3 Black California Families Fight For Ancestors’ Stolen Land

Several Black families are fighting for property owned by their early ancestors across California. Three families, in particular, hope to regain what is rightfully theirs.

NBC News reports the Blue family of Sacramento, the Hatton family of Napa, and the Burgess family of Coloma, all had ancestors with property stolen from them. Les Robinson, a great-great-grandson of Daniel Blue, found out Blue worked as a gold miner after being brought to Sacramento in 1849 as an enslaved man. He mined enough gold to purchase his freedom and became an entrepreneur, opening a dry cleaner and starting a church, now known as St. Andrews AME Church.

According to California state documents, Blue also purchased 60 acres of land, now seen underneath the California Railroad Museum, the Amtrak Station, Sacramento RailYard, the courthouse, and the Sacramento County jail. Robinson said the land was taken to complete the transcontinental connection. “So he basically was booted out,” Robinson said.

Edward Hatton had similar events happen to him. After being enslaved as a gold miner in the 1840s, Hatton became the first Black barber in Napa and a gold-mine owner. Recently, his great-great-great-granddaughter, Yolanda Tylu Owens, sought papers from the Napa County Clerk’s Office to see if lots now hosting a park and Sept. 11 memorial remain in Hatton’s name. Owens claims her family purchased 209 acres for $1,500 in February 1885.

Her research found white people wanted the land and claimed Hatton defaulted a payment worth $400 in 1893. “The treasurer, who had already owned other large parts of that mountain, put the land in her own name, and that was that,” Owens said. “They stole it.” The Burgesses of Coloma, California, learned Rufus Burgess was one of the state’s first gold miners and bought land—420 acres to be exact—hoping it would stay in the family for generations. However, the city seized most of it, now Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park.

The state of California made news last year when Charles and Willa Bruce’s family received ownership of the property known as Manhattan Beach. After being in the fight for almost 100 years, country executives finally presented the deed back to the family’s descendants.