There were issues specific to Californians. The 4,815 “Negroes” reported by Jonas H. Townsend to the Convention who lived in the state had assets of more than $2.4 million thanks to mining claims throughout gold country such as these counties.
El Dorado 1,000 350,000
Nevada 400 250,000
Calaveras 250 100,000
Yuba 500 200,000
The most populous and wealthiest county was San Francisco
San Francisco 1,500 750,000
The wealthiest blacks in the state were “passing” or not acknowledging their race because of laws banning the right of testimony, and the right to vote passed in 1851. These laws made it difficult for blacks to protect their persons and their property.
William Alexander Leidesdorff, the first African-American diplomat as sub-consul to Alta California under Mexican rule, actually issued the proclamation declaring California part of the United States and took out loans to fund provisions for U.S. troops during the Mexican War. His Mexican land grant encompassed the current city of Folsom and he owned 41 lots in downtown San Francisco before dying suddenly in 1848. Yet under those new laws, his mother, a black woman from the Virgin Islands, was unable to inherit his $1.4 million estate in 1854. A State Senate select committee investigated the Leidesdorff estate issue in 1856. Leidesdorff was also chairman of the school board that built the first public school in California at Portsmouth Square.
William Alexander Leidesdorff
