The Petition is signed by 211 people including two territorial officials and Thomas Dryer, editor of the Portland

From the beginning of governmental organization in Oregon the question of slavery and the rights of free black people were discussed and debated. Slavery existed, although consistently prohibited by law. Exclusion laws designed to prevent black people from coming to Oregon were passed twice during the 1840s, considered several times and finally passed as part of the state constitution in 1857. The takeover of Indian lands prompted hostility between Indians and whites; the "Cockstock Affair" raised fears that without an exclusion law settlers might have two hostile minority groups to deal with.

The people who settled in Oregon tended to come from the frontier areas of the Middle West, particularly the Ohio and Mississippi River valleys. The move West from many included the expectation that they could settle in an area untroubled by racial concerns.... Laws restricting the rights of black people were not an original idea in Oregon, nor were they unknown outside the South. In the first fifty years of the 19th Century Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and Missouri had passed laws restricting the rights of black people. These laws denied them the vote, restricted free access into the territory, restricted testimony in court, required the posting of bonds for good behavior, demanded that black people carry proof of freedom, or excluded them altogether from living in these territories. Exclusion laws similar to those enacted in Oregon were passed in Indiana and Illinois and considered, though never passed, in Ohio. Familiar with laws passed in other frontier areas and desirous of keeping Oregon free from troublesome racial questions, settlers who brought racist attitudes with them across the plains saw legal restrictions as the best solution to the problem.
Source: Elizabeth McLagan, A Peculiar Paradise: A History of Blacks in Oregon, 1788-1940 (Portland, 1980), pp. 23-25.

AFRICAN AMERICANS ON THE CALIFORNIA TRAIL
The following is a brief account of African Americans on the California Trail.
The gold mines of California had a powerful attraction for black men who saw this difficult venture as the chance to buy their freedom more swiftly than they might black home. Unknown numbers of these men were in the hordes that crossed the plains and thronged the routes across Central America. Some left wives and children behind as hostages and departed for the gold fields with the approval of their masters, from whom they hoped to purchase their liberty. Others who were already free hoped to buy freedom for their families. A white Ohio forty-niner noted in his diary, as he was on his way across the plains, "I saw a colored man going to the land of gold prompted by the hope of redeeming his wife and seven children. Success to him. His name is James Taylor." Jessie Benton Fremont recalled that on her first trip to California to meet her husband, John C. Fremont, she met a free black man en route who was hoping to attain the means of purchasing his family's freedom.

By 1852 two thousand black men and women were in the state. California had become a free state, though hardly possessed of rights for black people comparable to those to be found in most New England states by this time. But its lure as a land of opportunity persisted in the face of continuing negative coverage in the East. The hopeful black argonaut could brush aside the reports of prejudice, hardship, and death when he heard stories such as that of the black New York leader, William H. Hall. A forty-niner, Hall returned in 1851 in sufficient affluence to be married in a wedding that was reported as having a "splendor" that was "perhaps without a parallel in the history of coloured society in New York..." Philadelphia Negroes read in an anti-slavery paper that two blacks returned to the East early in 1851 with $30,000 accumulated in four months of gold mining.

The human flood that readied itself in Missouri for the historic crossing of the plains and mountains in 1849 and 1850 was typically American. It was black and white and included both free and slave blacks. The hardships that these gold seekers were to face were to be shared equally. Hunger, heat, drought, and disease were experienced by both races. Attacking Indians on the plains or in the mountains did not discriminate. Members of both races were buried along the trails that led to the gold country... Black men in companies organized in the North were uniformly freeman. A group of New Englanders, mostly from Roxbury, Massachusetts, took with them two men they called "colored servants." An Illinois black named Henry Finley was noted as a member of an Ohio company headed by Major John Love of that state. Similarly, Vardaman Buller, a Kentucky free Negro, was hired to drive a team to California for William Gill, a white Kentuckian. Another Kentucky-born free Negro, John, earned his passage to California from El Paso, Texas, by cooking, barbering, and caring for the pack animals for a military unit headed west... A New York black went as cook with a company of Germans who had organized their venture in that city. If this group was composed of radical refugees from persecution in Germany, as so many were at this time, this Negro cook was in the most congenial of company. One black man had the misfortune of being associated on the overland trek with a domestically troubled white family. He found himself from time to time in the awkward position of being ordered by the husband to beat the wife. When this group arrived in the mines, the wife complained of this treatment to nearby miners, who then whipped the black man...

The plains took their toll of these adventurers. In 1849 the dread cholera from Europe competed with the gold rush for the attention of the American people. In fact, the gold rush facilitated the spread of the disease. Only the few who plunged west ahead of the crowd had a chance of escaping contact with those who were infected. Late-spring starters had reduced chances of immunity. Four of the nine black slaves who came with C.C. Churchill, a Kentuckian died on the plains because of their master's late start. Another tragedy was noted by a diarist simply, "Jones (a black boy) in my mess is very sick..." and a day later, "...Jones died." Still another surviving record stated, "A white woman and a colored one died yesterday of the cholera."

We got across the plains to Fort Laramie, the 16th of June and the ignorant driver broke down a good may oxen on the trains. There were a good many ahead of us, who had doubled up their trains and left tons upon tons of bacon and other provisions...

Starting across the desert to Black Rock at 4 o'clock in the evening, we traveled all night. The next day it was hot and sandy...

A great number of cattle perished before we got to Black Rock... I drove our oxen all the time and I knew about how much an ox could stand. Between nine and ten o'clock a breeze came up and the oxen threw up their heads and seemed to have a new life. At noon we drove into Black Rock...

We crossed the South Pass on the Fourth of July. The ice next morning was as thick as a dinner-plate....

On the morning of the 15th (of October) we went to dry-digging mining. We dug and dug to the first of November, at night it commenced raining, and rained and snowed pretty much all the winter. We had a tent but it barely kept us all dry. There were from eight to twelve in one camp. We cut down pine trees for stakes to make a cabin. It was a whole week before we had a cabin to keep us dry.

In the environment of the gold rush it was inevitable that a mythology emerge about blacks and gold. News of black men making lucky strikes took on an aura of almost superstitious inevitability. The mythology was fed by true tales like that of a white prospector whose slave told him that in a dream he had found gold underneath their cabin. The unbelieving miner finally dug under the cabin and came upon a rich find... When the New England Quaker Pancoast heard that a black man had made a lucky strike at Mariposa Flat, he hurried there to take a claim next to him. He must have become a true believer of the myth because while he did well, making twenty-five dollars a day, the black man made one hundred dollars a day just a few feet away from him...

Black miners, like the whites, from time to time formed associations among themselves for purposes of mutual aid... In that uncertain and overwhelmingly white world blacks had a real need for mutual aid... The manuscript census clearly suggest that groups such as the eighteen blacks on the middle fork of the American River in 1850 were organized into a company... Organized black companies became even more visible when they occasionally associated themselves with whites. Such associations not only served the usual purposes, but for the blacks they sometimes worked as an umbrella of protection against hostile whites... A striking case of black-white collaboration is that of the company organized by the Scotsman, William Downie, the founder of Downieville. His party had nine men, seven of them black, mostly sailors and most, if not all of them, from the States. Downie had been alternating between mining and storekeeping on the Yuba River. His opportunity came when several Negro miners who had been working the river nearby dropped in to Downie's store for a drink. The congenial conversation that ensued resulted in a new partnership that made gold rush history.

When the organization of this group was completed, it was composed of Downie, a white lad named Duvarney, and seven Negroes, of whom only Albert Callis and Charley Wilkins are known by name. Downie surmised that Callis was a runaway slave, originally from Virginia. This was not implausible, as some slaves brought to California had effected their freedom by this time.

The nine men proceeded to the upper reaches of the Yuba River, until they came upon the beautiful site of the river forks where the town of Downieville now stands. There they struck gold and decided to remain. On Sundays, for religious reasons, the blacks would not do any digging. One of them, Callis, became a permanent resident of Downieville. He eventually turned to his trade of barbering, married, and raised a family...
Source: Rudolph M. Lapp, Blacks in Gold Rush California, (New Haven, 1977), pp. 49-58.

A LETTER FROM CALIFORNIA
In 1851, Peter Brown wrote his wife, Mrs. Ally Brown, in St. Genevieve City, Missouri, about his experiences in the California gold fields. Peter Brown may have been a slave, and surely his son was, because his letter spoke of buying his son's freedom. The letter appears below.
Cosumnes River, California

December 1, 1851

I take the present opportunity of writing you a few lines to inform you that I am well and enjoying good health. I am now mining on the Cosumnes River about 25 miles from Sacramento City and doing very well. I have been working for myself the last two months by paying 80 dollars a month and cleared three hundred dollars since I have been in this country and a good prospect for next summer and think I shall start home in the fall. Mr. Brown speaks of coming home this winter but I hardly think he will start.

It is very strange indeed that you never write to me. I have written you letters, and have never yet received the first mark of a pen.

California is the best country in the world to make money. This is the best place for black folks on the globe. All a man has to do, is to work, and he will make money. Best climate in the world and a healthy country to live in. Most of the miners are waiting for rain to wash in the ravines and gulches during this winter. But [we] have had very little so far and [I] hardly think we will until next spring. If we do not have some then, there will be a great many [miners] ruined and compelled to stay until the next winter to come. The miners are doing equally as well as they were last year when I came to this country. Wages are four dollars a day and some diggings more. The company that I came out with are doing well and have been all summer.

Robert Isom and Harrison, his brother, have been working with me, both [are] in good health. Tell Mrs. Eliza Brown that Harrison Isom sends his best compliments.... I wish you to tell Peter to be industrious... I am trying to make enough money to buy him when I get home, and not to let my mother suffer for anything and get what is due me from Mr. Pratt, if you need it. I conclude by sending my best respects to all of my friends, white and black, to Peter in particular, and be sure and write when you receive this letter and send it in care of Mr. Pratt, Sacramento City, California.
Your husband until death,

P. Brown

Having disposed of the slavery question directly, the convention then moved to the critical question regarding the exclusion of "free persons of color" from California.... M.M. McCarver, born in Kentucky and arrived in Sacramento in 1848 urged the exclusion of all free persons of color and "to effectively prevent the owners of slaves from bringing them into this State for the purpose of setting them free". McCarver's logic, and that of many conventioneers, was that slaves freed by their masters solely to become indentured servants in the mines would constitute a threat to order "greater that slavery itself."

The prejudice against free blacks expressed in the constitutional convention carried over into the first legislature and maintained momentum as the debate progressed. The state's first governor, Peter Burnett, openly opposed....free negroes within California's boundaries. The legislature, which gathered in 1850, was divided on the question.... Northern and Southern whites representing the mining districts, feared economic competition with alien or colored races and worked....without success for the exclusion of blacks. The majority was [opposed to] prohibition but promptly began to write statutes which humiliated, restricted, and periled any blacks who chose to enter California.

By 1858 eight California legislatures had built an appallingly extensive body of discriminatory laws including: the prohibition of testimony in civil and criminal actions involving whites; the institution of poll and property taxes; the invalidation of marriages between whites and blacks or mulattoes; exclusion from the state homestead law; exclusion from jury eligibility; and the lapsing of legislation affection free blacks' rights under Fugitive Slave laws. In practical terms this meant that free blacks, and those brought in indenture to California during the late 1840s and early 1850s, lived a lean socio-political existence.

And, whereas, We believe that careful inquiries into our social, moral, religious, intellectual, and financial condition, will demonstrate that, as a class, allowing for the disabilities under which we labor, we compare favorably with any class in the community.

And whereas, We believe that petitions to the Legislature, to convene in January, praying for the abrogation of this law will meet with a favorable response; believing, as we do, that it cannot be sustained on the ground of sound policy or expediency...

Resolved, That we memorialize the Legislature at its approaching session, to repeal the third and fourth paragraphs of section three hundred and ninety-four of an Act passed April 20th, 1851, entitled, "An Act to regulate proceeding in civil cases, in the Courts of Justice of this State," and also for the repeal of sections fourteen of an Act entitled "An Act concerning Crimes and Punishments," passed April 6th, 1850.

Resolved, That a State Executive Committee be appointed by the Convention, with full powers to adopt such measures as may be deemed expedient to accomplish the object in view.

Resolved, That we recommend the organization of a State Association, with auxiliaries in every county, for the purpose of collecting statistical and other evidences of our advancement and prosperity; also to encourage education, and a correct and proper deportment in our relations towards our white fellow citizens and to each other.

Resolved, That we regret and reprobate the apathy and timidity of a portion of our people, in refusing to take part in any public demonstration, having for its object the removal of political and other disabilities, by judicious and conservative action.

Resolved, That we recommend the creation of a contingent fund of twenty thousand dollars, to be controlled by a Committee having discretionary powers, to enable us to carry forward any measure that has for its object the ameliora­tion of our condition.

Our population numbers about 6,000 persons, who own capital to the amount of near $3,000,000. This has been accumulated by our own industry, since we migrated to the shores of the Pacific.

Most of us were born upon your soil; reared up under the influence of your institutions; become familiar with your manners and customs; acquired most of your habits, and adopted your policies. We yield allegiance to no other country save this. With all her faults we love her still.

Our forefathers were among the first who took up arms and fought side by side with yours; poured out their blood freely in the struggle for American independence. They fought, as they had every reason to suppose, the good fight of liberty, until it finally triumphed.

We again call upon you to regard our condition in the State of California. We point with pride to the general character we maintain in your midst, for integrity, industry, and thrift. You have been wont to multiply our vices, and never to see our virtues. You call upon us to pay enormous taxes to support Government, at the same time you deny us the protection you extend to others; the security for life and property. You require us to be good citizens, while seeking to degrade us. You ask why we are not more intelligent? You receive our money to educate your children, and then refuse to admit our children into the common schools. You have enacted a law, excluding our testimony in the Courts of justice of this State, in cases of proceedings wherein white persons are parties; thus openly encouraging and countenancing the vicious and dishonest to take advantage of us; a law which while it does not advantage you, is a great wrong to us. As the same time, you freely admit the evidence of men in your midst, who are ignorant of the first principles of your Government--who know not the alphabet. Many colored men, who have been educated in your first colleges, are not allowed to testify! And wherefore? Our Divine Father has created us with a darker complexion.

People of California! We entreat you to repeal that unjust law. We ask it in the name of humanity, in the enlightened age in which we live, because of the odium it reflects upon you as a free and powerful people; we ask you to remove it from your civil code; we ask it, that our homes and firesides may be protected; we ask it, that our earning as laborers may be secured to us, and none offered impunity, in withholding from us our just hire; that justice may be meted out to all, without respect to complexion; the guilty punished; the innocent protected; the shield of wise, and wholesome and equal laws, extended over all in your great State; upon her mountains, in her valleys and deep ravines; by her winding streams; may your State be a model, even to the elder sister States, in respect of your just laws; may your growth, prosperity and happiness, be bounded only by time and immortality.