"A class of people neither freemen nor slaves": from Spanish to American race relations in Florida, 1821-1861

Journal of Social History, Spring, 1993 by Daniel L. Schafer

Kingsley can best be understood through his own writings: A Treatise on the Patriarchal or Cooperative System of Society as it Exists in Some Governments and Colonies in America, and in the United States, under the Name of Slavery, with its Necessity and Advantages (Freeport, New York, 1971 reprint of an 1829 publication); "Address to the Legislative Council of Florida on the Subject of its Colored Population," typescript, circa 1829, Florida State Park Service Archives, Tallahassee; The Rural Code of Haiti; Literally Translated from a Publication by the Government Press; Together with Letters from that Country concerning its Present Condition, by a Southern Planter (Middletown, New Jersey, 1837).

See also Philip S. May, "Zephaniah Kingsley, Nonconformist," Florida Historical Quarterly 23 (January, 1945): 145-159; Charles Bennett, "Zephaniah Kingsley, Jr.," Twelve on the St. Johns (Jacksonville, Fla., 1989), 89-113; Lydia Maria Child, Letters from New York (New York, 1943); Jean B. Stephens, "Zephaniah Kingsley and the Recaptured Africans," El Escribano; The St. Augustine Journal of History 15 (1978): 71-76.

(25.) Manuscript returns of the Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth United Stares Census (1830-1860), Clay, Dural, Nassau, and St. Johns Counties (population schedules: free and slave). Hereafter 1850 census, etc. Clay County split off from Duval in 1858.

(26.) East Florida Papers, Reel 172, Bundle 378, number 21. Between March 1 and 6, 1811, Kingsley emancipated Anna and her three children, as well as Ebram, age 25, a mulatto who had been born and reared in his household, and Fatima, age 4, also born in his household, the daughter of his slave Muncilna McGundo Special thanks to Joan Peters for bringing this source to my attention. See also 1860 Census; Duval County Tax Roll 1858, Florida State Archives, Tallahassee; probate file of Anna Kingsley, Duval County Courthouse, number 1210 (which includes a will drawn in 1860); Florida Republican, January 3, 1850; East Florida Claims: Case of Anna Kingsley; and St. Johns County Deed Records, Book 32, p.135, and Book I-J, 389.

(27.) "Address to the Legislative Council," op. cit.

(28.) Ibid.

(29.) Clarence E. Carter, ed., The Territorial Papers of the United States: The Territory of Florida, III (Washington, 1959-62), 800-02.

(30.) Kingsley freed a slave carpenter and his wife and five children in his will; as did his son George: probates 1203, Sept.1843, and 1206, Dec. 21, 1846. In March, 1828, in St. Johns County, Kingsley freed Sophy Chidgegane, a Jalof woman, and her daughter Flora Hanahan (Deed Book B, 93). Flora was not Kingsley's daughter; she subsequently became his mistress. In 1823, he freed Patty, his child by Sophy (Deed Book Book, B, 93). Douglas, Kingsley's son by his slave Molly, was freed in 1826 (Book F, 324). In 1833 Kingsley placed six children living at Camp New Hope under protection of his son George. See Book I-J, 328. See also Jose Augusto Puig Ortiz, Emigracion de Libertos Notre Americanos a Puerto Plata en la Primera Mitad del Siglo XIX (Dominican Republic: La Iglesia Metodista Wesleyana, 1978), especially p. 32.