How Biddy Mason Found Her Freedom in Los Angeles

November 8, 1864. Election Day. Abraham Lincoln watches from a White House window, convinced he might lose. Three thousand miles away in Los Angeles, a Confederate hotbed in a so-called free state, Biddy Mason has more riding on the result than almost anyone in the country. Sixteen years earlier, she walked from Mississippi to Utah at the back of a Mormon wagon train, enslaved, with three young daughters in tow. Her owner then carried her into California, where slavery was illegal and where, for years, nobody enforced the law. In 1856, a sheriff’s posse rode into the owner’s camp in the Santa Monica Mountains with a court order. What followed was a trial before a former slaveholder, a verdict that freed fourteen people, and a second act in which a formerly enslaved midwife became one of the wealthiest Black women in America. How did a slave ranch operate in plain sight in a free state? And how did Biddy Mason win, not once, but twice? With Kevin Waite, Professor of History at the University of Texas at Dallas and author of The Boundless Biddy Mason; and Jackie Broxton, President and Founder of the Biddy Mason Charitable Foundation. This episode includes a mention of sexual violence. Please listen with care. To stay updated on all things HISTORY This Week, sign up at historythisweekpodcast.com. Have thoughts or questions? Email us at [email protected]. Sign up for ad-free listening and bonus episodes at htwpod.com.