Zephaniah Kingsley is better recognized for his fortress George Island plantation in Duval County, Florida, now a countrywide Park provider website, and for his 1828 pamphlet, A Treatise at the Patriarchal procedure of Society, that endorsed simply and human therapy of slaves, liberal emancipation regulations, and granting rights to unfastened individuals of colour. sarcastically, his fortune got here from the acquisition, sale, and exertions of enslaved Africans.

In this penetrating biography, Daniel Schafer vividly chronicles Kingsley's evolving ideas on race and slavery, exploring his enterprise practices and his inner most lifestyles. Kingsley fathered teenagers by way of a number of enslaved ladies, then freed and lived with them in a distinct mixed-race relations. one of many women--the just one he said as his "wife" notwithstanding they have been by no means officially married--was Anta Madgigine Ndiaye (Anna Kingsley), a member of the Senegalese royal relations, who used to be captured in a slave raid and acquired through Kingsley in Havana, Cuba.

A send captain, Caribbean service provider, and Atlantic slave dealer throughout the perilous years of overseas conflict following the French Revolution, Kingsley sought defense lower than impartial flags, altering allegiance from Britain to the U.S., Denmark, and Spain. Later, whilst the yank acquisition of Florida introduced inflexible race and slavery regulations that endangered the liberty of Kingsley's mixed-race kin, he replied through relocating his "wives" and youngsters to a payment in Haiti he validated at no cost folks of color.

Kingsley's statement that colour shouldn't be a "badge of decay" made him strange within the early Republic; his designated existence is printed during this interesting reminder of the deep connections among Europe, the Caribbean, and the younger United States.