Last updated: March 7, 2023
Person
Mifflin W. Gibbs
Image/Public Domain
Quick Facts
Significance:
Important in the trail communities in California
Place of Birth:
Philadelphia
Date of Birth:
1823
Like so many others, Mifflin Wistar Gibbs left the East for San Francisco in 1850, convinced that his own “judicious temperament” and “untiring energy” would lead to success in the “new” country. Yet although he may have been a “gold rusher,” Gibbs—a free Black man— had no interest in becoming a miner. Instead, Gibbs intended to become a merchant.
Born in Philadelphia in 1823, Gibbs was active in the abolitionist movement by the early 1840s. He was a devoted follower of Frederick Douglass, earning a reputation as an orator and writer; he also aided those escaping to freedom via the Underground Railroad. Gibbs eventually made his way to California by sea, where he continued to organize for African American rights. Gibbs wrote that, while free Black Californians could find economic opportunity, “from every other point of view…they were ostracized, assaulted without redress, disfranchised and denied their oath in a court of justice.”
Gibbs disembarked at the port of San Francisco in September 1850. Gibbs’ first stop was “an unprepossessing hotel kept by a colored man on Kearny Street.” He immediately went looking for work, plying his skills as a carpenter. Yet even when a contractor did hire him, Gibbs did not last long on the job because “white people would go on strike the day [he] started” and the boss would tell him to leave. He left the carpentry trade behind and got into “blacking boots,” spent time working for John C. Frémont, and joined a firm established in the clothing business. Not long after, he and another African American, Peter Lester, founded the Pioneer Boot and Shoe Emporium. The business partners found economic success importing “fine boots and shoes” to their storefront on Clay Street.
Yet despite the relative success many African Americans had achieved in the state, Gibbs grew frustrated by the lack of legal protections for Black Californians. In his autobiography, he recalls an “incident typical of the condition” in which two of the shop’s white customers, who happened to be friends, were caught trying to dupe the bootsellers. When called out for their attempted thievery, the two men hurled “vile epithets” and “using a heavy cane, again and again” assaulted Gibbs’s partner, who was “compelled tamely to submit, for had he raised his hand he would have been shot, and no redress.” Gibbs was also helpless to resist, as he knew the law would prevent him from testifying against Lester’s assailants. In 1854, Gibbs joined forces with other Black San Franciscans and established a civil rights organization; he also led the publication of the Mirror of the Times, “the first periodical issued in the State for the advocacy of equal rights for all Americans.” In the years that followed, Gibbs and the growing Black intelligentsia of San Francisco helped in any way they could, often raising funds to hire attorneys to represent their community members in court.
Tenacious in the pursuit of fortune as well as justice, Gibbs left California in 1858 after the discovery of gold on the Fraser River in British Columbia, joining the migration of many African Americans from California into present-day Canada. Once again, Gibbs prospered as a merchant; he was also elected to the Victoria City Council. At some point in 1859, he traveled back to the United States to marry Maria Alexander, a student at Oberlin College in Ohio. Back in Victoria, Gibbs studied law with a barrister who eventually convinced him to return, yet again, to the U.S.—this time to attend Oberlin College, where he earned his law degree. He and Maria had five children before they separated in the late 1860s. After that he returned to Canada and developed an anthracite coal mine on the Queen Charlotte Islands, secured the contract to build British Columbia’s first railroad, and continued to advocate for African American rights.
Gibbs later settled in Little Rock, Arkansas, where he practiced law and later became city judge. He held prominent leadership roles in the Republican Party, and President William McKinley appointed him to a four-year-term as consul to Madagascar at the age of 74. He resigned the post four years later for health reasons, returning to the U.S. and publishing his autobiography in 1902 (with an introduction written by Booker T. Washington). Although Gibbs never traveled the California Trail, he remained a pillar of the Black community at the trail’s western end—and beyond.
(Special thanks to UNM PhD candidate Angela Reiniche for compiling this information.)
Learn More
Mifflin W. Gibbs, the California Trail
The California National Historic Trail