Prepare for a visit to AAMLO with these special topic resource guides.
This resource guide is intended to help users locate holdings at AAMLO related to Alta California and California's earliest African American residents.
It highlights holdings in the following areas:
● Selected Library Material at AAMLO
● Selected Archival Collections at AAMLO
Other collections may contain relevant materials. Please contact AAMLO (aamlo@oaklandlibrary.org) with any questions or to schedule an appointment to view materials in person.
Selected Library Materials
The Negro Trail Blazers of California by Delilah L. Beasley
Pioneers of Negro origin in California by Sue Bailey Thurman
The Force of a Feather : the Search for a Lost Story of Slavery and Freedom by DeEtta Demaratus
Blacks in Gold Rush California by Rudolph M. Lapp
California's Black Pioneers a Brief Historical Survey by Kenneth G. Goode
Pioneer Urbanites : a Social and Cultural History of Black San Francisco by Douglas Henry Daniels
Blacks in Early Oakland by Donald E. Hausler
Selected Archival Collections
Miriam Matthews Photograph Collection. Includes various photographs related to Afro-Latinos in Alta California and California's early African American communities. Some of the earliest photographs [reproductions] depict Luis Manuel Quintero (1725? – 1810), General Andres Pico (1810-1876), Juan Francisco Reyes (1749–1809), José Isidro (1813-1863), Biddy Mason (1818-1891), and the residences of the Jose Manuel Nieto (1734–1804) family and María Rita Valdez (1791-1828). Other photographs document the role people of African descent played in the founding of early California towns.
African American Museum & Library at Oakland Vertical File Collection. Selected items include:
- the names of "Pioneer Blacks in Alameda County from the federal census of 1860"
- a compilation of articles written by John Fowler and published in the California Eagle and the California News
- research writing on "Black pioneer rangers in California," "Early immigration of Negroes to California," "Isaac Cauldwell['s] story," "Maria Craddock Barnet," "Reminiscences of Angelina Bessie Cannon," "Black pioneers of Santa Cruz County," "The Black pioneers of Yuba County," and others
- photocopies of documents related to the legal case of Mary Ellen Pleasant (1814-1904) vs. the North Beach and Mission Railroad Co.
- biographical sketches of William Alexander Leidesdorff (1810-1848)
- awards of honor to Bertha Allen Wysinger, whose family arrived to Visalia, California in 1849
- an original article "The intellectual life among early Black settlers of Oakland," by Lawrence P. Crouchett
African American Museum & Library at Oakland Photograph Collection. Includes photographs, family portraits, and artist's sketches of prominent African American pioneers who resided in early California. Selected photographs depict members of the Hackett, Sloan, Wysinger, Flood, Hickerson, Sanderson, and Young families, Jennie Virginia Prentiss (1832-1922), Alvin Coffey (1822-1902), and others. Other noted portraits include George R. Cashen, taxi driver and director of the Enterprise Rochdale Company, and George R. Monroe, the first Black stagecoach driver and guide in Yosemite National Park. Also featured are photographs of the James Beckwourth (1798-1866) historical marker and the 1990 dedication of the James Beckwourth cabin museum in Portola, California.
Roberts Family Papers. Pearl Willard Roberts was born on January 17,1892 to Lucy McKinney and Wiley Hinds on their ranch in Tulare County. Wiley Hinds, a former slave who came to Farmersville, CA, purchased his first property in Tulare county in 1858. The Hinds family album includes 63 photographs of the Hinds family.
First African Methodist Episcopal Church (Oakland, Calif.) Collection. The First African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church of Oakland was the first African American church to be founded in the East Bay, and the only one in Oakland for more than three decades. It was the first school for minorities in Oakland, since only white children were allowed to attend public schools at this time. The A.M.E. Church also acted as the cultural center of the African American community, hosting not only the first church and school, but social and political clubs, events, and festivals.
Flood Family Papers. Elizabeth Thorne Scott Flood (1828-1867) emigrated to California during the Gold Rush and settled in Placerville with her husband, Joseph Scott, who worked as a gold miner. After his death, she moved to Sacramento and founded the first public school for African American students in the state. Her second husband, Isaac Flood (1816-1892) had bought his freedom in South Carolina and moved west to California during the Gold Rush where he worked as a laborer and tradesman. Elizabeth Thorn Scott and Isaac Flood married in 1855 and were among the earliest and most prominent African American families to settle Oakland, California.
veteran of John C. Fremont's exploration party in 1844. Portrait of Oscar Thomas Jackson, circa 1870s, African American Museum & Library at Oakland Photograph collection, MS 189, African American Museum & Library at Oakland, Oakland Public Library.
Mayme C. Netherland Collection. Mayme (Mary) C. Netherland (1877-1973) was born to Oscar Thomas Jackson and Mary Ellen Jackson (née Scott) in Oakland, California. Her maternal grandfather, John Wiley Scott (1815-1916), was born enslaved in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. At the age of 23, he escaped and joined a band of Cherokee Indians. During this time, he helped other enslaved persons escape along the Underground Railroad. After two years of freedom, Scott was caught and sold to Lieutenant Hoskins of the U.S. Army. Scott served alongside Hoskins in the Mexican-American War and was a member of John C. Fremont’s 1844 expedition to California. At the end of the expedition, Scott escaped again and found a rich gold mine in Calaveras County.
Gibson Family Papers. Lucinda Ray Gibson was a descendent of Nelson Ray (1820-1882), who obtained his freedom from enslavement in 1864 and came out to California to mine for gold. Through his profits, Ray acquired enough money to pay for his wife and children's freedom and settled in Placerville, where he worked as a carpenter and blacksmith.
Hackett Family Papers. The Hackett family immigrated to San Francisco in 1885, when James Alexander Hackett along with his wife, Alice, and daughter, Sadie, came to San Francisco in search of employment at the advice of his first cousin, Charles Calvin Petty, a pastor at Starr King Zion Church in San Francisco, California. Two brothers of James Alexander, Sylvester R. and Charles C. Hackett, would both also move to California
De Shields Family Papers. Benjamin De Shields was born in Camden, New Jersey on July 2, 1834. He married Anna M. H. Williams of Boston on September 1, 1862, and his occupation is listed as gilder on his marriage certificate. All that is evident of his early life from the collection is that he stayed in Boston, Massachusetts after his marriage, where his son Ivan was born. In 1872, a business letter is addressed to him in Fredericksburg, Virginia. However, that same year, a land survey was made in California (presumably for Benjamin), and by 1895 he had bought land in Oakland and Fruitvale.
Additional Information
Search the library using the catalog.
Consult AAMLO's finding aids in the Online Archive of California.
We are working to create new resource guides. Have an idea for a new guide? Contact us at aamlo@oaklandlibrary.org.
