Leidesdorff Plaza - Diamond Jubilee rekindles the “Continuum” of California 175

California Parks Foundation shared a belief that around 10,000 Black miners, both free and enslaved, were involved in the California Gold Rush Era.

When we include documented research and oral traditions from the California Underground Railroad Network to Freedom along with earlier California Afro-Latino archives to include Spanish and Mexican Census records we can arrive at a more accurate history of the California Rush Era.

Our year long Diamond Jubilee Season of Leidesdorff Plaza offers a renewed focus to apply world class preservation standards and practices to the vast estate of Hinorable William Alexander Leodesdorff, Jr. (1810-1848)

While serving appointed United States Vice Consul to Alta California, Mexican Republic and elected Treasurer of the City of San Francisco prior to the California Gold Rush, January 1848, Honorable William Alexander Leodesdorff, Jr. journey to become known as as the “African Founding Father of California” this special California 175 - Leidesdorff Plaza.

On land entitled to Leidesdorff, a mile long gravel mining district was named Negro Bar and the early Mining Camp grew into the most prominent settlement established by miners of Pan African Ancestry upon 9 Mexican leagues or 35,521 acres apart of Rancho Rio de Los Americanos.

The "10,000" estimate suggests that both free and enslaved early California Pan African pioneers joined the over 300,000 California pioneers from around the world.

Coloma, Negro Bar, Mormon Island, Prairie City Massachusetts and Negro Hill townsites offer unique opportunities to preserve the initial California Gold Mining District of (1840-1875)

Historic Negro Bar townsite to include Negro Bar Cemetery site recorded burial sites as early as 1846. Other locations included Negro Hill, Little Negro Hill, Negro Bluff and Negro Flat as California entered the Union as a free state, September 1850.

Thousands of enslaved Pan Africans were brought to the gold fields by Southern owners. 15 free state and 15 states where slavery legal provided an interesting mix during the California transition from Mexican rule to US rule upon the land entitled to the African Founding Father of California.”

Challenges and difficulties rapidly increased via the 1852 California Fugitive Slave Act, which allowed for the recapture of enslaved people. Their rights to testify in court were also limited, citizenship now only afforded to “white men” and land claims no longer respected.

The flood of 1852, legal obstacles and the decline of surface gold, many miners of Pan African Ancestry moved on to other areas and by 1860 Census recorded only 15 people of African descent remained in the Granite townsite.

Leodesdorff Plaza - Diamond Jubilee dedicated May 1966 by the Negro Museum and Library Association of Sacramento, Inc. and records from the California Underground Railroad Network to Freedom offers today’s scholars and distant future generations of scholars authentic California Gold Rush Era history utilizing primary source documents.

California 175 - Leidesdorff Plaza offers a special “continuum” of dedication to utilizing unsurpassed world class standards and practices of historical preservation that will be appreciated by distant world cultural tourists reconnecting to an authentic global story, the California Gold Rush.