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Yes, Slavery Existed In California, Historian Says

Kevin Waite speaks Tuesday at Redlands' A.K. Smiley Library about his research into slavery in the West during the 1850s. Despite being a free state, California was home to up to 1,500 Black slaves, Waite said. (Photo by David Allen, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)

Kevin Waite speaks Tuesday at Redlands' A.K. Smiley Library about his research into slavery in the West during the 1850s. Despite being a free state, California was home to up to 1,500 Black slaves, Waite said. (Photo by David Allen, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)

Author

By David Allen | dallen@scng.com | Southern California News Group

PUBLISHED: May 5, 2023 at 3:52 a.m. | UPDATED: May 5, 2023 at 12:27 p.m.

As a free state before the Civil War, California would seem untouched by slavery and the debates around it. Yet the real picture is more nuanced.

An estimated 500 to 1,500 Black people were "forcibly imported" into California as slaves by their owners, historian Kevin Waite told an audience at Redlands' A.K. Smiley Library on Tuesday night, May 2. He's the author of "West of Slavery: The Southern Dream of a Transcontinental Empire."

While even 1,500 is a small number compared to the 4 million slaves in the United States in the 1850s, it's not zero, is it?

Waite asked that we imagine the effort it took not only for a White slave owner to travel by horse-drawn wagon across much of the country, but to smuggle in slaves. That, he said, showed how valuable the slaves must have been.

The most famous may be Biddy Mason, who was brought from Georgia to Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1848, and from there to the Mormon colony in San Bernardino in 1851. She had to walk, driving the animals, across the Mojave Desert.

According to Waite's research, early San Bernardino had 30 slaves. Fourteen of them, including Mason, were owned by Robert Smith, who was probably the largest slaveholder in the West. (Even in the 1850s, the Inland Empire was problematic.)

Mason won her freedom in court and became a leading citizen of Los Angeles. I wrote about her in 2020, saying she was one of the most notable people ever to hail from San Bernardino.

The West had a lot of Southern transplants and sympathizers, many of whom had outsized influence because they got coveted federal appointments, Waite explained. It was part of a national movement to tip the balance of power toward slavery and the Confederacy.

While Abraham Lincoln carried California in the 1861 presidential election, his margin here was the lowest of any free state, Waite said.

How did the tide turn? Sympathetic as many Californians were to the South, the majority recoiled from secession and the Confederacy, which they saw as extremism. And Lincoln shrewdly purged 1,500 civil servants in the West and replaced them with pro-Union appointees, stripping Southerners of much of their power here.

Yet, Waite pointed out, as the post-Civil War "Lost Cause" movement took hold to normalize the Confederacy, the influence lingered.

As recently as a decade ago, California still had more than a dozen things - redwood trees, peaks, highways and schools - named for Confederate figures, generally Robert E. Lee or Jefferson Davis. Many have since been renamed, including an elementary school in Long Beach, but not all.

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Joe Biden Is More Racist Than Republicans

"Americans can't distinguish "between a South Korean and someone from
Beijing." - Joe Biden

Yup... they all look alike, Joe.

Old-Rich-White-Religious Freak, Joe Biden Bragged About His Ability to Work With Racists

Old-Rich-White-Religious Freak, Joe Biden Brags About a Segregationist Democrat Not Calling Him "Boy" Like He Did Others

Used Racist Term "Roaches" to Describe Black Kids Who Felt His Hairy Legs

Praised Democrat Segregationist Sen. John Stennis(D) as "Man of Character"

"Segregation Is Good for Black People" - Joe Biden

"(The) Democrat Party Needs More People Like Racist Democrat Governor George Wallace." - Joe Biden

Gave Speech About What's "Good for the Negro"

"... if you have a problem figuring out whether you're for me or Trump, then you ain't black..." - Joe Biden

"If my opponent wins, they're going to put y'all back in chains." - Joe Biden

Funny, since Democrats have been KEEPING Blacks "in chains" for 60 years, and PUT them there, in the first place. Lincoln and Frederick Douglas and H.R. Revels, Benjamin S. Turner, Josiah T. Walls, Joseph H. Rainey, Robert C. De Large, Jefferson H. Long, R. Brown Elliot were ALL Republicans

http://www.wordfoundations.com/wp- content/uploads/2016/08/First_Colored_Senator_and_Representatives.jpg

"Unless we do something about this, my children are going to grow up in a jungle." - Joe Biden

Jungle: Slang term for a city or urban area.

"You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I'm not joking." - Joe Biden

Only people from India can work at 7-11?

"Poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids" - Joe Biden... as opposed to "White Kids"? That would imply all poor kids are Black.

"I do not buy the concept, popular in the '60s, which said, "We have suppressed the black man for 300 years." - Joe Biden

Seems that THAT'S exactly what Democrats have been saying, ever since they found out that they could buy their votes so easily with free shit.

"I mean, you got the first mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean." - Joe Biden

What... they're not SUPPOSED to be?

"We (Delawareans) were on the South's side in the Civil War." - Joe Biden

"I mean these Shylocks (Jews) who took advantage of, um, these women and men while overseas." - Joe Biden (Not "racist", per se, but still...)

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The Mercury News
California News |

Yes, Slavery Existed In California, Historian Says


NewsCalifornia NewsNews

Yes, slavery existed in California, historian says

By David Allen | dallen@scng.com | Southern California News Group
PUBLISHED: May 5, 2023 at 3:52 a.m. | UPDATED: May 5, 2023 at 12:27 p.m.

As a free state before the Civil War, California would seem untouched by slavery and the debates around it. Yet the real picture is more nuanced.

An estimated 500 to 1,500 Black people were "forcibly imported" into California as slaves by their owners, historian Kevin Waite told an audience at Redlands' A.K. Smiley Library on Tuesday night, May 2. He's the author of "West of Slavery: The Southern Dream of a Transcontinental Empire."

While even 1,500 is a small number compared to the 4 million slaves in the United States in the 1850s, it's not zero, is it?

Waite asked that we imagine the effort it took not only for a White slave owner to travel by horse-drawn wagon across much of the country, but to smuggle in slaves. That, he said, showed how valuable the slaves must have been.

The most famous may be Biddy Mason, who was brought from Georgia to Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1848, and from there to the Mormon colony in San Bernardino in 1851. She had to walk, driving the animals, across the Mojave Desert.

According to Waite's research, early San Bernardino had 30 slaves. Fourteen of them, including Mason, were owned by Robert Smith, who was probably the largest slaveholder in the West. (Even in the 1850s, the Inland Empire was problematic.)

Mason won her freedom in court and became a leading citizen of Los Angeles. I wrote about her in 2020, saying she was one of the most notable people ever to hail from San Bernardino.

The West had a lot of Southern transplants and sympathizers, many of whom had outsized influence because they got coveted federal appointments, Waite explained. It was part of a national movement to tip the balance of power toward slavery and the Confederacy.

While Abraham Lincoln carried California in the 1861 presidential election, his margin here was the lowest of any free state, Waite said.

How did the tide turn? Sympathetic as many Californians were to the South, the majority recoiled from secession and the Confederacy, which they saw as extremism. And Lincoln shrewdly purged 1,500 civil servants in the West and replaced them with pro-Union appointees, stripping Southerners of much of their power here.

Yet, Waite pointed out, as the post-Civil War "Lost Cause" movement took hold to normalize the Confederacy, the influence lingered.

As recently as a decade ago, California still had more than a dozen things - redwood trees, peaks, highways and schools - named for Confederate figures, generally Robert E. Lee or Jefferson Davis. Many have since been renamed, including an elementary school in Long Beach, but not all.
More Waite

Kevin Waite and I had only met via Zoom. A professor of U.S. history at England's Durham University, although a Pasadena native, Waite was beginning to research Biddy Mason's life with fellow historian Sarah Barringer Gordon when we spoke in 2020, and then again in 2021.

Now visiting Southern California, he invited me to his Redlands talk. When I walked in, as one of the first arrivals, he and I recognized each other immediately. Although after only seeing him on screens 10 inches high, he was taller than I'd expected.

After his talk, I asked how his and Gordon's research into Biddy Mason and her times was going. It's steaming ahead.

"I can get it done in 18 months or 24 months," Waite told me. "I've been working on the San Bernardino research the past six months or so." He added: "A lot is known about the Mormon history of San Bernardino but very little about its slave-owning history."

Looking forward to what they come up with.

David Allen writesss Friday, Sunday and Wednesday. Email dallen@scng.com, phone 909-483-9339, like davidallencolumnist on Facebook and follow @davidallen909 on Twitter.

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AlleyCat is one of the several people who dominate Rudy on an almost
daily basis, keeping their bootheels on his little pencil neck to the
amusement of all.

Rudy's Denial of Reality

Many people, like Rudy deny truths even when presented with irrefutable evidence.

There's an old (and corny) joke, which goes:

What is "denial?"

It's a river in Egypt."

There's another meaning of "denial" in psychoanalytic theory: A psychological defense we all use at times to reduce our anxiety when something feels particularly disturbing.

Finally, there is a particular type of "denial" we are witnessing nowadays:

When seemingly intelligent and sane adults vehemently deny truths despite a body of irrefutable data.

(THAT'S our Rudy!)

This type of denial is akin to Stephen Colbert's "truthiness" in that these deniers adamantly refuse to accept verified facts because they get in the way of their own rigid ideas.

In psychiatry, the word "delusion" means a firm belief in some idea which is known to be false, and it can be a symptom of paranoia or psychosis. While the believers in untruths are mentally ill, they do strongly adhere to their false credos in spite of clear evidence to the contrary which is presented to them, especially if based on scientific findings.

These deniers are indeed "true believers" for whom there is only One Absolute Truth.

The writings of their texts are taken literally or reinterpreted to suit their prejudice and hate.

This kind of closed-mindedness is prevalent in every country of the world. Call it zealotry, bigotry or fanaticism, these ultra-controlling beliefs are dangerous to our civic morale. Worse, they give a quasi-intellectual rationale for a momentum towards control, misanthropy, and hate.

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