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Gold Miners and Slaves
- Oregon State University Press
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64 d D Breaking Chains their own accord. . . . Supposing a law was passed in every state driving them out . . . that there were laws excluding them from the entire continent, where would these unfortunate people go?’’ Such laws, he said, are “a disgrace to the human race.’’52 When the exclusion bill came to a vote on January 9, the bill failed in the House by a vote of twenty-three to three. The issue could not be put to rest, however. In November 1857, a new exclusion law—Oregon’s third—was approved by Oregon voters, this time as a clause in Oregon’s constitution. The debate in the Constitutional Convention that placed the exclusion measure before voters reflected a deep-seated hostility toward all minorities and at least symbolically marked a low point in Oregon history. Gold Miners and Slaves It was against the background of mixed messages on slavery that Robin Holmes pressed Nathaniel Ford in 1849 to deliver on his promise of freedom. The three-year grace period that began when Ford arrived in Oregon had run out. Ford had used every day of it, and more.1 Pauline Burch wrote that Ford gave Scott his freedom in 1847, and the Holmeses—Robin and Polly—their freedom in 1848 and 1849.2 Assuming those years are correct, Robin and Polly were kept as slaves for four and five years, respectively. However, grace period aside, slaveholders like Ford didn’t have to worry about Oregon’s anti-slavery law. There’s no record of it ever being enforced prior to 1853. Ford would tell a court in the suit brought against him by Holmes in 1852 that Robin and Polly Holmes were “his servants and slaves, and so continued till in or about the year 1849.’’3 Once freed, Pauline Burch said, the Holmeses “could come and go as they pleased,’’ although she said they chose to continue living in their cabin on the Ford property. As existing residents, the Holmeses were not subject to a threat of expulsion under the 1849 exclusion law. d D Robin Holmes would offer a much different account than Ford of the circumstances under which he was finally freed. Holmes said when he asked Gold Miners and Slaves d D 65 Ford in 1849 for the freedom he’d been promised, Ford insisted he first go to California to mine gold with Ford’s son, Marcus, and the slave, Scott.4 At some point, Nathaniel Ford also headed for the gold fields, as did a son-in-law, Carey Embree, and Embree’s son.5 Holmes said he agreed to go because he felt it was his best chance of obtaining his family’s freedom.6 He said Ford also promised him some of the gold. The Fords were part of a flood of Oregon settlers who headed south after gold was discovered on January 24, 1848, at Sutter’s Mill in present-day El Dorado County. There were possibly exaggerated estimates that “three-quarters of the male population of Oregon went south looking for gold.’’7 Seven members of Oregon’s provisional legislative assembly, Peter Burnett among them, resigned in the fall of 1848, to join the exodus.8 Nathaniel Ford wasn’t alone in taking slaves to California during this period. Southern slaveholders—primarily from Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina—brought slaves, either to help search for gold, or to hire them out to others. One estimate was that a thousand slaves were in California during the gold rush, although there was no accurate count.9 Most slaveholders stayed only a few years, returning home with their earnings and their slaves.10 Slaveholders were undeterred by California’s constitutional prohibition against slavery. Some intended to soon free their slaves; others planned only to remain long enough to find gold, and still others acted out of a belief that California eventually would become a slave state. Indeed, they had good reason to believe the California assembly was “friendly to their interests.’’11 Enforcement was a non-issue. California’s anti-slavery law was even more vague than the law enacted by Oregon’s provisional government. There was nothing in the law before 1852 that told slaveholders whether they had to free their slaves upon arrival, or how long they might safely keep them. The legislature and judiciary “constructed a web of statutes and legal rulings that undercut enslaved peoples claims to freedom.”12 Among these was the California Fugitive Slave...