The woman who outran slavery to build a Western metropolis

Science · Published 25 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: Biddy Mason endured a three-thousand-mile forced migration on foot from Georgia to California. Despite being held in bondage in a "free" state, she successfully sued for her liberty in 1856. She didn't just survive; she became one of the wealthiest women of color in the United States.

Biddy Mason’s journey began in the cotton South, where she was enslaved and forced to learn domestic and agricultural skills. A shift occurred in her life when Robert Mays Smith and Rebecca Dorn Smith purchased her in Mississippi. The Smiths, converts to Mormonism, forced Mason and her three daughters on a grueling westward trek during the Mormon pioneer exodus. This journey spanned three thousand miles on foot, eventually leading them to the Utah Territory and later to San Bernardino, California, in 1851.

The legal landscape of the West provided a unique, albeit fragile, opportunity for Mason. Despite California's status as a free state, Smith tried to keep Mason enslaved and intended to move her to Texas. Leveraging the support of the local Black community and legal authorities, Mason launched a landmark emancipation suit. Her liberty, along with that of her relatives, was secured in 1856 by Judge Benjamin Ignatius Hayes, who decreed bondage illegal in free states.

After gaining her freedom, Mason moved to Los Angeles to work as a midwife and a healer. She gained a reputation for her herbal medical knowledge—skills she had developed while enslaved—and served the city's poor. Through frugal saving, she became one of the first Black women to own real estate on Spring Street. As Los Angeles expanded, her property values rose significantly, allowing her to amass substantial wealth and become a prominent philanthropist.

In 1872, Mason used her wealth to support the early Black community by starting a school, a daycare, and the First African Methodist Episcopal Church. Her influence was felt across a city where she also navigated the exploitation of Indigenous and Chinese people. By her death in 1891, she had transitioned from a victim of a "mobile institution" of slavery to a foundational architect of Black Los Angeles, leaving a legacy of Christian philanthropy and commercial success.

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