Blacks in Gold Rush California

Binghamton, NY: Yale University Press, 1977. First edition. Very good/Very good -. 321pp. Octavo [21.4cm]. Yellow cloth covered boards with black lettering on the spine. Front head fore-edge corner bumped. Spine slightly rubbed at head and tail. Price clipped dust jacket. Slightly rubbed at extremities and discolored on the back. In the two years after the discovery of gold at Sutter's mill in 1848, one hundred thousand persons made the difficult trek to California in search of quick wealth. One thousand of them were blacks. By 1860 there were five thousand. They formed the largest voluntary migration of American blacks before the Civil War. Yet few whites then or now have been aware of the part that blacks played in America's epic adventure. After years spent in combing through a great variety of disparate source materials, Rudolph M. Lapp has pieced together into a coherent and fascinating narrative this missing chapter of history. Most black Forty-niners went west less to escape a hard lot than to seek their fortune. Some mined alone or together with whites, other formed companies of their own. They included both free blacks and slaves. Lapp examines their life in mining communities and their relationships with other minorities and with whites. He records for the first time in detail the history of the California Colored Convention, examining the ideology and eastern origin of its leadership. The problems of this movement and the exodus of many of its members to Canada is an engrossing tale in its own right. Rudolph M. Lapp is professor of history at the College of San Mateo in California. -- From inside flap.