California’s African American Slavery: Where Has This Been Hiding?

Slavery of African Americans in California? No, California’s history is one of friars, missions, the Donner Party, miners, the Gold Rush, and the 1906 Earthquake. Correct? Many people believe California to have been a state exempt from the polarizing issue that tore a nation apart in a horrific war between friends and brothers. Despite the best intentions of the population at large to place California in an exempted and angelic position above the controversial issue of slavery there remains the fact that California was in fact a pivotal player in the debate over the institution. As University of Massachusetts professor and noted historical author, Leonard L. Richards, writes in his recently released book The California Gold Rush and the Coming of the Civil War (pictured at left), California’s past held much more then people give it credit for having sat as the corner stone for numerous senatorial debates over the admittance of states as either free or slave in the nation of the United States of America.

In a recent article by New York based freelance writer Claire Lui, appearing in the publication American Heritage Magazine published on Tuesday, February 27 she describes the economic, legal, and political approach of Richards’s book in which he focuses on, as Lui describes as, the “dehumanizing” Senate and House debates that took place on the status of admittance of California and other states in to the union. Continuing her review of Richards’s book Lui draws attention to the fact that he leaves out both the abolitionist and slave views by stating that Richards “captures the reasoning and thinking of prominent white Californians” excluding the “moral issue” of slavery. She states that by reading the book she began to view slavery as an economic, legal, and political issue not as an institution that was repressive and damaging to an entire race of people. She began to see the numbers not the faces that made up the labor system. Richards’s book and Lui’s article triggered intriguing questions as to the nature of slavery and California: when it is addressed and how do individuals address it.

Through a thorough and broad exploration of the sources available on the internet using numerous search engines to investigate the role of slavery in California’s history produce limited successful results. The main focus of much of the search results produced is a similar slant that Richards takes in The California Gold Rush of a governmental debate over an issue that does not address the moral aspects of the debate, but strongly concentrates on political and economic elements of California’s history. It is more concerned with the status of California as a free state upon admittance (as pictured on the right of an 1850 map where California is pictured as a free state in red) than the slavery that was taking place. For example, in an article written by Dr. Rockwell D. Hunt for The Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco entitled How California Came to Be Admitted, Dr. Hunt stays far removed from the moral issue of slavery, but addresses it from the political perspective of history. There exists little to no information of the actual individuals who were a present part of California’s slave history. The source that is available that comes the closest to helping to satisfying the historical need to help to deal with the matter of slavery in California’s history is the website The California Underground Railroad presented by California State University, Sacramento’s Library on which they have several primary sources and images available concentrating on the topic of slavery in California.

The alarmingly low number of resources available on the internet to a digital population on the topic of African American slavery in California’s history speaks to what Claire Lui described in her article as the concept that Richards “has added” to California history which is how many people will view this book. However, California did not suddenly gain a new aspect of its history the slavery of African Americans was always there. A more appropriate description of what Richards has done, with the writing and publication of his book, is that he has brought to the surface a matter that has been overshadowed by the miners (pictured at left is the typical face of California's history) and missions in California’s history. Hopefully with that addition of Richard’s book and the realization that California’s history is not so very different from those states in the heart of the South and the North during the Civil War that there will become a wider array of sources on the topic of African American slavery in California. With the addition of those sources on African American slavery in California there will develop a perspective and a voice of both the slaves and abolitionists who were as much a part of the debates as the economic, legal, and political issues of the day. They were the moral opposition contingent and they need to be acknowledged to have complete history of the topic. The fact remains that yes, there was slavery in California.

History C.E.: The Digitalization of History in the Computer Era

One of the biggest challenges facing history as the world becomes more obsessed with the concept of instant gratification is whether or not it can survive in a world of technologically driven individuals. Many people lack the patience and interest in sifting through documents and dusty volumes of books in a library. The world wants everything at their finger tips just a mouse click away. History has come to the realization that it must embrace the changing world before it also becomes history and lost forever leaving a world without any concept of the events that shaped the world. The topic of digitalized historical resources and the reliability of information found on the internet has been a highly celebrated and disputed issue. For in one aspect history is being preserved for future generation through the efforts of numerous institutions, according to American Historical Association, so that the information they provide will not disappear, but on the other hand that information is competing with sites that have a question reputation for reliability just as Legal History demonstrates. That is why this week in my posts I have decided to explore two other academic blogs to address and understand the academic opinions of individuals in relation to the advancement of history in the technological age. I worry however, that both the digitalization and other internet sources will actually hinder the true meaning of history and how individuals understand it, my concern rests with the reliability of the information. The comments that I made for two blogs are provided below.

Digitalization: Two Comments

Comment 1: Preserving the Past: The Digital Way

The Library of Congress’s continued project to digitalize fragile book collections and United States history volumes gives all the semblance of being an important and revolutionary step in the preservation of historical documents. Despite the fact that the documents will be preserved for as long as the internet and other digital resources exist the originals may be lost forever. Can certain fundamental aspects of the originals be transferred to the digital preservations? To fully understand the importance of primary sources requires full examination of the originals for the texture, weight, coloration, and condition of the paper. Not only is there a question of whether or not the sources are accurately preserved or not there also remains whether or not they will be used as digital sources. For there exists a plethora of historical resources on the internet and many individuals do not spend the time to distinguish between the authentic resources of the Library’s project and other unreliable sources of information such as Wikipedia. I hope that the weight of the name of the Library of Congress can be enough to place reliability behind the project giving people incentive to use them over other internet sources. (Comment is pending moderation on blog post)

Comment 2: Study on Wikipedia accuracy in History

The historical accuracy of internet resources has been a contested topic in academic circles between both instructors and students in the historical field. When presented with a new assignment automatically students turn to the internet as their first source of research. An initial search of most topics typically provides Wikipedia as a top source without having the professional knowledge to know whether or not the information is accurate and the strong academic competition to find that one fact that sets one paper apart from another with a revolutionary idea many students find it difficult to question what they are reading on the screen. Being a student of history I have learned through my experience to question Wikipedia, but I find that many of my contemporaries find it difficult to know what to question and what not to question when using online resources. To know that the site holds a much substance as a Reader’s Digest makes the understanding of its reliability clear. However, there should exist a guide to know what sources to trust and what sources to be skeptical of for students when they are conducting research, for as this post points out in some aspects Wikipedia is more informative then Encarta.