Person

Bridget “Biddy” Mason

Historical portrait of a woman. — Bridget "Biddy" Mason
Image/Public Domain

On 22 January 1856, Bridget “Biddy” Mason and twelve members of her extended family left the Los Angeles courtroom of Judge Benjamin Hayes as free people. She had lived as an enslaved person in California, a supposedly “free” state, for nearly five years. Her story is testament to the many obstacles that Black Americans faced in securing basic civil rights—even in states that prohibited slavery.

Born enslaved in 1818 in either Georgia or Mississippi, Mason was purchased by Robert Marion Smith, a Mormon convert and owner of a Mississippi plantation. When Brigham Young called for the members of the Church of the Latter-day Saints to settle in the North American West, Smith followed. Mason and her children became part of a cadre of enslaved men, women, and children who had no choice but to follow their enslavers to Utah. Mason, thirty years old at the time they left in 1848, walked 1,700 miles at the back of a 300-wagon caravan before stopping in the Holladay area of the Great Salt Lake Valley. Along the way, Mason performed many duties that she had performed in Mississippi; the journey brought also brought new chores, such as setting up and breaking camp and herding livestock.

After two years in Utah, Young called the “Mississippi Saints” to establish a new community in San Bernardino, California. Smith left the Holladay settlement in a caravan of 150 wagons, taking Mason with him. Like many slaveholding emigrants, Smith knew that slavery was illegal in California; free Blacks that Mason encountered along the way told her the same thing. Eventually, Smith—afraid of losing Mason and the others he enslaved—attempted to move to Texas in December 1855. Mason’s free Black friends Robert and Minnie Owens, however, had other plans. Because one of their sons was involved with Mason’s eldest daughter, Hannah (who was seventeen at the time), the Owens family wanted to keep the Mason family in California. A posse including Owens, his sons, and hands from the Owens’ ranch detained Smith’s wagon train at Cajon Pass and prevented him from leaving California. Within a month, Biddy Mason petitioned the court for her freedom and that of her extended family. Even though she could not testify publicly against Smith, Mason prevailed. Judge Benjamin Hayes deliberated for three days before granting freedom to Mason and her family, citing California’s first constitution and its prohibition of slavery. Mason would become a pillar of Los Angeles’ African American community. A midwife and nurse, she made sure that her children were educated and used her wealth to benefit her community. After her court battle, Mason and her daughters stayed with the Owens family. Ten years later, in 1866, Mason purchased a home in present-day downtown Los Angeles; it quickly became a favorite gathering place for her family and friends. Moving away from Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, she helped found the Los Angeles branch of the First African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in 1872. Their first meetings and official organization took place in her home. Though she financially supported the AME Church—she paid its property taxes and the minister’s salary—Mason and her family attended the Fourth Street Methodist Episcopal Church, a predominantly white congregation across the street from her home. Mason’s great-grand daughter, Gladys Owens Smith, recalled something Mason used to tell her: “If you hold your hand closed … nothing good can come in. The open hand is blessed, for it gives in abundance, even as it receives.” After a life of giving in abundance, Mason died in Los Angeles on 15 January 1891. She was buried in Evergreen Cemetery in the Boyle Heights district.

(Special thanks to UNM PhD candidate Angela Reiniche for compiling this information.)

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