Anna Kingsley

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Anna Madgigine Jai Kingsley, born Anta Madjiguène Ndiaye (18 June 1793 – April or May 1870), also known as Anna Kingsley, Anta Majigeen Njaay or Anna Madgigine Jai, was a West African woman from present-day Senegal, who was enslaved and sold in Cuba, probably via the slave pens on Gorée Island. In Cuba she was purchased, as wife, by plantation owner and slave trader Zephaniah Kingsley. After his death, she became a planter and slave owner in her own right, as a free Black woman in early 19th-century Florida. Her early history is not known in detail. She was born among the Wolof people in 1793; her father was a leader, and she is sometimes referred to as a princess, though she never claimed such descent. When she was 13 years old, she was captured and sent to Cuba, where she was purchased by, impregnated by, and married, in a native ceremony, to Zephaniah Kingsley, a slave trader and plantation owner. They had four children together. Kingsley freed Anna Jai in 1811, when she turned 18, and gave her responsibilities for his plantations in East Florida, then under Spanish colonial rule. For 25 years, Kingsley's unusual family lived on Fort George Island (part of modern-day Jacksonville). Anna Jai managed a large and successful planting operation. After gaining freedom, she was given a Spanish land grant for 5 acres (20,000 m2) and owned 12 slaves. After defending their property against invading Americans, she 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 white relatives who were contesting Kingsley's will; they...