Mayorasgo de Koka

After renting the rights of the land from the Haitian government in 1837, Zephaniah Kingsley purchased it in 1838.

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.

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.

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.