Slaves in California

The California gold rush attracted a diverse array of argonauts, including gold seekers, adventurers, Europeans, Asians, Sonorans, northerners, and southerners. Migrants came to secure fortunes, secure inexpensive land, and find a new life in the Far West. Yet there were those who came because they had no choice and were forced to come west because of the color of their skin. In one such case, John R. Evertson brought his female slave, Judah, to California in 1850.

Little is known of either John Evertson or Judah except for a few court records and minor references in the 1850 census. Neither person played a significant role in southern California history. Yet they represented issues of momentous consequence to the nation, symbolically bridging the gap between the remote West and the continental United States. The arrival of Judah and Evertson in southern California has special meaning, reflecting as it did that region's presence in the larger context of the great mid-century upheaval that would split the nation.

As a South Carolina slave owner, Evertson decided to move his family to the West after the Mexican War. He first stopped in Texas, as did many southerners of that era, and then in 1849 came overland to southern California with his wife, three children, and two Negro slaves. As it happened, the members of the Evertson party were the only survivors of a wagon train that was ambushed by Indians in the Texas desert. It was 1850 when Evertson settled in Los Angeles and became the county's first census auditor.

Evertson arrived in Los Angeles during a time of serious sectional tensions over slavery, states' rights, and secession. Within that context, California's admission to the Union as a free state focused the debate between free and slave states. Northern and southern congressional leaders bitterly argued over the merits of expanding slavery into territories newly acquired from Mexico, particularly California, which had drafted a free-state constitution and applied for state-hood. Evertson, like other slave owners, was caught between these polarized camps: his slaves were legally free pending congressional approval of California's admission to the Union, and they were in a legal position much like that of indentured servants—free without rights to citizenship, subject to the arbitrary dictates of their master.

Southern California was at the heart of this debate, for its agricultural economy and temperate climate favorable to cotton production naturally attracted southerners. Among these migrants were some slave owners who thought they had as much right to settle in the West as any U.S. citizens, despite bitter opposition from antislavery forces. In the 1846 Congress, [Page 604]northerners introduced the Wilmot Proviso to block the expansion of slavery into the territories acquired from Mexico. Although unsuccessful, the Wilmot Proviso marked the beginning of a bitter political fight to exclude slavery in the Southwest. Four years later, when California applied for statehood as a free state, the South blocked admission and threatened to secede, setting the political stage for another major confrontation between sectional interests.

John Evertson came to southern California when not only admission to the Union but also the future of slavery in California was still in doubt. One September afternoon in 1850, Evertson returned home to find that his domestic servant, Judah, had not finished her household chores. Furious, he whipped Judah, repeatedly hitting her with a peach tree switch; then he chased the hysterical young girl from the kitchen to the backyard, around a clothesline, and into the front street in full view of neighbors and pedestrians.

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