Unearthing the Legacy of Zephaniah Kingsley Jr. at Historical Kingsley Plantation in Jacksonville, FL

Take a trip down Route 1 in North Florida to Historic Fort George Island within the Timucuan Preserve to visit the oldest surviving Antebellum Spanish Colonial Plantation in the United States.

Built by Zephaniah Kingsley Jr (1765-1843) in 1798.  Kingsley was an English-born planter, merchant and slave trader who moved as a child with his family to South Carolina and enjoyed a successful mercantile career.

He built four plantations in the Spanish colony of Florida near what is now Jacksonville.   In his younger years Kingsley was a slave merchant and proud to be one “a very successful business” in his words.

He owned and captained slave ships and he was a relatively lenient slave owner who respected slave families and allowed his enslaved a freedom not routine: the opportunities to hire themselves out when their work was completed and eventually purchase their freedom for 50% of their market value.

Approximately 60 slaves were managed in the task system: each slave had a quota of work to do per day.   When they were finished, they were allowed to do what they wished.  Some had personal gardens which they cultivated and then sold vegetables.

Kingsley stood alone among Southern statesmen in maintaining that Blacks were just as intelligent as whites.

He ridiculed racism, observing that color ought not to be the base of degradation.

He encouraged as much as possible dancing, merriment and dress for which Saturday afternoon and night and Sunday were dedicated.

He also asserted that people of mixed race were healthier and more beautiful than either Africans or Europeans.

Kingsley took three much younger enslaved women as common law wives and fathered nine children with them.

He eventually freed each of the slave women and lavished all of his children affection, attention and luxury.   They were educated by the best European tutors he could find.

He eventually owned 32,000 acres in Florida and was one of the wealthiest in the territory.

The plantation grew oranges, cotton, corn, potatoes, peas, Indigo, okra and other vegetables.

The plantation featured a main house, and a two-story structure called the “Ma’am Anna House”.   It had the main kitchen on the first floor and the living quarters on the 2nd.

It also had a blacksmith shop and carpenter shop where they were trained in cotton ginning.

The Kingsley Plantation which he owned and where he lived for 25 years has been preserved and run by the US National Park Service.

You can explore the sixty acre grounds which include a slave’s quarters, barn, waterfront, planter’s house, kitchen house and a garden which is planted with simple crops that would have been grown during the plantation era such as Sea Island cotton and indigo.

There’s plenty of parking and a dock offers access from the water.

Admission is free.   Open Wednesday through Sunday 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.  There are audio self-guided tours as well as Ranger guided tours available.