Mayorasgo de Koka

Mayorasgo de Koka was a 35,000-acre (140 km2) tract of land purchased by Zephaniah Kingsley in 1837 as part of his "colonization experiment" in Haiti.[2] It is located in the province of Puerto Plata, in the north coast of the Dominican Republic.

Map of Mayorasgo de Koka drawn by Zephaniah Kingsley.[1]

Beginning in 1828, the United States Territory of Florida's newly established legislature began passing a series of laws that progressively reduced the rights that free persons of color enjoyed under Spanish Florida. After failed attempts at stopping these laws through politics and advocacy, Kingsley moved his mixed-race family—as well as a total of 53 former slaves which he freed from his plantations in Florida—to the estate.[1] There they were guaranteed equality by the laws of the Republic of Haiti, the first independent country in the world established by former African slaves. Anna Kingsley lived there from 1838 to 1846, when she returned to Florida.

The economy of the estate was mostly agricultural and included some mahogany logging. As the number of Kingsley descendants grew, they turned to cattle grazing and further divided the property into smaller tracts of land. Some descendants moved to urban areas and gradually lost control of the land to peasant farmers. Today, some descendants of Zephaniah Kingsley as well as of his former Florida slaves still live in the area. The village of Cabaret is today the windsurfing tourist town of Cabarete.

References
  1. Schafer, Daniel L. (2003). Anna Madgigine Jai Kingsley: African Princess, Florida Slave, Plantation Slaveowner. University Press of Florida. ISBN 978-0-8130-2616-9.
  2. Stowell, Daniel (ed.) (2000). Balancing Evils Judiciously: The Proslavery Writings of Zephaniah Kingsley, University Press of Florida. ISBN 0-8130-2400-5
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