[1] The beginning of her story is similar to millions of other Africans who fell victim to the Atlantic slave trade and were subjected to the Middle Passage.

As a widow, Gallum would ultimately inherit and enslave numerous people herself, as well as own and operate a plantation in what was then Spanish Florida.

What is known is that she was born in approximately 1755 in Senegal, Africa, where she was kidnapped at a young age and sold to the Scottish trading firm, Panton, Leslie & Company.

[2] The two remained together for another 18 years until Wiggins died in 1797, leaving his entire estate and all property to Gallum as the rightful inheritor on the behalf of their children.

Thereafter, Gallum continued to run her newly acquired estate as her husband had, the only difference being that she was now the head of household, with the assistance of her eldest son Benjamin.

[3] This led to Gallum inheriting his property, which consisted of an approximately 1,400-acre plantation, 100 head of cattle, farming equipment, and six cabins of enslaved people.

[5] Two years after the death of her husband in early 1799, Gallum was sexually assaulted by a man named Pedro Cassaly, who had come to the plantation to purchase cattle.

However, the community knew she owned considerable amounts of land, and her eldest daughter and son had both married into wealthy mixed-race families, so she was denied any aid by the courts.

Her eldest son Benjamin became a translator on behalf of the local Indigenous tribes, spending time among the Seminoles and eventually marrying the daughter of prominent mixed-race planter and rancher, Felipe Edinborough.

[2][7] Her eldest daughter ― Beatriz ― married a mixed race man named Charles W. Clarke, the younger brother of prominent social and political figure George J.F.

Eventually, Clarke and Beatrice, whom he often called "Patty" or "Particia", followed his brother and his family to Fernandina, Amelia Island, where they achieved a much better social status as freed Black people under Spanish rule.

Gallum herself moved to Fernandina from Palatka in 1811 after losing the Wiggins' plantation due to a lack of agricultural development on the land and purchased three lots of property for herself and her youngest son, Pedro Cassaly II.