The novel "The Known World" by Edward P. Jones
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Known_World"The Known World is a 2003 historical novel by Edward P. Jones. It was his first novel and second book. Set in antebellum Virginia, it examines issues regarding the ownership of black slaves by free black people as well as by whites. A book with many points of view, The Known World paints an enormous canvas thick with personalities and situations that show how slavery destroys but can also be transcended."
The biography of Anna Kingsley of the Kingsley Plantation in Florida
"Anna Madgigine Jai Kingsley: African Princess, Florida Slave, Plantation Slaveowner" by Daniel L. Schafer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Kingsley"Anna Madgigine Jai Kingsley (c. 1793 – April or May 1870) was a West African slave turned slaveholder and plantation owner in early 19th century Florida. At 13 years old, she was captured and sent to Cuba where she was purchased by and married to Zephaniah Kingsley, a slave trader and plantation owner. Kingsley freed Anna in 1811 and put her in charge of his plantations in East Florida. For 25 years, Kingsley's unique family lived on Fort George Island in modern-day Jacksonville, where Anna managed a large and successful planting operation, owning slaves of her own. When American laws threatened the Kingsley family, they moved to Haiti. Kingsley died soon after, and Anna returned to dispute her husband's relatives contesting Kingsley's will that sought to exclude Anna and her children from inheriting the holdings left to them by Kingsley. Anna was successful, despite the hostile climate toward blacks. She settled in the Arlington neighborhood of Jacksonville, where she died in 1870 at 77 years old. The National Park Service protects Kingsley Plantation, where Anna and Kingsley lived on Fort George Island, as part of the Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve."
On my first-ever trip to Florida this summer I stayed with an old friend who settled there a few years ago. We did some touristy things together, including visiting one plantation. I was curious to see how this one would be presented, and was pleased to see the National Park Service was hard at work doing things like rebuilding the slave cabins. But what really surprised me was the story the Park Service ladies in their Smokey the Bear hats told me about the Kingsley Plantation. Since they were sold out of Anna Kingsley's bio, I went to the Barnes and Noble in Jacksonville and picked up a copy, written by a local college professor.
So there you have it. I don't know what the wingnuts are saying and I hope I never find out, but these are very interesting pieces of history.
Hekate