National Black Land Loss ~ From Sea to Shining Sea

north carolina | economic and social justice | news report Tuesday February 05, 2008 01:21 by Khubaka, Michael Harris - Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association

North Carolina and California historical legacy

North Carolina continues to play a leading role in the battle against U.S. Black Land Loss. The 10th National Black Land Loss Summit will feature an ongoing shared connection to the Golden State of California. We have far more in common that a Gold Rush and Chattel Slavery. From sea to shining sea, from Silicon Valley to the Triangle we can form a more perfect union, 2008 Black History Month.

Original California Tar Heels

Stolen Legacy: U.S. Black History North Carolina and California

One of the saddest aspects of the enslavement of human beings in the United States of America is the fact that many African Mexicans who led the long fight difficult battle to end Spanish rule in 1821, lost their freedom after helping to establish U.S. military rule in 1846 and California U.S. statehood in 1850.

The systemic taking of Black owned land in North America was part of the ‘manifest destiny’ authored by U.S. President Polk, a proud North Carolina slave owner. He and Thomas Larkin, a former resident of Wilmington, North Carolina arrived as U.S. Consul, Mexican California to forever change the south west landscape of our current United States of America. He completed his assignment with the ratification of the 1848 Peace Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the text of the 1850 California Constitution.

The first official U.S. State Department representative of African Jewish ancestry, Honorable William Alexander Leidesdorff, Jr. died in 1848 under mysterious circumstances and he is buried inside the Mission Delores San Francisco. The Leidesdorff extended family was unable to retain the vast wealth of his estate because of systemic institutional racism through carefully crafted new policy and procedures of the leading politicians of the day.

Breckenridge Democrats supported expansion of chattel slavery into the Golden State and would not allow a Black woman to own the largest and wealthiest estates in the State of California. Many governmental officials became very wealthy by sharing the spoils from the Stolen Legacy: Black Land Loss in the Land of Queen Califia.

Just two years after the untimely death of Leidesdorff, the first California Governor proposed to export every person of African ancestry out of the State in his inaugural address. Peter Burnett barely lost that vote, however he later as California Supreme Court Justice helped enact laws that completely disenfranchised residents based upon race, ethnicity and religion, many whom were no longer able to vote, testify in court, homestead land or send children to school.

U.S. Chief Supreme Court Justice Taney, in his 1857 Dred Scott decision, effectively made chattel slavery a nationwide law of the land, leading our nation toward Civil War and at great human sacrifice subsequent changes to our U.S. Constitution expands our path ‘toward a more perfect union’, we remain unable to learn from the past to embrace a future of higher ideals for all Americans.

Today, most U.S. citizens remain unaware of the “Golden Legacy of William Alexander Leidesdorff, Jr.” and the significant contributions by people of African ancestry to the American River Parkway (1840 – 1865) to the delight of many vocal residents.

Our once leading California public education system was first established by Honorable William Alexander Leidesdorff, Jr.; he served as President of the first public school board and opened the first public school in San Francisco, California. Yet today, several public officials use the poor excuse of an inability to try and pronounce a Danish Jewish surname to exclude unique historical contributions in favor of political nepotism.

Free Black landowners were good stewards of over one million square miles of land in the Carolinas, Alta Mexican California, the vast Louisiana territory, and Florida territory. In these areas of our modern United States of America, there were many Black nations that lived for centuries in harmony and often together with Indian Country.

In the rotunda of the California State Capitol, Christopher Columbus is on bended knee handing the world to Queen Isabella of Spain. Beginning in the 16th century legal enslavement of Africans and genocide destruction of aboriginal populations through a Papal Edict gave the Christian nations of Europe the go-ahead to make slaves of all “non-Europeans” in a partitioned western hemisphere.

The facts cannot be denied, however truth and justice is an ongoing battle as the notion of white supremacy at former C.M. Goethe Park where U.S. Highway was named after William Alexander Leidesdorff, Jr.

U.S. government recently returned about 68,000 square acres of land to the Washitaw Nation of Louisiana, one of the prehistoric Black nations prior to U.S. acquisition. This historic Black contribution is evidence by sustainable land stewardship of Black civilizations before English, Danish, Dutch, Spanish and French colonization of North America. Many Black U.S. citizens’ livings today are descendent from the pre-Columbian Black nations as modern DNA easily proves.

Now is the time for inclusion of this timely issue during our 10th National Black Land Loss Summit, Tillery, NC where the daughters and sons of the few remaining Black landowners will gather to stem the tide of social, economic and environmental justice.

The French, Russian, Danish, English and Spanish retain primary source documentation of early contact with descendants of pre-Columbus African sea farers who settled in the western hemisphere thousands of years Before Christ. They were boat builders, builders of earthen pyramid mounds, seafarers and practiced traditional agriculture.

Along the American River Parkway in Sacramento County, California hundreds of earthen pyramid mounds were ‘discovered’ along the southern and northern banks of the American River documenting early contact by fur trappers of Spanish, Mexican, English, Russian and American influence, thus the final name.

The 1844 Mexican land grant of Rancho Rio De Los Americanos, specifically spoke of not disturbing the remaining aboriginal settlements up stream from the Leidesdorff Adobe Ranch Complex. He established cattle and wheat 35,000 acre agribusiness operation that was a central catalyst to stabilize the Sacramento Valley, feeding, clothing and housing many California pioneers.

Sacramento County, California has rescinded the naming of C.M. Goethe Park; our proposal would change the current tone of an ongoing discussion from how much assessment or additional taxes current residents along the American River Parkway must pay, toward a conversation of how to showcase and utilize the ongoing significant contributions of a prestigious African-Cuban, Danish Jewish family legacy of excellence and means by embracing the original name.

Together, we can highlight a deserving National Historical Landmark as a major asset forever preserving our “crown jewel” for future generations. In 2008, we finally may be able to highlight actual historical preservation and environmental standards that showcases our world class cultural tourist destination, historic Leidesdorff Ranch; it remains a long and difficult journey toward freedom for African Jewish contributions along the entire American River Basin.

The North Carolina ~ California connection is sweet and thick like a ripe muscadine in a Roanoke River harvest sun, a mirror image of the American River Parkway, California.