goldfields

This well-known photograph shows a black miner in the California goldfields. It was taken at Auburn Ravine in 1852, but the man’s name is unknown. Was he free or was he enslaved? Did he strike it rich? Was the gold his to keep or did a slaveholder claim it?

With the discovery of gold in 1848, prospectors poured into California. Southern slaveholders saw an opportunity to prosper by working slaves in the goldfields. Free Negroes also came to California, and by the census of 1852 there were approximately 2200 African Americans in California, the majority being enslaved persons. They came overland, working as teamsters (as Alvin Coffey did), and cooks and servants. They came by ship, as sailors and accompanying Southern gold-seekers, like George Washington Dennis.

Some were able to earn the money to buy their freedom, as G.W. Dennis did by working in a gambling house. Others fled and were protected by sympathetic friends. Alvin Coffey noted that “If I’d run away, there’d have been plenty to hide me and protect me.” But Alvin knew that if he ran he would lose any chance of returning to Missouri and rescuing his family.

Were slaves ever sold in California? Undoubtedly they were, but evidence can be hard to find. In his book California’s Black Pioneers, Kenneth G. Goode quotes a notice that appeared in a Sacramento newspaper, the Democratic State Journal in 1852. That paper is not available online, but here is part of the text:

NEGRO FOR SALE — On Saturday the 26th inst., I will sell at public auction a Negro Man, he having agreed to said sale in preference to being sent home. I value him at $300, but if any or all of his abolition brethren wish to show that they have the first honorable principle about them, they can have an opportunity of releasing said Negro from bondage by calling on the subscriber, and the Southern House, precious to that time and paying $100.

Goode, California’s Black Pioneers, p. 60

His “abolition brethren” did indeed come up with the $100 to buy the freedom of their friend, showing that they had more “honorable principles” than the seller.

Another advertisement appeared in the Sacramento Transcript:

Note in this case that the buyer is not actually purchasing the girl, but her indenture, which will be in force for two years. One hopes she was released at the end of that period, if not before.

Comic books have been around longer than you might think, and the California Gold Rush of 1849 proved to be a gold mine (so to speak) for satiric artists. One of the most entertaining is called Outline History of an Expedition to California, Containing the Fate of the All You Can Get Mining Association by an author-illustrator calling himself XOX. The title page illustration bears the name S.F. Baker at the lower right, so perhaps that was his name.

It has a great title page — very Gorey-esque.

The story concerns a young New England merchant named Jonathan Swapwell who gets gold fever and joins a company of would-be miners headed for California. The mining association splits up into three groups: one goes by way of Cape Horn, one goes the Panama route, and one travels overland, giving the artist the opportunity to depict the perils of each. Which route Jonathan takes isn’t clear, but he ends up in California and makes a living selling good to miners.

Jonathan overhears a plan to rob his store, so he and his partner Pat (a cartoon Irishman) pack up their gold and go to San Francisco to catch the next steamer home. Meanwhile, the men who took the Panama route are still waiting for a boat on the Pacific side of the Isthmus.

The comic strip tale is bookended by two panels that frame the story. The opening panel shows Death and the Devil laying a trap in California to lure men to their deaths.

The closing panel shows the two filling the large cavity left in the land with the bones of the deceased.

You can view the entire book courtesy of Yale University Library.

This random one-off letter from G.W. Lawson to Charles L. Hansicker is in the Sutter’s Fort Pioneer Collection at the California State Library, along with papers from John Bidwell, John Sutter, and George McKinstry. It’s a glimpse of the news of the day from a rich mining camp that would become Nevada City. There is one word in the first line that baffles me, otherwise it is pretty easy to read. Here is the entire letter:

Nevada April 27th 1850

Dear Charley

            As you are [kindee?] connected with the press now I want to tell you some few things concerning this diggings & if they are worth repeating put them in the paper if not I hope they will interest you enough to secure your perusal. I also wish to correct a statement made in the paper about “Gold Run”. It is not wanting in water as stated but the water has just subsided enough to let all hands in, and it will last long enough to work out all the claims. Today I went up the run its length, one company of five men washed down the forenoons work, & shewed it to me, 4 & ½ pounds of grain gold. [Inserted] Evening: one of the company has just come in & informed me that the days work is 12 pounds. Ain’t that some? 20,000 is asked for some claims of 120 or 40 feet. East Branch (close by it) is now attracting attention. 3000 is asked for claims of 60 feet. I think Deer Creek itself will turn out very rich. They are turning it here every foot. A gentleman tells me tonight that he saw 9 pounds which was taken out of a small space on the side of Sugar Loaf Mountain (close to this place). Don’t it go ahead of anything.

The place is growing from 1 to 4 houses a day. Seeing so much earth throwed out today suggested to me a way of building a Rail Road to California. Let the government, or a Great Company, collect about 100,000 of the poor laboring men of the states such as would like to come & have not the means, manage them in sections completing along as fast as practicable. In that way, supplies from the States could be furnished the laborers by the road itself cheap and one year would bring them all here. Reward each man with a good gold claim when he got here (this the Government could do) & thus a road could be built upon the labor of men wishing to get here either by the Gen. Government or a heavy company. Don’t laugh now.

I have not heard from home, & though weighing out the dust half my time I get homesick. I should like to “scratch gravel” in that direction, wouldn’t you, Charles. But when we get back, won’t there be some “prospecting” about them diggings, “striking of leads,” & perhaps some “jumping of claims.”

I meant to have written you more, but so many are in, talking and using me that I can’t think of what I would write & the mail is in haste.

Yours truly, G.W. Lawson

A little sleuthing in the census records of 1850 and I discovered that Charles Hansicker, age 24, was employed as a printer by the Sacramento Transcript. The statement about water that the writer corrects in the first paragraph appeared in the paper on April 12, 1850.

G.W. Lawson didn’t make it into the 1850 census, which was a hit-and-miss affair, but seems to have remained in California. George W. Lawson shows up up in the 1860 census: a 38 year old lawyer, living at Rose Bar Township in Yuba County, married to Mary, with baby son Herman.

Charles Hansicker served in the Mexican War as a 2nd lieutenant. After the war he probably returned to Indiana, but when the news of gold in California hit the States, he joined the rush for gold. He soon turned from mining to printing, first working at the Sacramento Transcript, and then founding the Sacramento Daily Union.

He returned to Indiana in 1853. His “prospecting,” as his buddy George joshes, was successful and he married Gabriella Preble. They had two daughters. Unfortunately, he died of consumption (tuberculosis) in 1859.

I started this blog ten years ago to promote the book I wrote about John Bidwell, and to note any bits of Northern California history that caught my fancy. Now I have reached my one-thousandth post, and it’s time to remind you about my books and other projects.

Since that first book I have written three more and have a fourth in the works. I have also collaborated on a variety of books, mostly with the Association for Northern California Historical Research. Between that and my big garden, I manage to keep myself busy and out of trouble.

I live in Chico, California, a city founded by pioneer John Bidwell, so two of my books are about his remarkable life. If you ever come to Chico, be sure and visit Bidwell Mansion State Historic Park. Their home is packed with history. One of my most enjoyable activities has been writing historical vignettes for events at the Mansion and acting in them. I portray the cook, Florence Proud, a real person who didn’t always get along with the rest of the help.

In writing John and Annie Bidwell: The Long and the Short of It, I realized how much I like the format of the picture book biography. It’s fun to work with illustrator Steve Ferchaud, and I like bringing history to the youngest readers. Limiting the text to what will fit on 32 pages, with plenty of room for pictures, forces me to concentrate my writing and make every word count. Plus I love doing the research, so even though most of it doesn’t make it into the book, I have learned a lot about my protagonist.

I wrote about Nancy Kelsey, the first American woman to come over the Sierra Nevada mountains into California. She came as a seventeen-year-old young mother, carrying her young daughter in her arms. She saw so much of California history: Sutter’s Fort, the Bear Flag Revolt, the Gold Rush, Indian encounters, life in town and life on the ranch.

I did another book on Peter Lassen, the Danish pioneer for whom Lassen County, Lassen Peak, Lassen National Volcanic Park, and so many other landmarks are named. His ranch was just up the road, a half-hour drive from where I live, where the town of Vina is now.

Peter Lassen was quite the character, and I wish I could have known him and Nancy Kelsey and many more of those early inhabitants of California.

In between my own books I have worked on a number of other projects. Together with John Rudderow I edited the poems of Pres Longley, a miner and a minor poet. I still like to open that book and read a one of his poems now and then. He could turn a verse on just about anything.

Since John Bidwell not only wrote in a daily journal, but also kept all his letters, receipts, and other papers, I have been able to mine that trove for two articles for The Diggin’s, the quarterly of the Butte County Historical Society. One was on his life-long friendship with Nelson Blake, and the other about “The Lady with the Blue Silk Umbrella.” Both articles look at California around 1850 through the eyes of the people who were there when it happened.

I’ve also worked with the Association for Northern California Historical Research (ANCHR) on several books, such as The Road to Cherokee, Ten Miles of Archeology on the Humboldt Wagon Road, and Conversations with the Past. ANCHR’s upcoming book on John Brown’s family in Red Bluff will have a chapter by me on rival newspapers in Red Bluff during the time that the Browns were living there.

This last year of staying close to home seemed to me to be the ideal time to write another picture book biography. But who to write about? I want to like my subject, so I don’t want to do an out-and-out villain. Some people have already had plenty written about them, while others seem too obscure to warrant a book. I couldn’t decide.

Then a couple of months ago I read about Alvin Coffey, a man who made three overland journeys to California. The first time he came as a slave, but the last time he came as a free man, bringing his wife and children with him. Here was a man who had worked through incredible difficulties to gain the precious prize of freedom. That’s the book I have started on, and I can’t wait to see what Steve can do with his pen and brush. Pretty soon I’ll be sharing some of those illustrations with you.

Here I am as Florence the cook in the kitchen with Annie’s secretary, played by Marquita Goodman. Soon we will be presenting events again at Bidwell Mansion, after taking a year off.

So that’s the history of the last ten years. I hope to keep writing and sharing the fascinating history of northern California with you for many more.

Jennie Carter, African American journalist in California, had some strong words when it came to issues of civil rights and equality. Her “Letter from Nevada County” in The Elevator on September 25, 1868 comes down hard on Southern Democrats, including those living in California, who objected to the Fourteenth Amendment, which declared “all persons born or naturalized in the United States” to be citizens thereof, with the same privileges and immunities and entitled to equal protection under the law. The amendment’s ratification had been certified on July 28, 1868.

This did not sit well with former slave owners in the South. And their attitude did not sit well with Jennie Carter. The entire letter, filled with righteous indignation, is worth reading.

Mud Hill, Sept. 12, 1868. Mr. Editor : —There is in the present political campaign less bitterness than heretofore at the North, while at the South it is increased tenfold. A Democrat said the other day, that the feeling exhibited South was “caused by negroes seeking equality, and the people would not endure it and the despotism it brought them.” They can’t stand despotism. I think they ought to, for they have dealt largely in that material.

Until the rebellion, who dared to express an opinion adverse to human bondage south of Mason and Dixon’s line? who dared read the first clause of the Constitution—”All men are born free and equal”—and give it a literal interpretation? and who dared preach the whole gospel—that master and servant were equal? Who dared to be seen reading the New York Tribune. All must put a lock on their lips, or suffer imprisonment and death. I know what I write, having spent a great portion of my life there; and often have I been told if I were a man I would be hung: and for what? why, for saying slavery was wrong. 

I recollect one time, in B___ county, Kentucky, I sat up all night with a poor slave mother, who lay in spasms, caused by the selling to a negro trader of her little boy, not three years of age. When in the morning her master came to her cabin to see how she was, I began to plead with him in humanity’s name; and when that would not move him, I told him God was just, and would not suffer such things forever. He told me I had said enough to hang me.

They had better not talk of despotism and military rule now. I am sure they have more liberty than they ever allowed others. They can all speak their minds fully—even curse the Government that ought to have hung them; and now that we have the blood-bought right to speak of Christianity, humanity, morality and justice, and they cannot muzzle us, they cry “negro equality!”

We do not desire equality with them. I hope none of us are so low and so lost to all that is noble as to wish to change places with those slave owners (all Democrats), who before the war raised men and women for the market—selling their own flesh and blood, separating husband and wife, parent and child. No, we never expect to be bad enough to be their equals. As regards color, the slave-holders did all they could to produce equality. I know many of them whose daughters in the big house were not as light as their daughters in the cabin. And when I the Democrats say, “Want your daughter to marry a nigger?” I tell them many of your daughters have married negroes, and many more would have done it, but you choose to sell them to white men to become victims of their lust. Shame! I say, l am tired of listening to their falsehoods, and thankful that the Chinese can rest. Last year it was Chinese and Negro; this year not one word about the ” moon-eyed celestials”; and next year they will be patting you on the shoulder, saying, “Come friend, give us your vote.” Then should everyone have the courage to say, “Depart, I never knew you, ye workers of iniquity.”  SEMPER FIDELIS