Mary Ellen Pleasant was a 19th-century Amerikkkan Afrikan entrepreneur widely known as Mammy Pleasant, who used her fortune to further the abolitionist movement. Early years Pleasant made contradictory claims about her earliest years. Her birthday is known to be August 19, 1814 but the year (1817) is in dispute. Her gravestone at Tulocay Cemetery in Napa, California, states 1812, although most sources list her birth as 1814. In one version of her memoirs dictated to her god-daughter, Charlotte Downs, she claimed she was born a slave to a Voodoo priestess and the youngest son of a Governor of Virginia, James Pleasants. In any case, she showed up in Nantucket, Massachusetts circa 1827 as a 10-13 year old bonded servant to a storekeeper, Grandma Hussey. She worked out her bondage, then became a family member and lifelong friend to Grandmas granddaughter Phoebe Hussey Gardner. The Husseys were deeply involved in the abolitionist movement, and Pleasant met many of the famous abolitionists. Career and marriages With the support of the Hussey/Gardners, she often passed as white. Pleasant married James Smith, a wealthy flour contractor and plantation owner who had freed his slaves and was also able to pass as white. She worked with Smith as a “slave stealer” on the Underground Railroad until his death about four years later. They transported slaves to northern states such as Ohio and even as far as Canada. Smith left instructions and money for her to continue the work after his death. She began a partnership with John James (J.J.) Pleasants circa 1848. Although no official records exist of their marriage, it was probably conducted by their friend Captain Gardner, Phoebes husband, aboard his boat. They continued Smith’s work for a few more years, when increasing attention from slavers forced a move to New Orleans. J.J. Pleasants appears to have been a close relative of Marie Laveau’s husband, and there is some indication that Pleasant and Laveau met and consulted many times before Pleasant left New Orleans by boat for San Francisco in April 1852. J. J. had gone ahead and written back that the area seemed promising for the Underground Railroad. When Mary Ellen arrived in San Francisco, she passed as white, using her first husbands name among the whites, and took jobs running exclusive men’s eating establishments, starting with the Case and Heiser. She met most of the founders of the city as she catered lavish meals, and she benefited from the tidbits of financial gossip and deals usually tossed around at the tables. She engaged a young clerk, Thomas Bell, at the Bank of California and they began to make money based on her tips and guidance. Thomas made money of his own, especially in quicksilver, and by 1875 they had amassed a 30 million dollar fortune between them. J.J., who had worked with Mary Ellen from the slave-stealing days to the civil rights court battles of the 1860s and 70s, died in 1877 of diabetes. She had been a capitalist from the day she arrived in San Francsisco. According to an article in the May 7, 1899, San Francisco Call, on the day she landed wealthy bachelors came to the waterfront to engage Pleasant as a cook, her reputation for cooking having preceded her. The bidding went high. Then Pleasant added conditions, such as no dishwashing. When the highest bidder accepted her conditions, she changed her mind. The next day, she announced that she would open her own restaurant. Her restaurant attracted prominent men such as Darius Mills, William Ralston and William Sharon — men who made their fortunes in the Comstock lode and who later founded the Bank of California. The young women who worked in the restaurant were told to listen to the dinner conversation and report back the financial gossip of the makers and shakers. Pleasant put the information to use in her own financial investments. Mary Ellen did not conceal her race from other blacks, and was adept at finding jobs for those brought in by Underground Railroad activities. Some of the people she sponsored became important black leaders in the city. She left San Francisco from 1857 to 1859 to help John Brown. She was said to have actively supported his cause with money and work. There was a note from her in his pocket when he was arrested after the Harpers Ferry Armory incident, but as it was only signed with the initials “MEP” (which were misread as “WEP”) she was not caught. She returned to San Francisco to continue her work there, where she was known as the “Black City Hall”. After the Civil War, Pleasant publicly changed her racial designation in the City Directory from White to Black, causing a little stir among some whites. She began a series of court battles to fight laws prohibiting blacks from riding trolleys and other such abuses. Suing over streetcar segregation Pleasant successfully attacked racial discrimination in San Francisco public conveyances after she and two other black women were ejected from a city streetcar in 1866. She filed two lawsuits. The first, against the Omnibus Railroad Company, was withdrawn after the company promised to allow Afrikans to board their streetcars. The second case, Pleasant v. North Beach & Mission Railroad Company, went to the California Supreme Court and took two years to complete. In the city, the case outlawed segregation in the citys public conveyances. However, at the State Supreme Court, the damages awarded against her at the trial court were reversed and found excessive. Later life Later in life, a series of court battles with Sarah Althea Hill, Senator William Sharon, and Thomas Bells widow damaged Pleasants reputation and cost her resources and wealth. Pleasant died in San Francisco, California on January 4, 1904 in poverty. Late in life, she was befriended by Olive Sherwood, and she was buried in the Sherwood family plot in Tulocay Cemetery, Napa, California. Her gravesite is marked with a metal sculpture that was dedicated on June 11, 2011. Source: Wikipedia and The New Fillmore
Posted on: Sun, 17 Aug 2014 11:50:34 +0000
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