Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility
Some Black Families in California Gold Rush Town Fight for Ancestors’ Land
gvw_ap_news
By Associated Press
Published 6 months ago on
July 22, 2024

Black families in Coloma, California, are seeking restitution for land taken from their ancestors to create a state park. (AP/Damian Dovarganes)

Share

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

COLOMA — In a tiny town where the California gold rush began, Black families are seeking restitution for land that was taken from their ancestors to make way for a state park now frequented by fourth graders learning about the state’s history.

Their efforts in Coloma, a town of around 300 people that’s located about 36 miles (58 kilometers) northeast of Sacramento, are one of the latest examples of Black Americans urging the government to atone for practices that have kept them from thriving long after chattel slavery was abolished.

Debates over reparations for African Americans often come back to land. That was at the center of a promise originally made — and later broken — by the U.S. government to formerly enslaved Black people in the mid-1800s: Give them up to 40 acres (16 hectares) of land as restitution for their time enslaved. For some, the promise of reparations has been nothing more than Fool’s gold, epitomized by a bill in Congress that’s stalled since it was first introduced in the 1980s, even though it’s aimed at studying reparations and named after the original promise.

The fight in Coloma is taking place in a state where the governor signed a first-in-the-nation law to study reparations. But advocates are pushing for the state to go further.

Black and White Families Had Land Taken by Government

Gold was found near Coloma in 1848 by James W. Marshall, a white carpenter, setting off the California gold rush that saw hundreds of thousands of people from across the nation and outside of the U.S. come — or be brought — to the state. Those who migrated included white, Asian, and free and enslaved Black people.

Decades later, Black and white families had their land taken by the government in the town before it was turned into the Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park, which opened in 1942. The park today is home to a museum, churches and cemeteries where residents were buried. A nearly 42-foot (13-meter) monument of Marshall stands on its grounds.

But the history of Black families who settled in Coloma only recently started getting increased recognition. California State Parks launched an initiative in 2020 to reexamine its past and to tell “a more thorough, inclusive, and complete history” of California, department spokesperson Adeline Yee said in an email to The Associated Press. The department created a webpage with information about properties owned by Black families at the park in Coloma.

Families Seek Restitution for Taken Land

Elmer Fonza, a retiree who worked at a brewery in California before eventually relocating to Nevada, said he is the third-great grandson of Nelson Bell, a formerly enslaved Black man from Virginia who became a property owner in Coloma.

After Bell’s death in 1869, a judge determined he had no heirs in the state, and his estate was sold at an auction, according to a probate document shared by the El Dorado County Historical Museum.

It is unclear what happened to Bell’s property in the years that followed, Fonza said, adding that the land should be returned to his family.

“We rightfully believe that we have been denied the generational wealth that our family may have been entitled to if given our rightful inheritance — the land once owned by Nelson Bell,” he said at the final meeting of a first-in-the-nation state reparations task force.

Nancy Gooch, a Black woman, was brought to Coloma from the South in 1849 by a white man who enslaved her and her husband. Gooch was soon freed when California became a state and worked as a cook and cleaned laundry for miners. She later brought her son, Andrew Monroe, from Missouri to join them in the town. The Monroe-Gooch family would become one of the most prosperous Black landowners in California.

“We have to bring forth the truth, because that’s reconciliation,” said Jonathan Burgess, a Sacramento resident who co-owns a barbecue catering business, and who also is claiming land in Coloma was that of his descendants. “And then once we bring forth the truth, which I’ve been doing in speaking the whole time, we’ve got to make it right.”

Making it right would mean compensating families for land that can’t be returned or returning property where possible, Burgess said in an interview at the park. He said he is descended from Rufus Morgan Burgess, a Black writer who was brought to Coloma with his father, who was enslaved.

Jonathan Burgess also said his family is descended from Bell, but the Fonza and Burgess families say they are not related to each other. The discrepancy highlights the difficult work that could be ahead for Black residents if California ever passes reparations legislation requiring families to document their lineage.

Cheryl Austin, a retiree living in Sacramento, said she is an heir of John A. Wilson and Phoebe Wilson, a free, married Black couple who came to Coloma during the late 1850s. After John and Phoebe Wilson died, their property was sold through probate, Austin said. The state must somehow repair harm done to families whose property was seized, she said.

California Lawmakers Weigh Reparations Proposals

The restitution fight in California comes as lawmakers are weighing reparations proposals in the state Legislature. That includes a bill to create the California American Freedmen Affairs Agency, which would help Black residents research their family lineage. Another proposal would make any families whose land was seized unjustly by the government due to racially discriminatory motives entitled to the return of the property or compensation.

The legislation, which is expected to be voted on this summer, reflects a growing push for restitution by Black families targeting the misuse of a practice known as eminent domain, where the government must pay people fairly for property it plans to make available for public use. The issue garnered attention across the state when local officials in Los Angeles County returned a beachfront property in 2022 to a Black couple, nearly a century after it was taken by the government from their ancestors.

Earlier this month, California marked a milestone when Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom included $12 million in the state’s 2024 budget to spend on reparations legislation. But the budget does not specify what the money would be used for, and estimates from the state say the bills could cost millions of dollars annually.

State Sen. Steven Bradford, a Los Angeles-area Democrat who authored the proposals, said they will help the state atone for taken land, adding that land ownership is critical to building general wealth.

“Reparations was never about a check,” Bradford said. “It was about land.”

 

 

RELATED TOPICS:

DON'T MISS

Fresno Parents Pack Post Office Seeking Passports for Kids After Trump’s Election

DON'T MISS

Mexican Border States Prepare Migrant Shelters as Trump Begins Deportation Campaign

DON'T MISS

Capitol Rioter Ben Martin Savors Last Moments of Freedom Before Going to Prison

DON'T MISS

Fresno Police Arrest Son in Murder of His 62-Year-Old Mother

DON'T MISS

Iraq OKs Marriage for 9-Year-Old Girls, Inciting Outrage

DON'T MISS

Preschools Lose Students as Transitional Kindergarten Expands in California

DON'T MISS

Aaron Glenn Tasked With Ending Jets’ Long Playoff Drought

DON'T MISS

Evacuations Ordered as Fast-Moving California Wildfire Threatens Homes, Closes Grapevine

DON'T MISS

Fresno County Traffic Stop Turns Into $640K Cocaine Bust

DON'T MISS

Fresno MLK March Keynote Speaker: ‘We’re Still in This Fight and Struggle’

UP NEXT

Mexican Border States Prepare Migrant Shelters as Trump Begins Deportation Campaign

UP NEXT

Fresno Police Arrest Son in Murder of His 62-Year-Old Mother

UP NEXT

Iraq OKs Marriage for 9-Year-Old Girls, Inciting Outrage

UP NEXT

Preschools Lose Students as Transitional Kindergarten Expands in California

UP NEXT

Aaron Glenn Tasked With Ending Jets’ Long Playoff Drought

UP NEXT

Evacuations Ordered as Fast-Moving California Wildfire Threatens Homes, Closes Grapevine

UP NEXT

Fresno County Traffic Stop Turns Into $640K Cocaine Bust

UP NEXT

Fresno MLK March Keynote Speaker: ‘We’re Still in This Fight and Struggle’

UP NEXT

Wired Wednesday: Local Man in Jan. 6 Capitol Riot Heads to Prison Today

UP NEXT

Stock Market Today: Netflix and AI Excitement Have Wall Street Near All-Time High

Fresno Police Arrest Son in Murder of His 62-Year-Old Mother

8 hours ago

Iraq OKs Marriage for 9-Year-Old Girls, Inciting Outrage

8 hours ago

Preschools Lose Students as Transitional Kindergarten Expands in California

9 hours ago

Aaron Glenn Tasked With Ending Jets’ Long Playoff Drought

10 hours ago

Evacuations Ordered as Fast-Moving California Wildfire Threatens Homes, Closes Grapevine

10 hours ago

Fresno County Traffic Stop Turns Into $640K Cocaine Bust

11 hours ago

Fresno MLK March Keynote Speaker: ‘We’re Still in This Fight and Struggle’

11 hours ago

Wired Wednesday: Local Man in Jan. 6 Capitol Riot Heads to Prison Today

11 hours ago

Stock Market Today: Netflix and AI Excitement Have Wall Street Near All-Time High

11 hours ago

Progresso Sells Out of New Chicken-Soup Flavored Cough Drops in Less Than an Hour

11 hours ago

Fresno Parents Pack Post Office Seeking Passports for Kids After Trump’s Election

January and February are typically high-demand periods for passports with many people looking forward to Spring Break, said Fresno County Cl...

7 hours ago

7 hours ago

Fresno Parents Pack Post Office Seeking Passports for Kids After Trump’s Election

Workers begin the installation of a temporary shelter for possible deportees from the United States, in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP/Christian Chavez)
7 hours ago

Mexican Border States Prepare Migrant Shelters as Trump Begins Deportation Campaign

7 hours ago

Capitol Rioter Ben Martin Savors Last Moments of Freedom Before Going to Prison

Fresno police are investigating the death of 62-year-old Shirla Ramirez that happened Monday, Jan. 20, 2025, with her son, Brad Ramirez, 35, arrested as the suspect in her homicide. (Fresno PD)
8 hours ago

Fresno Police Arrest Son in Murder of His 62-Year-Old Mother

Iraq’s parliament passed a law allowing child marriage for girls as young as nine, prompting widespread condemnation from activists and lawmakers. (Shutterstock)
8 hours ago

Iraq OKs Marriage for 9-Year-Old Girls, Inciting Outrage

9 hours ago

Preschools Lose Students as Transitional Kindergarten Expands in California

Jets Hire Aaron Glenn as New Coach
10 hours ago

Aaron Glenn Tasked With Ending Jets’ Long Playoff Drought

The Hughes Fire, that started on Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025, has already grown to over 3,400 acres with evacuations already in effect. (CalFire)
10 hours ago

Evacuations Ordered as Fast-Moving California Wildfire Threatens Homes, Closes Grapevine

Help continue the work that gets you the news that matters most.

Search

Send this to a friend