Mining for Freedom: Black History Meets the California Gold Rush
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About this ebook
Did you know that black history in California precedes Gold Rush history by some 300 years?
Did you know that in California during the Gold Rush, blacks created one of the wealthiest, most culturally advanced, most politically active communities in the nation?
Few people are aware of the intriguing, dynamic often wholly inspirational stories of African American argonauts, from backgrounds as diverse as those of their less sturdy- complexioned peers. Defying strict California fugitive slave laws and an unforgiving court testimony ban in a state that declared itself free, black men and women combined skill, ambition and courage and rose to meet that daunting challenge with dignity, determination and even a certain lan, leaving behind a legacy that has gone starkly under-reported.
Mainstream history tends to contribute to the illusion that African Americans were all but absent from the California Gold Rush experience. This remarkable book, illustrated with dozens of photos, offers definitive contradiction to that illusion and opens a door that leads the reader into a forgotten world long shrouded behind the shadowy curtains of time.
Sylvia Alden Roberts
Author, lecturer and historian, Roberts began dedicating her energies to the resurrection, preservation and dissemination of African American Gold Rush history after she moved to Sonora, California in 1992. Active in community organizations, she is currently planning a second book and a museum and research center dedicated to the subject.
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Mining for Freedom - Sylvia Alden Roberts
Copyright © 2008 by Sylvia Alden Roberts
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
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ISBN: 978-0-595-52492-1 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-595-62545-1 (ebook)
iUniverse Rev. Date: 10/29/08
Sponsored by Sierra Non Profit Services
Sonora, California
CONTENTS
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PREFACE
CHAPTER ONE:
BLACKS IN EARLY CALIFORNIA
CHAPTER TWO:
THE CALIFORNIA GOLD RUSH AND THE NEGRO QUESTION
CHAPTER THREE:
WOMEN OF STURDIER COMPLEXION
CHAPTER FOUR:
JUST ANOTHER UNCLE
CHAPTER FIVE:
A DRAMA IN THE DIGGIN’S
CHAPTER SIX:
LOOKING BACK UPON FOREVER
CHAPTER SEVEN:
CAPITALIST OF COLOR
CHAPTER EIGHT:
A QUIET ADVENTURE
CHAPTER NINE:
A LASTING LEGACY
CHAPTER TEN:
FROM THE CROUCH OF A BOOTBLACK
CHAPTER ELEVEN:
TOO SMART TO BE A SLAVE
CHAPTER TWELVE:
A FREEDOM MINER ALBUM
AFTERWORD
APPENDIX A:
CALIFORNIA FREEDOM PAPERS
1852–1859
APPENDIX B:
THE GRAND JUBILEE OF THE COLORED POPULATION OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY AND OTHER PARTS OF THE STATE
BIBLIOGRAPHY AND SUGGESTED READING
END NOTES
A project of the Mother Lode Black Heritage Foundation
missing image file Celebrating the memory
Honoring the dignity
Sharing the legacy
of all African American Gold Rush Pioneers of California
List of Illustrations
The photos and illustrations in Mining for Freedom are provided thanks to the courtesy and generosity of the following organizations and individuals. The following are listed in order of appearance.
Washing for Gold
(dedication page)
The Illustrated London News Picture Library, London
Pio Pico
The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley
Califia
Reproduction permission granted by artist Susan Shelton
Davis
William Leidesdorff
The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley
California News
The Long Island Museum, Stony Brook
John McDougal
The San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library,
San Francisco
Oliver Wozencraft
San Bernardino Public Library, San Bernardino
Spanish Flat, 1852
California History Room, California State Library,
Sacramento
Black Mining Sites
Joe Moore, National Parks Service/African American
Historical and Cultural Society, Sacramento
George Ashe
Tuolumne County Historical Society, Sonora
City Hotel
Tuolumne County Historical Society, Sonora
Margaret Binum
Calaveras County Historical Society, San Andreas
Phoebe Eliza
Ferguson
Calaveras County Historical Society, San Andreas
Biddy Mason
The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley
Nancy Davis Lester
Royal British Columbia Museum, BC Archives, Victoria
(image #A01627)
Mary Elizabeth Sugg
Tuolumne County Historical Society, Sonora
Mary Ellen Pleasant
The African American Cultural and Historical Society,
San Francisco
One of the Forgotten
Tuolumne County Historical Society, Sonora
Tom Gilman
Tuolumne County Historical Society, Sonora
Samuel Cornish
Artist unknown
Property
Value
Tuolumne County Recorder’s Office, Sonora
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Tuolumne County Historical Society, Sonora
John Jolly
Tuolumne County Historical Society/Leona Jolly Bray
Dan Rodgers
The Museum of Art and History at the McPherson Center,
Santa Cruz
Slave Auction
Artist unknown
African Americans Crossing the Plains
Dick Perue Historical Photos/John W. Ravage, Black Pioneers: Images of the Black Experience on the North American Frontier
William O’Hara (?)
Tuolumne County Historical Society, Sonora
A Terrible Conflagration
Columbia State Historic Park Archive, Columbia
William Ralston
California Historical Society, San Francisco
Ferguson Saloon/Jenny Lind Poster
Tuolumne County Historical Society, Sonora
Road to the Grand Jubilee
Photo by Betty Sparagna, Sonora
John Wade and Cornelius Robinson
Tuolumne County Historical Society/Edna Wilcox and Gladys Wilcox Musante
Tod Robinson
Tuolumne County Historical Society/Edna Wilcox and Gladys Wilcox Musante
William Sugg
Tuolumne County Historical Society, Sonora
The House That Sugg Built
Tuolumne County Historical Society, Sonora
Mifflin Gibbs
Royal British Columbia Museum, BC Archives, Victoria
(image #B01601)
Alvin Coffey
The Society of California Pioneers, San Francisco
George Washington Dennis
California Historical Society, San Francisco
Peter Lester
Royal British Columbia Museum, BC Archives, Victoria
(image #A01626)
John Moss
Tuolumne County Historical Society, Sonora
William Waldo
Tuolumne County Historical Society, Sonora
Tom Simpson
Tuolumne County Historical Society, Sonora
Charles Haley
Willard Library, Martich Archive, Battle Creek
Abner Hunt Francis (?)
Tuolumne City Memorial Museum, Tuolumne
Uriah Smith (1)
Tuolumne County Historical Society, Sonora
Uriah Smith (2)
Tuolumne County Historical Society, Sonora
Author Photo (back cover)
Photo by Betty Sparagna, Sonora
Acknowledgments
So many wonderful people have helped gather the research used to write this book that it would be impossible to list them all here. My apologies go to those not included below, but you know who you are, and I hope you all know that if you are not listed here, you are registered in my heart, in indelible ink, forever appreciated with my deepest gratitude.
First, my thanks go out to Bob and Sherri Brennan, owners of the Sugg-McDonald home, for being gracious enough to share some of their privacy with a curious (okay, nosy) stranger all those years ago. Most sincere thanks to local authors and historians Carlo M. De Ferrari, Patricia Perry, Sherrin Grout, Dick Dyer, Sharon Marovich, and Judith Marvin, for their professional help and moral support over the years and for not letting me know when they got sick of my questions.
Next, I could not have gathered research, details, and photos without the help of so many Tuolumne County Museum and History Center staffers and volunteers, in particular Richard Camarena, Audie Buckler, and the late (and sorely missed) Dythe-Mary Egleston.
My thanks also go out to longtime members of the community who have come forward and led me to stories, books, photos, and artifacts I might otherwise never have found. And a most heartfelt thanks to all who have attended my lectures and presentations and encouraged me with their questions and their interest.
I thank Pat Perry, Reb Silay, and Jo Ellen Hart for being my eyes and agreeing to read the manuscript and check it for content, continuity, grammar, and spelling errors. Thanks to Betty Sparagna, for her infinite patience while scanning the photos and illustrations. To Linda Clark, who traveled the publishing path just ahead of me, thanks for being my weed whacker
and clearing the way through some tangles!
Thanks and much love to other friends and family: to John Beck, who saved my sanity during a computer crisis at the worst possible time; to those dear and special ones who offered financial support for my research; to my children, Jennifer Kesteloot and Rikk Roberts, for humoring me when I had no idea what I was doing; to my oldest daughter, Marjorie Oliver and my aunt, Dorothy Oliver, who always help me remember who I am and where I came from; to my dear childhood friend, Tommye Hawkins, who of all people should know better but who continues to insist that I can do anything; to Margaret Herndon, who read all the versions of the book and thought even the worst ones were great; and to my dear husband, Richard, who helped me as long as he was able.
Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to two accomplished and acclaimed black history authors. First, the late Dr. Rudolph Lapp, author of Blacks in Gold Rush California, for his support at the beginning of this journey. His initial encouragement to pursue the subject was invaluable to a green history buff, completely at sea about how to proceed. Finally, thanks to William Loren Katz, internationally known lecturer and author of scores of books, including The Black West, for the encouragement, time, and generosity he gave to a complete stranger on another coast.
Gratefully, affectionately, and respectfully,
Sylvia Alden Roberts
Preface
The California Gold Rush and African American history are seldom paired in the minds of either the strict historian or the casual spectator. It is assumed, if it is considered at all, that while a handful of blacks may have shared in the experience, they did so only in a secondary capacity and only as second-class citizens.
In truth, nearly five thousand blacks, from all over the world and representing backgrounds as diverse as those of their lighter-complexioned peers, were an integral part of the first decade of that unprecedented experience. These unique pioneers have been largely overlooked by researchers and historians for more than a century and a half.
The newly declared free
state of California enforced strict fugitive slave laws and, among other restrictions, denied minorities the right to vote and the right to testify in court. Mired in fierce racial controversy but undaunted by the odds, black Argonauts coalesced to form one of the wealthiest, most culturally advanced, and most politically active communities in the nation.
It is my hope that this book will help dispel some injurious myths and long-standing stereotypes that limit characterization of the pre–Civil War Negro to only two categories: the happy
slave, well fed on pig knuckles and watermelon, or the hapless victim—poor, downtrodden, and pitiable. Mining for Freedom was written to celebrate the memory and honor the dignity of the thousands of determined, courageous, and enterprising black men and women who were an instrumental