In a California gold rush town, some Black families are fighting for land taken from their ancestors

COLOMA, Calif. -- 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 That was at the center of a promise originally made — and later broken — by the U.S. government to formerly enslaved Black people in the mid-1800s: Give them up to 40 acres (16 hectares) of land as restitution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.

Cheryl Austin, a retiree living in Sacramento, said she is an heir of John A. Wilson and Phoebe Wilson, a free, married Black couple who came to Coloma during the late 1850s. After John and Phoebe Wilson died, their property was sold through probate, Austin said. The state must somehow repair harm done to families whose property was seized, she said.

The restitution fight in California comes as lawmakers are weighing reparations proposals in the state Legislature. That includes a bill to create the California American Freedmen Affairs Agency, which would help Black residents research their family lineage. Another proposal would make any families whose land was seized unjustly by the government due to racially discriminatory motives entitled to the return of the property or compensation.

The legislation, which is expected to be voted on this summer, reflects a growing push for restitution by Black families targeting the misuse of a practice known as eminent domain, where the government must pay people fairly for property it plans to make available for public use. The issue garnered attention across the state when local officials in Los Angeles County returned a beachfront property in 2022 to a Black couple, nearly a century after it was taken by the government from their ancestors.

Earlier this month, California marked a milestone when Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom included $12 million in the state's 2024 budget to spend on reparations legislation. But the budget does not specify what the money would be used for, and estimates from the state say the bills could cost millions of dollars annually.

State Sen. Steven Bradford, a Los Angeles-area Democrat who authored the proposals, said they will help the state atone for taken land, adding that land ownership is critical to building general wealth.

“Reparations was never about a check,” Bradford said. “It was about land.”

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Associated Press photographer Godofredo A. Vásquez contributed to this report.

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Austin is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Austin on X: @sophieadanna