National Park After Dark - Two Thousand Miles to Freedom: California National Historic Trail

Episode Date: February 5, 2024

Bridget Biddy Mason was forced to walk from Mississippi to California when her enslaver followed Mormon leader Brigham Young to the west. While others rode in wagons or on horseback, she walked the entire way while caring for her newborn baby. Her story is one of survival, courage, and strength that results in her becoming one of the most successful and wealthiest black women of her time.For the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials:Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdarkSupport the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page!Thank you to this week’s partners!BetterHelp: National Park After Dark is sponsored by BetterHelp. Get 10% off.Microdose Gummies: Use code NPAD to get free shipping and 30% off your first order.IQBAR: Text PARK to 64000 to get 20% off all IQBAR products and free shipping.Alo Moves: Use code NPAD to get a free 30-day subscription.For a full list of our sources, visit http://npadpodcast.com/episodes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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In the mid-19th century, settlers who came to the east of the United States had dreams of gold and vast fertile landscapes for farming. With the hopes and promise of a new world, over 250,000 people made the arduous. journey over 2,000 miles through some of the harshest landscapes the United States has to offer. What has gone down in history as one of the largest migrations of people has been romanticized as an adventure with pioneers and cowboys in the West. But the conditions of these tracks were grueling. They were unsanitary, filled with disease, death, and sometimes starvation. This was also a time

filled with battles and wars. While pioneers made a way for a new world, they massacred and destroyed the indigenous life that thrive their first. While this journey is mostly spoken of as a trek people made on their own accord, that wasn't the case for everyone. Many people were forced to walk thousands of miles across the country, and Biddy Mason was one of those people. Welcome to National Park After Dark. This is so fitting that you're doing this episode right now. I don't actually know what it's about. So maybe not. How's it fitting then? Because I just finished 1883, the series. Oh, for the prequel of Yellowstone. Yeah. And I just started 1923 last night. And I know I'm so behind. Like, the show is years old. I get that. But I just finished

it a couple days ago. And it's all about trekking across the United States. And it was more of like the Oregon Trail Center. Because I know you haven't seen it. But. But, um. But. But. Yeah, it was really, really good. That's what I've heard. I've heard that. Did you, you finished it? I finished it. And I haven't, I've seen the first episode of Yellowstone, and that's all.

So it's not required to watch Yellowstone first. Yeah. Wait, so is this about the Oregon Trail or no? No. No. Okay, so, all right, never mind. There is a track across the country, though. And the Oregon Trail is part of the trail that we're going to be discussing today.

and we're actually going to be talking about the California National Historic Trail. Okay. Well, I know the Oregon Trail is managed by the Park Service, so maybe there's something in the future. And so is this trail and they're interconnected. Okay. So we're kind of there. So the episode that we're going to be doing today is actually I decided to do this particular one today because this week marks the beginning of Black History Month. So I wanted to tell the story of Bridget Biddy Mason.

And I wanted to highlight that for Black History Month, there's a lot of different national historic sites. There's parks, there's museums that are in existence, of course, year round. And we encourage you to visit. But February is the month of the year that Black History is really thought that we should bring a spotlight to. We've designated this month to really highlight that. So I wanted to highlight that in our story today.

And there are organizations that join in paying tribute to the generations of the African Americans who struggled with adversity to achieve full citizenship in American society. And I wanted to list a couple of those. So there's the Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities National Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian Institution, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. And of course, who and why we're talking about it today is the National Park Service very much commemorates the history of African American. and in fact there are over 400 national park sites and programs that pay tribute to their heritage.

So while doing research for my episode today, I found a very interesting article within the National Park Service that I wanted to list especially because this is Black History Month. And the article is titled 28 Days of Black History and it goes through 28 days of information in ways that you can educate yourself and acknowledge the adversities that. African Americans and black people have faced throughout history. Each day is listed differently and it's a national park site and a story associated with it. So it has a lot of different sites and things that have happened. It has everything from the Buffalo soldiers to the freedom riders to women's suffrage. And there's a lot more. And one of the people included in this is Biddy Mason,

who I wanted to talk about because she is a very inspiring woman for a lot of reasons. and she's really interesting. She also made this insane track across the United States. And I'm going to get into why the fact that she did it is just the strongest person I've ever heard of in my life, honestly. So we'll talk about her a lot. And she was born Bridget Biddy Mason. She was born where we think she was born with the name Bridgett.

But later in life, she became nicknamed Biddy. And that's what I'm going to refer to her throughout this. episode. She walked near 2,000 miles across the country. She fought for her freedom. And eventually, she became not only the most successful black woman in California, but also one of the most successful people, period. Between men and women, any race, she became one of the most successful. She eventually became a businesswoman and eventually a millionaire after she escaped slavery. So I thought that she was just the perfect person to speak about one for Black History Month, but also just because I love a great, strong, badass woman's story.

And I thought, this is, this is it. Perfect. And it's great because I've never, I've never heard her story or even her name. Yeah. And not to take away from the African American women that we have learned about over and over growing up. You know, there are certain women that their names. Hersa Parks, Harriet Tubman. Yeah, come to mind like right away.

But it's so interesting to hear the less discussed. So I'm ready. I love that you said. because that's part of why I chose her. Because when I was looking for someone to research and I found her, I was like, wait a second, who is this? And I think why she's so unknown. And she's not unknown.

There's books about her, but why she's less talked about is because for years, for a century, people forgot about her and forgot her history. So we'll go into that later in the story as well. But before we go into her specific story, I did want to talk about the National Park site. I say site, but it's a trail that will be visiting today because we're going to be visiting the California National Historic Trail. And this trail is managed by the National Park Service, and despite its name, it takes us far beyond the boundaries of California. The trail covers over 5,000 miles or 8,000 kilometers through 10 states and is the location of what has been called

the greatest mass migration in American history. On this trail, during the 18,000, 40s and the 1850s, over 250,000 immigrants used this trail to find the goldfields and rich farmlands in California. And Biddy Mason was forced to be one of those pioneers to travel through it. This trail extends through Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, Oregon, all the way to central California. It preserves history that happened along this trail that includes parts of the Oregon National Historic Trail and the Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail. And the Mormon Pioneer National historic trail. This trail is home to all different types of landscapes and includes national park sites such as the Fossil Butte's National Monument in Wyoming. DePanagos Cave National

Monument in Utah. Lassen Volcanic. It's a national monument. Lassen Volcanic National Park and it also has countless national forests and it also includes major cities including Kansas City, Salt Lake City, Reno all the way to Sacramento. When Biddy made her trip across the California National Historic Trail. She started in Mississippi before she eventually landed in California. But to tell her full story, I want to begin long before her journey started across the country. This episode is brought to you by Prime. Obsession is in session.

And this summer, Prime Originals have everything you want. Steamy romances, irresistible love stories, and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice. Off campus, Elle, every year after, the love hypothesis, Sterling Point, and more. Slow burns, second chances, chemistry you can feel through the screen. Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime. Biddy was born in the deep south of Hancock, Mississippi on August 15, 1818.

This time was during a major growth in the south of slavery. Mississippi and particularly would later have some of the largest cotton plantations in the country and would produce more than any other state all under slave labor, which also made them one of the highest populations of enslaved people in the state. The population within Mississippi grew exponentially from 1800 to 1860, going from 5,179 white people to 345,000 of them by 1860. With that amount of white people, the amount of enslaved African Americans also grew, It went from 3,500 to 436,631 people.

When Biddy was born in 1818, she was born to an enslaved mother who named her Bridget. Common at this time, though, because she was considered a slave, she had no last name. Eventually, like I said before, she would be nicknamed Biddy and she would eventually get a last name as well. Because Biddy's mother was enslaved, as it was a practice back then, Biddy was born. born enslaved as well. So straight from birth, she was considered property. And also a common practice during this time, and it was partially one to dehumanize and isolate black women, was that their white enslavers would actually sell their babies to other families. Or I say families, but farmers, to be enslaved with them. They would often separate African American families,

separating husbands and wives and their children. And this was all in attempts to isolate them, to make them have nowhere to go, to have them have no resources or support. And this was all in conjunction with that they wanted to keep these people who they thought to be ignorant. They didn't want them to have any support systems. They also refused to teach them how to read or to write. Well, they didn't want them yet to have any sort of power. And they needed them to be so reliant on them as the enslaver.

It's a power move for sure. Yeah. Yeah. And that's exactly it, is that they wanted them to have no other options and no reason to flee. And they thought that this would keep them from revolting against them. This was their only option. They housed them. They fed them.

They had no way of getting education. That was the only way to survive in the world. There was just, it was totally a play to keep them there for life. Because of this, Biddy as an infant was taken from her mother and sold to slaveholders in Georgia. Biddy would never remember or know who her mother was for the rest of her life. Records detailing her life as a child are pretty unclear, but it's possible that she was sold to multiple families as an infant and as a child. For most of her time as a child, however, she spent it working on a plantation for a man named John Smithson, where she was shipped to Mississippi.

So she went from Georgia, now she somehow landed in Mississippi. And as a kid, she was taken care of by older women who were also enslaved on the plantation. But that was only until she was six years old, because at six years old, she was forced to start working. Now, in this time, girls were taught different skills. They were mostly taught to be servants within the house. They were taught to sew. They were taught how to shoe a horse, sheer wool from sheep, and along with plantation work as well. Occasionally, others were taught other skills that were considered to be special. And Biddy as a child and growing up, she was very well-behaved and she was considered to cause no issues to her enslavers. So as she grew up, they offered her the opportunity to teach her special skill. And that was they

taught her how to be a midwife. So starting off as a child, she would actually sit in with other midwives and observe how they helped deliver and birth babies. And they were teaching her everything that they knew. And by the time she was in her early teens, she was actually able to help deliver the babies by herself. She wasn't just taught how to be a midwife. A lot of these older women were also teaching her nursing skills. So with this, she was taught all different types of herbal medicines, and she was taught how to forage from the wild meadows and forests that were around the plantations. So she learned how to grow and create herbal medicines that were invaluable at this time. There's no pharmacies.

Medicine is very, very low. Scarce at this point. But she learned a lot. She would make soothing teas. She made cough syrup, sobs, lotions. And she even was taught to make wraps to treat injuries and illnesses. With all of this, though, she was still never taught how to read or how to write. Each recipe and instruction that she was taught to make these herbal medicines were completely from memory, from the person who taught her down to.

her. It was just from word of mouth for hundreds of years. As Biddy grew up, she heard stories of free states in the north where she would not have to live as an enslaved person. She even heard stories of people escaping to freedom, but more so she saw the punishments for people who tried to escape. Flyers would be strewn around town offering rewards and advertisements would be posted in the newspapers. One example of a real newspaper article I found from the book Biddy Mason, a place of her own by Camille Gavin, which is actually the book that I used a lot for my resources in this. She posted a real advertisement for someone who had escaped, and it said $100 reward. Ran away from the subscriber on the 27th of July. My black woman named Emily,

17 years of age, well-grown, black color, has a whining voice. She took with her one dark calico and one blue and white dress. A red-corded, gingham bonnet and a white strip shawl and slippers. And that was a real newspaper clipping that was put out just searching for this person. And I thought that this was really telling one of how desperate people were because this Emily, this woman that they're searching for, he lists everything that she left with and she left with nothing. She left with a couple dresses. Right. At 17 years old, she's a child running off because she's enslaved in. undoubtedly treated awful. And then he puts a reward out like he's looking for a bike that got

stolen. You know, it's just, it's horrific. When these people were found, they often face severe punishments, which Biddy often witnessed. When they were caught, people would return them to the plantations bound by their hands and feet. And when they arrived, they were often lashed with whips or worse, they were killed. Because Biddy had witnessed this, she never tried to run. And this was out of fear. She wasn't treated well by any circumstance, but from all of the research that I was doing on her, she wasn't treated as badly as some of the other people were. And that was strictly because she always conformed. She never disobeyed. She never didn't do what she was asked. She never caused any ruckus. She never spoke up against anything. She just did as she was told and kept her head down.

She was also very good at her job as a midwife, and she would actually, she was so good at it that she would help deliver babies of both black women and white women. And how I mentioned earlier that African Americans were subject to be sold by their enslavers at any time, they were also subject to be given away as well. And to give away an enslaved person was often considered a gift to someone else. And that's exactly what happened to Biddy. The man who was enslaving Biddy had a cousin named Rebecca who was getting married to a man named Robert Smith. And he thought that as a gift, he would give the newlyweds four of the people he was enslaving, including Biddy and a younger girl named Hannah, who Biddy actually believed but didn't have any proof of, she thought might be her half sister. At the time, Hannah was 15 years old and Biddy was, it seems like she was around 17 or 18 at the time. And with this, she was sent away again, this time to Louisiana, not too far from New Orleans.

She stayed there for the next 12 years, working as a midwife for neighbors and for Rebecca. Rebecca gave birth to six children, all of whom Biddy delivered. And Biddy was well known and respected for her abilities as a midwife. And Robert would actually often send her to their neighbor's homes to work as midwives as well, kind of like a present, like, hey, I have this great midwife here who can take care of you and your child. And people there often described her saying that her heart was as tender as her hands. And Biddy did work hard, but she was never paid for what she did. While it was common practice for husbands to actually pay for midwives to come to deliver babies, Robert Smith received all of the money

that ever came in for Biddy's work. Very, very occasionally, she got to keep a couple of the pennies to herself. While she worked as a midwife, she also did labor in the corn and cotton fields, which over the years of hard work made her body very strong. So they didn't teach her how to read and write, but she's physically very strong and she is extremely smart. She has survival skills, nursing skills, she can birth babies. She's just, they think that they're making her not strong or smart. And she's doing all of this. And despite her circumstance, she's becoming extremely smart and she's becoming extremely strong. Mm-hmm.

However, even though I said that she was treated better than some other people and she wasn't necessarily punished, she was the subject of severe abuse. And that was that she was forced to carry some of Robert Smith's children. So at some point, and I kind of thought this was disappointing in the books that I read, but none of the books that I read said that she was raped. But she was. Insinuated it? No. No, they just said that she gave birth to his children. And the only way that that would have happened would be because she was raped by him. And I just thought that that was an oversight in the books that I read. And they were written a long time ago. And maybe people didn't want to bring it up because it's hard. But I think that that's really downplaying what she went through. Right. And none of the sources confirmed 100% that the children were his. But every resource I read. read said that the children were most likely his. Okay. Gotcha. She gave birth for the first time in 1838 to her daughter Ellen. Then four years later, she had a baby girl who she named Anne.

And in 1848, she had her youngest daughter who she named Harriet. So she had three children, all of whom were Robert Smiths. But you also have to remember during this time, even though these children were technically Robert Smith's children, he did not. consider them that way. These were his property and these were just more people that he could enslave. And that came with a lot of new fears for Biddy because while she always obeyed and did what she was asked, she also knew that because Robert regarded her children in that way, she knew that he also had the ability to sell her children at any point because he considered them property. She prayed every night that they would not be separated and she worried about it for years. In the early months of

1848, shortly before Harriet was born, a group of Mormon missionaries traveled to Mississippi with a goal to convert white people in the South. They came with a promise of new settlements in the West where farming would prosper and a better way of living could be had out West. And Robert and Rebecca's farm were struggling at the time and they had heard and gotten in contact with these missionaries who were kind of going all over the South trying to recruit Mormons up. And this was under the leadership of Brigham Young, who is very famous in the Mormon community. And he convinced them to want to move west. And just to do a very small synopsis of Brigham Young, Brigham Young was the president of the Church of the Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,

who led his followers to Utah where he founded Salt Lake City. He is well known in history to have had at least 56 wives, 57 children. He formalized banning black men from attending priesthood. And he led the church in the Utah War, which was an armed confrontation between Mormon settlers and the U.S. government. So all in all, not a great reputation. But when his followers came to Robert and Rebecca, they were excited about these new opportunities.

And they planned to leave their home in Louisiana and move west. And partially that was because their farm wasn't doing that great. They weren't making that much money and they weren't as successful as they had hoped. So in order to move west, they decided that they needed to raise some money. They needed to buy wagons. They needed to buy supplies and they needed to prepare. And to do this, he had to sell his plantation and some of his enslaved people.

Oh, uh-oh. Luckily, though, he did not separate Biddy and her three daughters. Oh, okay. Instead, he brought them on the arduous seven-month journey to Utah. And the children are all young. Very young. I mean, Harriet had just been born, right? Yeah. So Harriet's the youngest and her two other daughters, I think her oldest daughter was like, I think she's like 10.

Yeah, I would say no older than 10. Yeah. And to prepare for this day after day, Biddy and others there were given the job to load up wagons and hundreds of bags and barrels of oats, rice, cornmeal, flour, and dried beans just to have food for their journey. And on March 10th, 1848, they traveled to Fulton, Mississippi to meet with. the Mormon guide named John Brown, who would lead this massive wagon train. The entire party that arrived was made up of 56 white people and 34 enslaved African Americans, 10 of whom were with Robert Smith. Robert also brought two oxen, eight mules, seven milk cows, and a horse. He had wagons with seating while the farm animals pulled, but Biddy was not privy to that. Biddy had just given birth to Harriet a few weeks prior and she was breastfeeding. Nevertheless, her job was at the tail end of the wagon train, where she was forced to walk behind the livestock to keep them from straying. She would receive no breaks or special treatment, and she was to walk at all times

that they were traveling and in all weather conditions. Others, mainly white people in the party, would take turns riding in the wagon and walking along the side of it. And this was a difficult journey for everyone involved. I mean, they're walking and riding wagons. They would be traveling for over 2,000 miles to Utah, but Biddy would be walking all of it. Just gave birth is breastfeeding a newborn, and she's rallying livestock. Yeah, it's wild. It's so crazy. It's insane. Yeah. It's, her kids weeks old, and she's doing a through hike in the worst way. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm sure she has little to know. I mean, what is she wearing? You know what I mean? like what is on her fee? What is she being provided with? And not to say that being in the wagon is

like a smooth ride because it's obviously not, but it's obviously 10 times better than walking the entire time. And it's just, it's so disheartening to hear something like that. And I know this is, we're just focusing on her, but and this is a story that I'm sure other, many, many hundreds of other people experienced. But it's just, it's hard to hear about. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's a rough part of history. And when you think about it and you really go into the nitty gritties, which these books also didn't, but I'm just imagining what happened out there. All of their food and their supplies, you know they're mostly giving to the white people and the crew. So she's the one walking across the whole place. I'm sure she's not getting enough food. Yeah. And it's already

rationed for everyone. Yeah. So it's already, from what I imagine, not anything. There's no showers. She's sleeping on the ground at night. She doesn't have shelter all the time. The only breaks that she takes are when they're done traveling for the day. There's no she needs to stop in breastfeed. She needs to stop and eat. There's nothing like that. If the group is not taking a break, then she's not.

And not only is she just walking, which in and of itself is hard, as we just described, but she's also having to do the job of keeping all the livestock in line, which is also not easy. So, yeah, anyways, continue. It's just, yeah, wild. It's crazy. So they first made their way north up through Tennessee and then to Kentucky. They stopped in St. Louis for supplies before they headed westward, trudging through the grassy plains of Iowa, Nebraska, and Wyoming on what today is the California National Historic Trail. Biddy tended to the livestock, but she was also working as a midwife still.

Oh, right. That, yeah. Yeah, that too. Add that to her play. on the trip, four babies were born, both from black and white mothers. And she was forced. And I say forced. And we learn about her more throughout this. She was a very giving person. And she would help anyone. That was just her personality. It was just who she was. Is that if she saw someone in need, she would help them. But she just gave birth to a baby. She's breastfeeding herself. You know, and then she's also helping birth these other babies. She's helping new mothers. She's hurting livestock. She's walking. And it's also very likely that these black women who just gave birth were probably forced to walk just like Biddy was right after giving birth. So Biddy had a couple weeks. These other women on the trail are just like you pop out a kid and you keep walking.

Yeah. It's rough. From March until late November, Biddy walked nursing and newborn, taking care of the new mothers, babies and livestock until they reached Salt Lake Basin. By the This time, winter was already starting, and now she was forced to help build shelters. She would cut and haul large logs to build homes. For the next three years, she stayed here, working harder than ever, tilling soil, planting and harvesting crops, hauling logs and building structures. And she was working harder than ever, but she also felt more unwelcome than ever. Brigham Young had declared that all black people were cursed by God and that they would never go to heaven. The treatment of her and other African Americans only worsened after that declaration and also made her question her own faith.

She was a Christian woman. And when she was having someone tell her that she was never going to heaven, it really hurt her a lot. And it talks about it in the book that she started questioning her own faith and wondering if she was going to go to heaven or not. But she wasn't the only person who wasn't feeling welcome. Many of the pioneers and settlers were from the north or from newly free states, and they had actually set all of their own enslaved people free. So Robert Smith was not feeling very welcome either because they were, yeah, twist here is they were very critical of him bringing enslaved people with him on the trail. And I don't think that it was just, I don't think it was like, we don't believe in slavery. I think that was part of it.

I think another part of it was that that whole community. community, especially because Brigham Young had deemed black people less than and not part of God and heaven and all that. They're like, why are they here? Why did you bring these people with you? So, people were heavily criticizing him and he was not enjoying his time there either. So in 1851, when Brigham Young called for volunteers to form a new town in the state of California, he jumped up the opportunity. He said, get me out of here. I don't like it here. And in April of that, same year, he packed up his wife, children, and all of the people that he had as slaves to head off on another walking journey. He was joined by 500 other people and once again, Biddy was forced to the back

of the wagon train to make sure that none of the livestock went astray. She was forced to walk from Utah to California, again on what today is the California National Historic Trail. This walk, however, offered more opportunity for Biddy. This new group of people also contained newly freed people of African descent. People Biddy had never been able to meet before. They also informed her that they were traveling to California because California was also a free state, something which now historians assume that Robert Smith did not know. I would imagine he didn't know that if he, you know, by the vibe I'm getting here and the information you're providing, I don't see him freeing any of his enslaved peoples. Like, that's not in the plan. So,

to bring him or bring them all to a state that is now free, I think he wasn't anticipating. Yeah, no chance. Yeah, no. He's not giving them up. They're doing all of his work for him. He just sits back and relaxes, you know, so no way. And he didn't know this, but now Biddy's learning this new information. And she's starting to get these hopes that maybe when they get to California, her and her daughters could be free.

I would be so nervous. I'd be like, I hope no one tells him. Before we get there. Right. Yeah. Well, there was also a problem with that. So California was technically a free state. It was in their constitution, but it was only partially true because California also had major loopholes in their laws. While the state constitution forbade slavery, it also did not allow black people to vote or attend public schools. It was also law that any non-white person, and it's important to note that this time frame was also when wars were happening between individuals. people and mainly white settlers in California, anyone who was not white were not allowed to testify against a white person inside of a courtroom under any circumstance. So rigged. It is.

And that didn't mean that an enslaved black person could not seek freedom in California within the court system, but it did require more steps. Black people were allowed to hire a lawyer and that lawyer could file a petition for their freedom. And then the judge would approve or deny it. They were just not allowed to testify themselves inside of a courtroom. Yeah, I understand there is ways to do that. But okay, let's take Biddy, for example, just as is. She has, like you said, she would collect maybe on, you know, if lightning struck a couple of pennies for her work. So she has no money. Who is, how is she paying someone to do this? It's so, it's put into law that way for a reason. It's like, yeah, you could do

it's right there. You go ahead and do it, but they know that the vast majority of people cannot. Cannot because they're financially constrained because of, you know, X, Y, and Z a bunch of different reasons that we've already discussed. It's just so frustrating because they know what they're doing. I mean, the laws are in place like that for a reason and written that way for a reason. And obviously, from what you said in the beginning, there's a turnaround for her. And I'm excited to hear how. But for so many, you know, that that probably just never happened. And even though the potential to gain freedom through whatever lawyers and this and that, it's like, with what money? With what money? They made it hard. So California is a free state, but the loopholes in the law are

major. And they're affecting people significantly. So she had a huge hurdle ahead of her. And she didn't, she didn't really know that. She knew she kind of had in her mind, okay, it's a free state. I have hopes, things are happening. So unknowingly, but very hopeful, she walked over 600 miles through desert landscapes and through mountain passes into the San Bernardino Mountains until they reached their new settlement in San Bernardino, California. And Robert Smith may not have known when he first arrived in California that it was a free state, but it's possible that he learned pretty quickly because when people asked if he

had slaves, he would flat out lie. Oh, so he knew. He found out. He found out. And he told people that they were not slaves, that they were servants to him that were true. But they had been together for so long that they were more like a big family at this point. Right. Yeah. He downplayed it so hard. He's like, no, we're like a family. They're servants. They're paid. They're treated well. I reward them and housing and food and whatever. We're a big family. We love each other. No. And still, even though California was technically a free state, like we discussed before, there were a few options, and Biddy didn't really have a way to leave or escape or any means of where to go or how to live. So she stayed with the Smith family. And during her time there, she made a lot of new friends in California, including indigenous people who taught her about their native lands. They taught her about the desert plants and how to make herbal medicines. She also made a lot of friends who were recently freed from Slickland. One of them was a man named Bob Owens, and he opened her eyes to a lot more possibilities. He told her that here in California, she could be paid for her knowledge and her work as midwife. He told her that he could help her and connect her to people who could free her from Robert Smith,

not only her, but the other people that she was with, including Hannah and her daughters and the other enslaved people that Robert Smith had brought with them. He also warned her, though, that this could take months or even years to execute the plan, but with that they started trying to plan the escape. But it did take a very long time. Several years went by. It was now 1855 and Biddy had been planning for years how she would be able to finally leave. And it's possible that Robert Smith maybe had a sense that she was planning to leave, or he just realized that California didn't support the way that he wanted to live. Because just after Christmas, he announced that he was moving the family and the enslaved people that he was with,

back to the south and to Texas and to prepare to move immediately. And they knew right away what that meant. Texas was not a free state. Texas was not somewhere that they could be safe. And Biddy was terrified. She knew that she was at this was her last chance. She had to move now. But he really wanted to leave immediately. Biddy was able to convince Robert to wait a few more weeks because Hannah, the person who she thought was her half-sister, was pregnant at this time. And she told Robert, you know, it's going to be really difficult to travel with her. She's very pregnant. She can't move that well. Like, let's wait a couple more weeks. Let her give birth. And then we can hop back on the trail. And he reluctantly agrees. And before they were to leave over the next few weeks, Biddy was able to contact Bob and alert him to the

plan. And she asked him to contact the sheriff's office and let them know that they were being taken to Texas to work as slaves, but also that they were all asking for their freedoms, which in the state of California, they had the right to fight for in front of a court. And Bob also hired a lawyer for Biddy. She imagined the way that this would go down would be that the sheriff would show up. He would intervene, tell her that she was free because he was trying to take her to be a slave in another state, which was illegal in California at the time. But this all unfolded much differently than she imagined. Hannah gave birth and Robert moved them into a camp in the mountains when he heard that the sheriff's office was looking for him. Regardless of this, though, the sheriff did find them and

rode into camp carrying a letter, ordering him and all of his 14 enslaved people to appear in court. That day, they all climbed into the sheriff's wagon and rode down the mountains into Los Angeles. Because the sheriffs feared that Robert Smith would try to kidnap and escape with the 14 others, he put them all in protective custody, which meant they were all jailed for their safety, which it was for their safety, but it was also under horrendous conditions. They were sleeping on straw on the ground. They didn't have beds. It was dirty. They didn't have showers. They didn't have proper food. But Robert couldn't take them. And they weren't wrong either that Robert was up to something sneaky because he was. He had discovered the law that only a lawyer could speak up in court and discovered who Biddy's lawyer was. Oh, my God. How does he know? What is he finding this out? It's a small town.

You know, Los Angeles at this time was not big. And he went to this lawyer's office and he paid him $100 to not only not show up in court, but to also withdraw from the case. Oh, fuck it. Which at this time was a lot of money. And it was equivalent to about $3,500. But this is also a time when $100, $100 got you a very long way. So that day, in the hearing, they all stood in court, staring at the clock,

waiting for Biddy's lawyer to show up. And he didn't. I can just imagine. Robert just like smugly smirking. Yeah, like, well, I know how this is going to go. Yeah. It's like, you're all coming home with me. Well, when Judge Hayes slammed his gavel onto the podium ready to begin the hearing,

her lawyer still did not show up. And they waited and waited. A few moments later, the courtroom doors burst open and a clerk holding a letter walked down the aisle to the judge. He handed him the letter. And when he opened it, he found a letter from Biddy's lawyer. withdrawing from the case. I thought it was going to be like a something's...

A-ha moment. Like saving the day or... Do you know if he could have gotten in trouble? Like, did anyone ever find this out that he was paid to not... Like, Robert paid him off, essentially? Yeah, they found out. Did he get in trouble? No one cares.

Okay, yeah. That's what I fucking thought. But I just had to ask. Yeah. Oh, yeah. We're getting to that part. So Biddy, of course, is devastated because she knows that in California, she's not allowed to utter a single word inside of a courtroom.

So instead, she sat there in silent prayer, hoping that the judge would at least give her chance to understand her story. And I would be so terrified. I mean, imagine this all like unfolds. Robert gets his way and takes them back. It's like the repercussions of being like, you tried to pull one over on me. And like, I would be so afraid for my safety, my children's safety. and that's just got to be, it's such a risk. You know, one, that's worthwhile, of course.

But if it doesn't go your way, there are some pretty harsh repercussions that await. And it's just such a gamble. And you have to think, too, is she has never tried to escape before. Ever. Right. She's been like this like perfectly, you know, abiding by everything. Compliant. Yeah.

She's been no issue to him ever. And now she's been secretly planning this for years and, finally goes ahead to execute it, and this is what happens. I mean, she's sitting in that courtroom and she is horrified. She's devastated. She's sad. She is just praying that there's something here that's going to turn in her favor. And luckily for her, Judge Hayes was known to be a judge who was very considerate of both sides. And when he opened the letter, he was immediately suspicious. And because of this, he instantly, he sent someone to investigate why Biddy's lawyer left the case. And they all sat in the courtroom and waited for them to come back with a response.

So shortly after, he discovered that Robert had bribed him not to come. And of course, this made him very suspicious of his motives. He already knew that they were going back to Texas. He claimed they were his servants, but he knew that Texas was not a free state. And Judge Hayes did something that bended the California law. He didn't break it, but he bended it. Biddy was not legally allowed to speak inside of a courtroom. However, she was allowed to speak to the judge inside of his office.

So he called a break to pull Biddy into his office for a conversation. Judge Hayes asked her if she wanted to stay in California and be free. And Biddy said yes and explained that she and the others were afraid to travel to Texas and that they all wanted freedom. After this quick conversation, it sounds like it was probably like a five, five, ten minute conversation. Afterwards, they returned to the courtroom where Judge Hayes read his verdict. He said, by satisfactory proof to the judge, all of the said persons of color are entitled to their freedom and are free and cannot be held in slavery or involuntary servitude. It is therefore argued that they are entitled to their freedom and are free forever. it is time for them to become settled and go to work for themselves in peace without fear.

And with that, he released every single one of them, all 14 of them, from Robert Smith. And he didn't just stop there because Judge Hayes also went forward to help Biddy get a job. He introduced her to his friend who was a physician and he hired her to be a nurse and a midwife, paying her $2.50 per day, which sounds small, but at the time it was a very good wage because most people, weren't even making that much at a week. And especially going from not earning anything for your services to that is a pretty significant jump. Yeah. And in this time that this is a lot of money. And one of the first things that Biddy did with her freedom, she has a job. She is free from Robert Smith. She wanted to finally choose her own last name, which was something that she had never

had before. So she legally became Biddy Mason. She chose her last name to be Mason, because it meant builder, a person who strengthens things. Ten years after she gained her freedom, Biddy bought her first piece of property. She bought two lots in an area at the time that was considered out in the country and not in Los Angeles. It was Spring Street between third and fourth streets, which would later become downtown Los Angeles. I was just going to say, is it smack dab in the middle of downtown now? Smack dab. Okay.

She bought it with money. She had saved for years. and she bought it for $250. Do you know what it is it, do you know like if it's protected now in any way? Oh, yeah. It's actually, we'll get into it. You're joking in head. I was like, don't even tell me it.

It's like a Chipotle or something. Cry. She's just a plaque with her. No, it's exciting. We're in the uprise of this story now. Okay. So for her buying this land for $250, it was not just a huge success given her background in what she had gone through, but very few women in general owned any type of real

estate at the time. And Biddy became the very first black woman in Los Angeles to ever own land. Wow. She used that land and built a two-story brick building that was used as a warehouse. She then rented it to people who needed it as a warehouse, and she took that money as income. So she created her own income property. And remember, she could still, she couldn't read or write, but she was extremely smart, especially when it came to numbers as well. So she used that rent as income and then she rented a house nearby and she was also working as midwife. Multiple streams of income.

We all know that's the move. And she adds another one. She uses parts of the land that she bought to build gardens where she made natural remedies to cure her patients. And occasionally she would also sell what she had to those who needed it because at this time pharmacies didn't exist. So she creates this side gig where she's selling herbal medicines to people as well. At this point, she's doing extremely well financially.

And her family was free and thriving. But her work wasn't done. She did everything she could to contribute to the community. She was described once as a woman so tender-hearted and sympathetic that she never failed to endear herself to all with whom she came in contact. And at this time, Los Angeles was not a great place to be. It was extremely dirty. The streets were just packed dirt.

There were horses everywhere that littered the streets with their dung, and people bathed in ditches in the street. The L.A. River flowed through the center of town, and it was very common for huge floods to come through and wipe out the whole area, which left a lot of people homeless. As a way to help, Biddy made a deal with a local market owner that anyone who came into the store hungry and homeless, she would pay for their food. And she did. In 1864, when a smallpox epidemic hit their town, Biddy risked her own life to nurse all of the sick. Some of Biddy's patients repaid her with giving her parcels of land around Los Angeles. Wow. What a gift. Mm-hmm.

A gift that keeps on giving because this is a time where Los Angeles is starting to grow and boom, and it starts off as this little place. And eventually, we all know what Los Angeles looks like today. So she bought these pieces that were considered like nothing or she was given to. these pieces that were just parcels of land that were eventually worth a lot of money. And she keeps doing charities and contributing to the community. At this time, black children were not allowed at public school systems. So in 1872, she opened the first African Methodist Apostopal Church of Los Angeles on land that

she owned on Azusa Street in Los Angeles. Using her money, she opened the first school for black children from that church as well. Biddy had been purchasing or had been given land for years and was becoming very wealthy. And like I mentioned before, a lot of this was because of how quickly Los Angeles was growing. She was buying this land that was out of town. And as the city grew, it merged into the downtown areas of L.A. So she was selling her property for 10 times the amount that she paid for it. If she even paid for it at all, right?

Because some of them were gifted. Some of them were gifted because she saved their lives. And one of the properties that she did not sell was her property. on Spring Street and that rental income that she was getting from the warehouse. By the time Biddy was 60, she was an extremely wealthy woman. She continued charities and helping people in the community, and she also continued her work as a midwife, even though she really didn't need to at this point. She was rich.

In her early 70s, her health declined, and she had to slow down, but she still allowed patients to travel to her home, where she would still care for them. On January 15th, 1891, Biddy passed away. Her estate was valued at $300,000, which in today's money would make her worth over $10 million. Whoa. Go Biddy. She had a funeral, and then she was buried in an unmarked grave in the Evergreen Cemetery in the Boyle Heights section of Los Angeles. For almost 100 years after that, her story was forgotten by most, except for family.

and people that she had directly impacted. Over 100 years later, in 1988, the church she founded decided to pay tribute to her. They added a stained glass portrait of Biddy to one of their windows, and they also held a memorial for her, where over 3,000 people attended, and they finally placed a headstone at her grave. The congregation sang Amazing Grace in her honor.

Tom Bradley, the city's first black mayor, spoke at her service, and he stated that Biddy was an example of courage for black women and that their young people needed to know about her. Three years later, a community group named The Power of Place installed a monument in her honor on her property on Spring Street, which is now part of downtown L.A. Today, to answer your question before, this area is known as the Biddy Mason Memorial Park, where a wall mural eight feet high and 81 feet long stands with historic photos, documents, and related images to Biddy's story. It is engraved with a timeline of Biddy's life with illustrations that resemble her, including a midwife's handbag that she was known to have on her person at all times. The history begins at the right northernmost end of the

wall with the text Biddy was born a slave and progresses in time to the inscription. Los Angeles mourns and reveres Grandma Mason. And that is my story. And that is my story. of Biddy Mason. I'm so happy to hear that there's an entire memorial park for her because I just didn't know if her property got lost to time and sold off and developed and things like that as a lot of historic properties unfortunately have that type of fate. But that's a really cool story. And I'm glad you told it because it was, I mean, you do love a powerful woman, badass story. And she was certainly that. So that's cool. No one ever tell me that women are the weaker sex. She walked to thousand miles with a baby on her arm breastfeeding. So yeah. Yeah. And she did so much good for so many other

people. I mean, there is something to be said about having your own success story, but then to spread that to others when you're, you know, in a good position to do so. I mean, there's a lot of people who find success from themselves and that's the end of it. And they keep it or with their immediate family. And, you know, not to say they never do anything with it because they're about. off, but they're not as generous as someone like Biddy was. And she just spread the wealth and, you know, what's the phrase, a rising tide raises all ships type of thing. Like that was her. And I think that's just so admirable. And I think that was a whole part of who she was. She always was concerned and worried for other people. And when she was able, she wanted to

contribute to her community because she saw the firsthand effects that it had on the people around her. And she struggled her whole life up until this point, you know. And she was able to find her freedom out of that to create a better life for her grandchildren and her daughters. And she got to see all of that happen. She got to see her grandkids go to public school, a public school that she created. Oh, so cool. You know, it's just amazing.

I just, I would love to be a fly in the wall in that courthouse. When Robert Smith's face just dropped. It was like, wait, what? Plan backfired. And then just be like, okay, bye, like, see ya. We're free. See you later. Yeah. I just, yeah. Sorry, that didn't work out for you later. And the judge even helped her get a job. So you know he was so against Robert in that moment too. He's like, you bribed her lawyer not to show up. Not only am I going to not make her go back with you, but I'm going to make her be a successful. I'm going to set her up for success. I'm going to set her up for success. And then she went on to be a millionaire. And when I didn't, I guess I didn't include this in the story, but part of why. he was suspicious is that Robert Smith didn't have any money. And he was like, how are you going to care for 14 people? Oh, okay. So Robert Smith goes back to Texas with no money while Biddy stays in L.A. and becomes a millionaire.

And that's how the story should have gone. So I'm glad it did. And that's how the cookie crumbles. Yep. What is that from Bruce Almighty? Yeah. Yeah. Well, cool. Oh, nice kickoff to Black History Month. Thank you for sharing. Yeah, and I wanted a, it's a tough story. I mean, a lot of it is horrible and very sad, but I wanted a story with an uplifting ending in a bad ass woman role. And she, it's just a story that I think everyone should know. I feel like I'm a better person knowing her story. And yeah, now I hope everyone else feels that way too. Well, thank you for sharing. Everyone, thank you for listening. We hope you enjoy the view. But watch you back. Bye everyone. Bye. Thank you so much for joining us again this week. If you have a trail tale or story suggestion, send us an email at Stories at npadpodcast.com. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook at National Park After Dark and on Twitter at NPAD podcast. Join our outsiders-only community on Patreon or Apple subscriptions to listen ad-free, unlock monthly bonus episodes, and exclusive content.

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