1849 Negro Bar, California is poised to come alive for the 170th Year Anniversary

In 1849, Negro Bar, California was officially recognized as the first mining camp along today’s American River Parkway. The town Negro Bar, grew into the first regional hub of the first Mining District during the California Gold Rush, today’s City of Folsom.

Well over $2,000,000 dollars of gold were estimated as mined at Negro Bar in the early years from 1848-1854 by Theodore Judah, Surveyor and Civil Engineer, for the first passenger Railroad west of the Mississippi River.

The early Sacramento Valley Railroad survey was published marketing the proposed route from Negro Bar, Sacramento County to the City of Sacramento in 1854.

Earlier In 1845, Negro Bar was the geographic feature at the northeastern part of the Historic Leidesdorff Ranch, a Mexican Land Grant entitled to the “African Founding Father of California” who owned and operated a vast wheat and cattle agribusiness operation on the southwestern part of his 35,500 acre property as to not to disturb the Nisenan/Miwok people, as uniquely stipulated on his land grant title.

Spring of 1848, Honorable William Alexander Leidesdorff, Jr. commissioned and received official reports with samples, of “probable” vast sums of gold on his property along the south bank of the American River, as “poachers” were mining upon his property. Many regional and national newspapers, along with the final Sacramento Valley Railroad survey map, document the exact location of the historic town of Negro Bar, California.

Many “Hidden Figures” are discovered within International Archives, Private Collections, CA State Archives and CA Colleges, Universities and Libraries where we can quantify and qualify the early Afro-Latino presence in Alta California showcasing California Pan African Pioneers during the transition from Mexican rule to U.S. statehood.

Today, we seek a broad based coalition to “rediscover” a very taboo subject and have a challenging conversation given entrenched support that values and/or honors systemic institutional racism best shared in 1849 during the proceedings of the California Constitutional Convention at Colton Hall in Monterey, CA and original legislation created throughout the first California Legislative Session at the Puebla in San Jose, CA.

Throughout 2019, 170 years later, we are poised to review and analyze the data points to educate and advocate California leaders to demonstrate a timely will and determination to discover, research, authenticate, preserve and interpret the fragmented primary source documents of private and official State of California records in a special way to highlight our unique journey toward a greater measure of freedom throughout the 1849 Sacramento region, State, Nation and World.



The discovery of gold in the mill trace at Sutter's lumber mill in January 1848 by the diverse workforce along the South Fork of the American River in Coloma Valley forever changed Alta California during the Mexican/US War. James Marshall, construction foreman at Sutter’s Lumber Mill, reportedly rode through a very heavy rainstorm to report the discovery at Sutter’s Fort.

Johann Sutter, an immigrant from Switzerland, was granted extensive land in Alta California by the Mexican Government Officials to control the fertile region at the confluence near the Sacramento and American River. The discovery of gold was common knowledge to the diverse workers of Native America, Pan African, European and Mormon faith who promised to finish the lumber mill and placer mine in their spare time. Many of those early miners were rewarded for their labor with easy gold mining success and prospered.

Word of the discovery of gold began to spread and subsequent verification of additional gold sites on Rancho Rio De Los Americanos, Leidesdorff Ranch were leaked to the public. The untimely death and burial of the “African Founding Father of California,” on May 18, 1848, was followed the very next day with a very public announcement of gold, gold, gold along the American River triggered the world’s first global news story.

By the summer of 1849, migrants from around the world began to make their way to California's gold fields by ship, wagon, horseback, and on foot. People from the Pan African Diaspora, Mexico, Caribbean, Panama, and New England seamen were among the first immigrants in California to find hard work and wealth along a large mile long gravel bar located on the south bank of the lower American River, in today’s City of Folsom.

Most Pan African placer miners were forced to leave the gold diggings at Negro Bar in 1852, given record levels of a spring flood reported 30ft above normal and the passage of the 1852 California Fugitive Slave Law. Texas Hill and Virginia Mining companies both enslaved organized labor from the South into the California Gold Mining District.

Free pioneers of Pan African ancestry moved to other nearby gold fields such as Negro Hill, Negro Flat, Salmon Falls and Massachusetts Flat where these gold mining towns were very successful, Negro Hill becoming the regional hub, across Shaw Bridge, high above the town Mormon Island.

Today, we prepare to kickoff 2019 California Black History Month, featuring Negro Bar, part of Folsom Lake Recreation Area, within the California State Parks System.

We call upon Governor Newson, California Historians, Business Leaders and California Legislative Leaders to join us to retain the authentic historic name Negro Bar, one of California's first gold mining towns established in 1849, honoring the history and legacy of California Pioneers of Pan African Ancestry in the California Gold Rush.

Together, we are poised to celebrate a special yearlong 170th Anniversary of Negro Bar, Sacramento County, California by utilizing both private and public financial resources to forever preserve and interpret our unique contributions to the forward flow of humanity.