Kingsley Plantation and Little Talbot Island
March 2022
Kingsley Plantation, A Story of Slavery and Resilience
Fort George Island in Jacksonville, Florida, is home to Kingsley Plantation, part of the National Park Service’s Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve. The site vividly portrayed plantation life and slavery’s history in the United States. I found our visit to be a sobering experience.
- March 9, 2022
- 0.93 mi
- 0:22:40 hrs
- 75 °F
The plantation is named after Zephaniah Kingsley, who owned it during the early 19th century. The story of Zephaniah Kingsley and his purchased wife from Senegal, Anna Madgigine Jai, was complex and challenging to understand. Their relationship and how Kingsley ran his plantation was very different from most plantations of the time.
I walked the grounds where many enslaved people worked long days for Kingsley’s prosperity. We got insights into the daily lives of those who lived there and those enslaved there, thanks to the well-preserved owner’s house and the enslaved person’s quarters.
I realize it is essential to learn about complex historical topics. It doesn’t make it easy, though. This visit showing a dark chapter in America’s history was, therefore, a sobering experience.
From Plantation to Paradise, A Day of Contrasts
After we visited the Kingsley Plantation, we drove to Little Talbot Island State Park to walk along and have our lunch at the beach. This park offers a rugged shoreline hardly touched by human beings. There are no buildings, only dunes, white sand, and the ocean. The first settlers must have seen similar shorelines.
- March 9, 2022
- 2.68 mi
- 1:01:33 hrs
- 83 °F
A stroll along the beach never gets boring. When we were back close to our starting point, we saw a dark front on the horizon rolling in. The thunderstorm arrived quickly: it turned dark, the wind was suddenly strong, and the heavens opened.
Thankfully, we were already in the car, and the drive home was not that far! The rapid change in weather still took me by surprise.