The Negro trail blazers of California [microform] : a ... - Homestead

OF CALIFORNIA 41
The true reason they did not wish either slave or free Negroes in California was
because the question of slavery was then prominent before the public against the extension
of the slave territory, and it was necessary to have a definite clause in their constitution
deciding the issue before going before Congress to ask for Statehood for the Terri-
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tory of California. If the question was not decided in California the probability of
Congress debating the issue or else ignoring their request, would have delayed the
admission of the Territory into the Union. The settlers were anxious to secure a speedy
admission and prevent the slaveholders from becoming rich in California's gold through
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the importation of, as one speaker said, these "living labor machines." They were just
like the citizen of today living in California, when they see some of the best vineyards
in the State cultivated by a foreign race of people, they legislate to prevent the immigration
of any more of their kind into the State. The question was the same and created the
same kind of an issue.
To prove the writer's statement that no one paid any attention to the Negro miner in
California until after the Constitutional Convention, the following is quoted from Charles
Shinn who, in his book on "Mining Camps," presents in an impartial way a study in
American frontier government. He is considered an authority on the subject as there
were a number of Negro miners at the time working at Placerville, Grass Valley, Negro f
Bar and Mokelumn Hill, his statements can be safely considered as including the Negro,
as well as others of whom he speaks. Mr. Shinn says that ' ' The vast body of gold seekers
known afterwards as the Argonauts, did not reach the Pacific Coast until early in Fortynine
(1849). The organization of the smaller mining communities of 1848 must be considered
before we can discuss the more complex element of later camps. When, early
in 1849, mining began at Coloma, near Sutter's Mill, Captain Sutter himself had alcalde
powers over the region. That autumn Mr. Belt was elected Alcalde at Stockton. The
nearly two thousand Americans who were in the mines before the end of June, and most
of them knew what an alcalde was, knew that he had no legal right to elect an officer and
knew, also, that Col. Mason, the de facto Governor, was the only other authority. But
there was no general acceptance of Sutter as Alcalde. Some of the very first miners
attempted to own, hold, control and rent to others a large and valuable mineral bearing
tract. After paying rent for a short time the newcomers, who were in the majority, began
to equalize matters and adopt laws respecting the size of claims.
Nothing in the early history of these camps is more evident than the unpremeditated
and unsystematic nature of their first proceedings; officers were never elected until they
were needed to give an immediate decision and, as we have said, local customs in rgeard
to the amount of ground a man could mine took form before officers were formally chosen.
Everyone knew that most of the land on which they worked was government land, and the
use of it belonged to all alike until such time as the government made other regulations.
Equality of ownership was the only logical conclusion. Here the laws of the camps had
their beginning. Long before the first California gold had reached New York, claims of
a definite size were being measured out in the mining camps for each gold seeker. The
ownership of land was the beginning of organization. Its ownership in equal parts is
significant of the form of society that prevailed, for an unconscious socialism it certainly
was. The miners put all men for once on a level. Clothes, money, manners, family connections,
letters of introduction, never before counted for so little. The whole community
was substantially given an even start in the race. Gold was for a time so inexhaustible
that the power of wealth was momentarily annihilated. Social and financial inequality
between man and man were swept out of sight. Each stranger was welcome, told to take
a pan and pick and go to work for himself. The richest miner in the camp was seldom
able to hire a servant; those who had formerly been glad to serve others were digging on
their own claims. The veriest greenhorn was likely to uncover the richest mine on the
gulch as was the wisest ex-professor of geology, and on the other hand the best claim on
the river might suddenly "give out" and never again yield a dollar, the poorest man in
camp could have a handful of gold dust for the asking from a more successful neighbor. >
The early camps of California did more than to merely destroy all fictitious standards;
they began at once to create new bonds of human fellowships." Mr. Shinn 's estimate
can be relied upon because he was on the ground and studied conditions at first hand.
There were not a great number of Negroes at that period in the State, and yet there
were enough to have caused a difference had there been any desire on the part of the
mining camps to have a difference, if we are to believe that the census was correctly
reported. Goodwin, in his "Establishment of Government in California," gives the following
in regard to the Negro population of California at that period, in which he says:
"The seventh Census, 1850; total population in the State, 92,597; white inhabitants,