In gold rush town, some Black families fight for land taken from ancestors

CALIFORNIA

Descendants of Nelson Bell, brothers Milford Fonza, front left, and Elmer Fonza, front right, surrounded by extended family members, show their ancestors’ pictures in Glendora on Sept. 8. Family members standing from left are Trent Mure, with son Armani Mure, and his wife, Tami Mure, William Woolery, Louie Hobbs and Carolyn Fonza. DAMIAN DOVARGANES — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

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By Sophie Austin

The Associated Press

COLOMA >> In a tiny town where the California gold rush began, Black families are seeking restitution for land that was taken from their ancestors to make way for a state park now frequented by fourth graders learning about the state’s history.

Their efforts in Coloma, a town of around 300 people that’s located about 36 miles (58 kilometers) northeast of Sacramento, are one of the latest examples of Black Americans urging the government to atone for practices that have kept them from thriving long after chattel slavery was abolished.

Debates over reparations for African Americans often come back to land. That was at the center of a promise originally made — and later broken — by the U.S. government to formerly enslaved Black people in the mid-1800s: Give them up to 40 acres (16 hectares) of land as restitution for their time enslaved.

For some, the promise of reparations has been nothing more than Fool’s gold, epitomized by a bill in Congress that’s stalled since it was first introduced in the 1980s, even though it’s aimed at studying reparations and named after the original promise.

The fight in Coloma is taking place in a state where the governor signed a first-in-the-nation law to study reparations. But advocates are pushing for the state to go further.

Gold was found near Coloma in 1848 by James W. Marshall, a white carpenter, setting off the California gold rush that saw hundreds of thousands of people from across the nation and outside of the U.S. come — or be brought — to the state. Those who migrated included white, Asian, and free and enslaved Black people.

Decades later, Black and white families had their land taken by the government in the town before it was turned into the Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park, which opened in 1942. The park today is home to a museum, churches and cemeteries where residents were buried. A nearly 42-foot (13-meter) monument of Marshall stands on its grounds.

But the history of Black families who settled in Coloma only recently started getting increased recognition. California State Parks launched an initiative in 2020 to reexamine its past and to tell “a more thorough, inclusive, and complete history” of California, department spokesperson Adeline Yee said in an email to The Associated Press. The department created a webpage with information about properties owned by Black families at the park in Coloma.

Elmer Fonza, a retiree who worked at a brewery in California before eventually relocating to Nevada, said he is the third-great grandson of Nelson Bell, a formerly enslaved Black man from Virginia who became a property owner in Coloma.

After Bell’s death in 1869, a judge determined he had no heirs in the state, and his estate was sold at an auction, according to a probate document shared by the El Dorado County Historical Museum. It is unclear what happened to Bell’s property in the years that followed, Fonza said, adding that the land should be returned to his family.

“We rightfully believe that we have been denied the generational wealth that our family may have been entitled to if given our rightful inheritance — the land once owned by Nelson Bell,” he said at the final meeting of a first-in-the-nation state reparations task force.

Nancy Gooch, a Black woman, was brought to Coloma from the South in 1849 by a white man who enslaved her and her husband. Gooch was soon freed when California became a state and worked as a cook and cleaned laundry for miners.

She later brought her son, Andrew Monroe, from Missouri to join them in the town. The Monroe-Gooch family would become one of the most prosperous Black landowners in California.

“We have to bring forth the truth, because that’s reconciliation,” said Jonathan Burgess, a Sacramento resident who co-owns a barbecue catering business, and who also is claiming land in Coloma was that of his descendants. “And then once we bring forth the truth, which I’ve been doing in speaking the whole time, we’ve got to make it right.”

Making it right would mean compensating families for land that can’t be returned or returning property where possible, Burgess said in an interview at the park. He said he is descended from Rufus Morgan Burgess, a Black writer who was brought to Coloma with his father, who was enslaved.

Jonathan Burgess also said his family is descended from Bell, but the Fonza and Burgess families say they are not related to each other. The discrepancy highlights the difficult work that could be ahead for Black residents if California ever passes reparations legislation requiring families to document their lineage.