Anna Madgigine Jai Kingsley : African Princess, Florida Slave, Plantation Slaveowner

Florida Historical Society Charlton Tebeau Award.

In this revised and expanded edition of Anna Kingsley's remarkable life story, Daniel Schafer draws on new discoveries to prove true the longstanding rumors that Anna Madgigine Jai was originally a princess from the royal family of Jolof in Senegal. Captured from her homeland in 1806, she became first an American slave, later a slaveowner, and eventually a central figure in a free black community. Anna Kingsley's story adds a dramatic chapter to the history of the South, the state of Florida, and the African diaspora.

"An absorbing account of Anna Madgigine Jai Kingsley, an African woman who was enslaved, forcibly transported to Florida, held in bondage, freed, and married to her white master; she bore several of his children and then rose to prominence as a slaveholder."–Journal of American History

"An excellent biography. . . . The book is also [a] chronicle of the transatlantic slave trade and its impact in both Africa and the New World, a history of slavery in Florida, a story of free blacks and a free black community, and one part of the story of southern race relations prior to the Civil War."–Florida Historical Quarterly