KIngley Plantation

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This plantation was on my list of things to do since I read my Florida guide book as I wanted Chris to visit and compare three different plantations and this one sounded very interesting. Unfortunately at the present time tours of the home are only given on weekends which was not possible for us, but the kitchen area is still open and I think that it was still worth visiting particularly combined with another nearby trail. One thing that really intrigued me about this plantation was that the owner married one of his slaves, Anna Kingsley, who had herself been an African Princess before being taken captive. As an African Princess she had owned and managed slaves of her own and after her marriage to Zephania Kingsley she became manager of the slaves on the plantation. That you could have a former slave owning and managing slaves seemed quite the paradox to me. This plantation also has some of the few remaining examples of the lost art of tabby which is a laborious process of combining sand, water, limestone and crtushed oyster shells to create a strong durable structure. This process is time consuming as it must be done in layers allowing each layer to harden. We also found out about sea cotton which is much finer than in land cotton and is so delicate that it can not be put in a cotton gin but must instead about 40 small seeds per blosson must be picked out by hand. Like Boone plantation they also produced indigo on this plantation, unlike Boone plantation it wasn't horse urine collected to use as ammonia to bring out the dye, but instead human urine. I can't imagine stirring a boiling pot of urine for hours.....yuck. That said it was probably less dangerous than sugaring which involved first crushing the canes ( and possibly your hand ), and then a series of boiling it down ( and risking third degree burns as you poured from one kettle to another ) until finally you get sugar but not like we know it as back then it wasn't refined and was basically a dark cone which would be grated to get any sugar needed.

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