Biddy Mason - Business Legacy

Not all black pioneers were prosperous, but they were enterprising.  Take Biddy Mason for example.  Biddy was born a slave who trudged from Mississippi to California driving sheep behind 300 wagons belonging to her master's train in 1851. 

Upon arrival, Biddy prevailed upon the sheriff of Los Angeles County to issue a writ preventing her master from taking his slaves out of state  and she finally secured her freedom through the courts in 1856.

Biddy was a shrewd business woman.  She began to purchase property in 1866.  Her original investment was only $250, but she kept purchasing bits and pieces until 30 years later, her heirs were presented with an offer to purchase a portion of her land for $200,000 - which they refused to accept. 

In the 1880s Biddy paid grocery bills for black families who had been left destitute.  She is just one example of those brave pioneers who took an opportunity and left a legacy.

Next time...Susan Wilson

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On this Day in Pioneer History:
On June 24, 1864, Colorado Governor John Evans warns that all peaceful Indians in the region must report to the Sand Creek reservation or risk being attacked, creating the conditions that will lead to the infamous Sand Creek Massacre.

Mary Ellen Pleasants and the Beginning of Civil Rights in California

Many of the black women who came to the western frontier are left anonymous to us.  Margaret Frank wrote in her journal somewhere in the Humboldt Sink she saw "a Negro woman tramping along through the heat and dust carrying a cast iron bake stove on her head with her provisions and a blanket piled on top...bravely pushing for California."

Although this woman's name is lost to history, through her we can see and feel her determination to reach a new life, depending on no one but herself, and overcoming the obstacles so she could make a new life for herself and her family.

Some of the black pioneer women we do know about.  Mary Ellen Pleasants came to San Francisco in 1849.  Born a slave in Georgia, she was married to a free black man in Boston and came west with a sizeable fortune.  In 1858, she traveled all the way back to eastern Canada in order to deliver $30,000 personally to John Brown to help his crusade to free her people.

Upon returning to California, she was taken off a San Francisco streetcar.  She filed suit and along with other black women, eventually compelled streetcar lines to allow Negroes to ride.  100 years before Rosa Parks...

Mary became know as "Mammy" Pleasants, the "Mother of Civil Rights in California".

Next Time...Clara Brown

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On this Day in Pioneer History:  On June 18, 1847, Alexander Murray, an experienced fur trader and wilderness explorer,  leads a heavily armed party into the Yukon River region of North America, to build a fort for trading furs with the local Indians.

The Integration of the West

When California outlawed slavery in 1850 within it boundaries, the gold mines became places where a mixture of races and nationalities came together in search of wealth. 

Mary Ballou wrote home that she lived in a mining camp called "Negro Bar" where French, Dutch, Scotch, Jews, Italians, Swedes, Chinese, and Indians were all panning for gold.  Some of the women who worked in the mining camps had comes as slaves, sold by their masters to families headed West.

Even before the discovery of gold, California had been settled by men and women of Mexican,

Indian, and African descent.  According to the 1790 census, 18% of the population were of something other than Anglo-American origin.  By 1849, San Francisco had its own "mutual Benefit and Relief Society" of Afro-Americans.  By 1854, the city had three black churches and within 10 years, three black newspapers as well.

Oregon, on the other hand, was less hospitable to blacks than many who came West had hoped.  The territory passed laws prohibiting admission to black settlers in general.   In 1857 when Oregon became a state, the Free Negro Admission Article proposed for the state constitution, was defeated and the small number of blacks who had made their way to Oregon lived uneasily until the Emancipation Proclamation six years later.

Next time...we'll look at individual Afro-American pioneers who shaped our western civilization.
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Today in Pioneer History:  On June 16, 1884, the first roller coaster in America opens at Coney Island, in Brooklyn, New York. Known as a switchback railway, it was the brainchild of LaMarcus Thompson, traveled approximately six miles per hour and cost a nickel to ride.

Mary Rockwood Powers - Conclusion

I have to ask what was Americus's problem?  Was it just a family squabble that Mary made sound more than it was? Was Americus really a fool?  Or was it because Mary was said to have been a very pretty young woman and her behavior with the other men was inappropriate?  We are left to wonder...

In October 1856 the family came out of Sierra Nevada.  Of all the stories we have looked at,

emotional stability had threatened the Powers' lives, not the Indians.  Mary told her mother "my health was most miserable and grew worse very fast.  Our journey across the Plains was a long and hard one.  We lost everything but our lives."

The following June in California, Mary gave birth to twins, of whom died before their first birthday.  Mary remained loyal to her husband, but one year later she, too died.  This time Americus wrote to Mary's mother "Mary followed me to a distant land, but the expedition was an unfortunate one.  Had it succeeded we would have been independent, but since everything went wrong, I did the best I could and so did Mary.  We both anticipated better days."

Mary's last instructions, however, were for her children to be educated by her mother and her mother's family in Wisconsin.  Americus became a recluse and was shot during an ambush in 1886 in the California hills.

Like most of the men who went west, he risked everything, including his family for that spirit of adventure.  The frontier tested one's psyche as much as it tested their strength.

Next time...Helen Carpenter, Young Bride

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Today in Pioneer History: On March 16, 1903, Judge Roy Bean, the self-proclaimed “law west of the Pecos,” dies in Langtry, Texas

Mary Rockwood Powers -Part 2

As we discovered in that last part, Mary Powers' husband, Americus, was a doctor unable to adapt to life on the trail.  His incompatibility with the other men in the wagon party was noted by Mary in her journal: "the company went on and left us to get on as best we could."  A very unusual course of action for a wagon company to take under any circumstance.  Mary says only that "a dissatisfaction among the company separated us.  I forebear giving the details."

Mary did write more to her mother that their horses could not carry them and their possession and were giving out.  She wrote that "the doctor told the other men it was his business.  He would not ask for help, nor would he buy a team of oxen.  I am in the hands of a maniac. Myself and my little ones at the mercy of a mad man." 

Somehow they reached Salt Lake City.  While there two men from the wagon company rode back to find them and talk with Mary.  The men made commitments to Mary and the children, not to her husband. 

In another letter to her mother, Mary says "for some days the doctor had been falling into his old sullen mood again, out of humor with everyone.  Mr. Curtis offered to take me and the children into their wagon and divide up the luggage.  But despite all their urging, the doctor would not give up his horses but hitched them up and drove off like he was Lord of all surveyed."

The next day Mr. Curtis and the other men came back and demanded to know if Americus was a "mad man or a confounded fool."  Seems Americus found public ridicule too much and bought some oxen and the family once again joined the wagon train. 

Before they left, Mary cooked the last of her dried strawberries, poured them over fresh made dumplings, and give them to Mr. Curtis and his friend who had tried to help her.  Did the doctor get any?  I hope not...

We'll conclude this story next time...

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Today in Pioneer History: On March 13, 1836, after less than a week after the disastrous defeat of Texas rebels at the Alamo, the newly commissioned Texan General Sam Houston begins a series of strategic retreats to buy time to train his ill-prepared army.

The Divison of Labor on the Trail

The division of work on the Overland Trail was heavily weighted on the woman's side.  Martha Morrison recalls:

"the women helped pitch the tents, helped unload, helped yoking up the cattle.  Some of the women did nearly all the yoking.  One time my father was away hunting cattle that had been driven off by the Indians and that left Mother and the children to attend to everything."

Esther Hanna recorded her thoughts:

"I am now sitting in our carriage in the middle of a slough.  Our mules all fell down attempting to get through.  I have never witnessed anything like it.  We have put 14 yoke oxen to the wagons to get them out.  Our provisions got wet and they had to be unpacked to air and then packed again."

And we've learned that that fell under a woman's job, of course!  Many women on the trail felt reduced to hired hands. 

Martha Morrison later realized:

"We  did not know the dangers we were going through.  The idea of my Father was to get to the coast, no other place suited him and he went on until we got there where we settled in the Clatsop Plains close to the mouth of the Columbia River.  We did not arrive until the middle of January or first of Feburary.  We went down the Deschutes River in an open canoe, including all the children.  When we got down there was no way to get to the place my Father had determined to locate us,  but to wade through the tremendous swamps. 

I know some of the young men laughed at us girls, my oldest sister and me, for holding up what dresses we had to keep from miring, but we didn't think it was funny.  We finally waded through and got through and got all our goods.  Mother was a very fleshy woman and it was a terrible job for her to go through."

Yes it was an adventure for the young, but Martha's diary brings alive her father's determination who wouldn't give up until he reached the Pacific, and the hard work of that "fleshy" wife of his to get him there!

Next time...

Women of Faith Make a Change

The Houston Morning Start reported "It is a source of much astonishment and of considerable severe complaint that while we have a theatre, a courthouse, a jail, and even a capitol in Houston,  we have not one single church"  It was difficult to keep building churches and congregations as the pioneers moved west.

According to recorded statistics, women were much more likely to be part of a church than a man.  Some records show total female congregations.  As far back as the beginning of their long journey west, women began talking about the "Disappearance of the Sabbath" as they called it.  The need to find food and water for the animals, to cover more miles, trade supplies -  women tell of "traveling on the Sabbath is not pleasant" and "I was obliged to do many things I was loathe to do on the Sabbath".

Sunday seems to be the day for men to lay on the grass and rest as women continued their work.  "There is nothing that seems like the Sabbath" laments one frontier woman on the trail.
A woman's spiritual needs were satisfied with church and church activities.  It linked their new life with the old one they left behind and supported their role as the future builders of the community and western civilization.
Next time...Church Bells Ring

Over Land

A journey west to the frontier was strenuous work for a woman, from cooking with limited utensils, to caring for the sick, to even carrying wagon baggage across creeks and mountains.  One 1860 Southern lady said, "the trip had been difficult, so difficult that it was still a constant source of wonder to me how we women were able to endure it. And American women well-born and bred are endowed with the courage of her brave pioneer ancestors, no matter what the environment, she can adapt herself to all situations, even to the perilous trip across the western half of this great continent, ever ready to wander over paths which women reared in other countries would fear to follow."

There are several posts in this blog's history about the journey by wagon across the frontier where you can find how women cooked, cared for the children - even gave birth on the way west.  It was not for the period lady raised in gentility and proper etiquette.

Next time some journal entries of women pioneers as they made their way across the west to their new home.

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