A woman rich in more than money
She was was born a Mississippi slave nearly 205 years ago, but died a California woman of substantial wealth. This March 2023 Women’s History Month is a good time to salute the memory of Bridget Biddy Mason.
The Black hair care genius known as Madam C.J. Walker has long been regarded as America’s first Black woman self-made millionaire. Her 1919 New York Times obituary reports, however, that in 1917 she declared that “she was not a millionaire, but hoped to be some time, not for herself but for the good” she could accomplish for others. But two years later, she was still wealthy but dead.
Biddy Mason, on the other hand, spent over half her life as a slave, but by the time she died in 1891, at the age of 73, she was worth $10 million in today’s dollars. Her nickname “Biddy” was how she was known. She had no surname until she took one later in life.
After she and her family were stolen by various slaveholders, they were enslaved for a time in the Salt Lake Valley in Utah territory beginning in 1848 — Mormon country. As a slave and part of a caravan, she walked 1,700 miles on the trek to Utah.
Church founder Brigham Young preached the virtues of slavery and advocated its practice in Utah. (The Mormons — the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints — practiced the abuse of white women and girls through polygamy.)
Notwithstanding, the Mormon boss warned that the church’s further western expansion into California could not legally include the chattel slavery of Black people. His cautions in that regard were widely disregarded, nonetheless. Legal challenges to slavery in California were rarely successful.
By the late 1840s, the California gold rush had rushed in. Biddy Mason’s enslavers had located there with her and the other slaves they held.
She had three daughters by then. No paternity was publicly established. One of her enslavers is thought to have fathered at least one of her children.
Over the decades, she had acquired knowledge of medicines and skills in midwifery, nursing, child care and livestock care. She benefitted both her enslaved family and her enslavers’ families with her gifts.
On September 9, 1850, California was admitted to the union of the United States of America. It was a free-state, not a state where chattel slavery was legal. Thus, Biddy Mason sued to free her family and herself from slavery by Mormon Robert Smith, they having been enslaved illegally in San Bernardino, California by that Mormon—despite Brigham Young warnings— since about 1851.
In the 1850s a Black person in court in California could not testify against a white person, but with the help of free Black men Charles Owens and Manuel Pepper, the Mason cases for freedom prevailed. An 1860 court document certified the victories.
As a working-for-wages nurse, Biddy Mason saved some money and became one of the first Black women to buy real estate in Los Angeles and ultimately grew a substantial portfolio, money from from which she generously shared.
In 1872, she and others founded the First African American Episcopal Church in Los Angeles, the city’s first Black congregation. The original AME was established in 1787 in Philadelphia by Richard Allen and Absalom Jones in response to segregation practices at St. George’s Methodist Episcopal Church there. Biddy Mason donated the land beneath the Los Angeles church.
Her enormous contribution to health care defines her selfless legacy. She is reported to have delivered hundreds of babies, Black and other colors. And during the L.A. smallpox epidemic, she cared for the afflicted, at the risk of her own well being.
The Biddy Mason Park in downtown L.A. is a tribute to this American hero. She spent more of her life as a slave than as a free woman. Yet through savvy real estate investments, she died In 1891 as one of the wealthiest women in Los Angeles.