Gold Rush Abolitionists
The California Movement to Emancipation
Mifflin Wistar Gibbs, later to become the first African-American federal judge, was a key figure in the California civil rights movement during the 1850s. He was a convenor of the first Colored Convention in 1855 in Sacramento at what is now St. Andrews African Methodist Episcopal Church, the first black congregation on the Pacific Coast. Delegates to that first convention were:
From El Dorado County -- Edward R. Phelps, William H. Thomas, Joseph Smallwood, John Butler, William Quinn, Peter Blackstone, Charles H. McDougall, John Galley, William J. Hardin, Isaac Morton, 10
From Sacramento County J.H. Sanderson, George W. Booth, John G. Wilson, Emory Waters, Thomas Detter, David Brown, James Nicholas, Clayton Miller, James R. Starkey, David Lewis, 10
From Yuba County Edward P. Duplex, Isaac Triplett, 2
From Sierra County Albert Vaniel 1
From Nevada County Daniel Mahoney, Dennis Carter, George Duvall, 3
From San Joaquin County Jeremiah King 1
From San Francisco County H.M. Collins, J.H. Townsend, Wm. Newby, J.P. Dyer, D.W. Ruggles, F.G. Barbadoes, Henry F. Thompson, D. Gilliard, T.M.D. Ward, D.P. Stokes, Henry Cornish, Edward Johnson, J.J. Moore, M.W. Gibbs, William H. Yates, Jacob Francis, Peter Anderson, William H. Harper 18
From Contra Costa County Fielding Smithen 1
From Santa Clara County W.D. Moses 1
From Tuoluome County Alfred J. White, John H. Morris 2
