7
2. New Brunswick Years: Becoming an Atlantic Trader 24
3. “My Saddle Bags Loaded with Specie”: Caribbean Commerce in
the Age of Revolution 35
4. Shifting Loyalties: St. Thomas and the Transit Trade in
African Slaves 53
5. “Fortune Is Neither to Be Won by Prudence nor Industry”: A Slaving
Voyage to East Africa 68
6. Family Ties: Anna Madgigine Jai Kingsley 86
7. Laurel Grove Plantation, Slavery, and East Florida’s Booming
Economy 101
8. “Left by the Patriots a Perfect Desert”: The Patriot War in
East Florida 121
9. “Like a Turtle without a Shell”: Spain’s Final Years in East Florida 138
10. “Discreetly Restrained under the Patriarchal System”: Life and Labor at
Kingsley’s Plantations 156
11. “The Door of Liberty Is Open to Every Slave Who Can Find the Means
of Purchasing Himself”: From Spanish to American Race Relations 177
12. “In Trust for Flora Hanahan Kingsley and Her Son Charles”: Kingsley as
Patriarch 191
13. The “Island of Liberty” and Kingsley’s Final Journeys 210
14. “To Do Good in This World We Must Have Money”: The Kingsley
Legacy 230
Appendix A: Forty-five Slaves Lost, July 1812, at Laurel Grove and
Drayton Island 247
Appendix B: Inventory of Zephaniah Kingsley’s Estate at San Jose
Plantation, March 13, 1844 249
Appendix C: Slaves Claimed by George Kingsley from the Estate of
Zephaniah Kingsley Jr. 251
Appendix D: Slaves Recovered by Anna Kingsley from the Estate of
Zephaniah Kingsley Jr. 252
Appendix E: Account of Sales of Property, Sold at Auction,
January 1, 1847 253
Appendix F: Inventory of the Real and Personal Estate of
George Kingsley 254
Appendix G: Account of the Sale of the Personal Estate of George
Kingsley, February 1, 1848 255
Notes 257
Bibliography 297
Index 325
Illustrations
1. “A View of Charles-Town, the Capital of South Carolina in North
America,” 1768 8
2. The island of Hispaniola, showing Haiti and the Dominican
Republic 47
3. The harbor at Charlotte Amalie, on St. Thomas Island 55
4. “The Fredensborg II heading for St. Croix with a Cargo of Slaves,”
circa 1792 56
5. Northeast Florida properties owned by Zephaniah Kingsley 157
6. The Zephaniah Kingsley residence at Fort George Island 159
7. The Anna Jai Kingsley House at Fort George Island 160
8. “Remains of Slave Quarters at Fort George Island, Florida,”
circa 1865 162
9. A contemporary aerial view of the rice field at White Oak
Plantation 168
10. Portrait of Osceola Kingsley, son of Zephaniah Kingsley Jr. 199
11. “Mayorasgo de Koka, belonging to George Kingsley,” drawn by
Zephaniah Kingsley Jr. 216
12. Portrait of Martha Kingsley McNeill, the youngest sibling of
Zephaniah Kingsley Jr. 232
13. Portrait of Emma Baxter Mocs, grandchild of Zephaniah Kingsley
and Anna Jai Kingsley 243
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Preface and Acknowledgments
Zephaniah Kingsley Jr., 1765–1843, was born in England, reared in colonial
South Carolina, and became British Canadian, American, Danish, Spanish,
and again American. He was a ship captain, maritime merchant, Caribbean
coffee trader, Atlantic trader in enslaved Africans, slave plantation owner
in Florida, and patriarch of a large mixed-race extended family that func-
tioned in a polygamous fashion. Nearing the end of life and alarmed by the
increasingly discriminatory race policies that threatened his free black fam-
ily, Kingsley established a massive agricultural colony in Haiti as a refuge
for them and for more than fifty slaves he emancipated and carried to Haiti
under indenture contracts.
During a long and eventful life, Kingsley witnessed the violence of the
American Revolution in Charleston, South Carolina, and exile in New
Brunswick, Canada. As a ship captain, he traveled frequently to countries
throughout the Atlantic world, witnessed the rebellion that ended slav-
ery in French Saint-Domingue, and sailed to and from ports in North and
South America, the Caribbean, and Africa while the violent overseas cam-
paigns of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars were under way.
Ships that Kingsley commanded were confiscated by French privateers and
ships of the British Royal Navy; he was incarcerated in Martinique and in
Florida, and his life was endangered on numerous occasions. During the
War of 1812, when British troops captured Washington, D.C., and burned
the White House and the U.S. Capitol, Seminole warriors allied with the
governor of Spanish East Florida attacked and destroyed Kingsley’s St.
Johns River plantation. Renegade bandits from Georgia later attempted to
assassinate him. During the decades that historians label the Age of Revo-
lution, Kingsley moved throughout the Atlantic world and accumulated a
considerable fortune through the sale of enslaved Africans and the labor of
slaves at his Florida plantations.
My interest in Zephaniah Kingsley Jr. began in 1975. A friend drove me
to Fort George Island in Jacksonville, Florida, for a guided tour of Kingsley
ix
Description:“An original and important contribution to the scholarship of Florida, the British Empire, the Caribbean, Africa, slavery and emancipation, the colonial United States, and the Atlantic world. Kingsley was a figure who moved through many worlds, and this meticulously researched work follows his man
