Why the Kingsly Slaves wanted to stay in Florida?

Why had they wanted to stay in Florida?

Well, the local court was also curious. So a hearing was held before their departure, and their answers are on record. As it turns out, they were being trained as masons, wainwrights, carpenters, blacksmiths, shipwrights, cobblers, cooks, wheelwrights, mechanics. Skilled people have clout, you see, even slaves.

Mistreat a farm worker and no one cares. Mistreat a master mechanic and every other slaveowner around will charge you with cruelty in court, hoping to win the person for himself. Craftsmen could demand time to work on their own, to run their own businesses (paying their owner a share), or save up to buy their own freedom.

Slavery was horrible, but it was less horrible if you had a marketable skill. The Hernandez group had been used as raw laborers. They had no hope of betterment in Florida. The Kingsley group had spent eighteen months in vocational school. As Nelson Mandela said about six months ago in a speech to youth leaders in South Africa, “Education is the key. Education is one of the most important weapons that you can have.”

Exile

Annas personal life was not as rewarding as her business life. On the plus side, her daughters married very well indeed. Martha married Oran Baxter, a wealthy ship builder of Scottish descent like her father. Mary married John Sammis, an influential politician and sawmill owner of English stock. Anna’s grandchildren were born with fair complexions and they and their descendants all assimilated into “white” Florida society.

On the minus side, race relations plunged in the 1820s and 30s. Historians call the early 1800’s wave of complexion-based segregation and consequent interracial hate the “Denmark Vesey” wave, to distinguish it from the similar “Nathaniel Bacon” wave a century earlier, or from the horrific “Jim Crow” wave a century later. Intermarriage was outlawed and free African-Americans were persecuted-even rich ones.

For years the Kingsleys’ wealth and political power shielded the interracial couple from laws against miscegenation and against free Black property. But by 1836, the authorities were closing in and it was clear that the Kingsleys could not remain. They fled to self-imposed exile in Haiti. In four years, Anna carved a successful plantation out of the Haitian jungle. Their son George died in a shipping accident. Zephaniah died on the job with his ship in New York in 1843.

Twenty years later, President Lincoln appointed John Sammis, Anna’s son-in-law, as Federal tax collector for Florida. U.S. race relations improved after the war, and Anna moved back to Jacksonville. She was 77 years old when she died peacefully at Epping Forest, surrounded by her children and grandchildren. Fourteen years later, her “white” grandson Eggbert Sammis was elected as one of Florida’s post-Reconstruction state senators.

Today

My wife and I interpret living history at Florida’s Stephen Foster State Park. An African-American friend of ours, named Mavynee Betsch, also does living history, but at the Kingsley Plantation on Fort George Island. The place still exists. It is operated as a historic site by the National Park Service. Mavynee portrays a recently freed slave.

She teaches code songs like “Follow the Drinking Gourd.” And she tells African folktales to visitor’s kids. But she grabs everyone’s attention by telling audiences that she, in real life, is a direct descendant of Anna Kingsley.

When we first saw her, I could not resist running up after her show and asking, “You say you are Anna Kingsley’s descendant. But I happen to know that the Baxters and Sammises all assimilated into ‘white’ society. And, excuse me for mentioning it ma’am, but you are medium brown. How can this be?”

Now folks, if you ever talk to a re-enactor, you will soon discover that each of us has his own narrow pet subject, which he has studied to death. Ask about it and you will open the floodgates to more explanation than you ever wanted to know. For example, now and then after a performance, visitors ask me about the history of the banjo. When they do, I can see Mary Lee, out the corner of my eye, frantically waving, “Dont ask! Don’t ask!”

Well, Mavynee’s hobby turned out to be genealogy. I had no sooner gotten those words out of my mouth, when she replied, “I’m glad you asked that!” and whipped out a huge photo album, flopped it onto a table, and opened it to reveal family snapshots going back over a century.

It seems that Anna Kingsley’s “white” grandson, post-Reconstruction Florida state senator Eggbert Sammis, had a daughter. She was named Mary, after her grandmother. When she grew up, Mary Sammis fell in love with a Black bandleader and they ran off up north and got married. Eventually they returned to Jacksonville. Their son, in turn, grew up to become wealthy as founder and C.E.O. of the first life insurance company in Florida -- Afro-American Life of Jacksonville. And that man was Mavynee’s grandfather.

And so, we end this twisty tale of real history with the following observation: the only descendant of that teenager from Senegal who can still be found at the old plantation two centuries later, is an African-American re-enactor, whose link to Anna Kingsley is through her “white” great-grandmother.

Readers interested in details of Anna Ndiaye jai Kingsley, about José Hernandez, or about the many other colorful characters of that time and place should read Frank W. Sweet, The Invasion of Spanish Florida: Paths Not Taken, Part 4 (Palm Coast FL: Backintyme, 2000). It is one of a series of well-footnoted booklets on the history of the U.S. “race” notion. The entire series is available online at www.backintyme.com/books2.htm or from Amazon.com. They are also sold at numerous historical site and museum gift shops in Florida, or can be borrowed from libraries.
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Biographical Data

Frank W. Sweet holds a master’s in Civil War studies from American Military University in Manassas, Virginia, and is now working on his Ph.D. in history at the University of Florida in Gainesville. A nineteenth century living history interpreter, he is the author of numerous booklets currently sold at museum and state park gift shops throughout Florida. His two areas of interest are Civil War military