Reparations Task Force Sheds Light on History of Slavery in California

KQED's Forum

KQED

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.6 • 656 Ratings

🗓️ 14 January 2022

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Conversations about the history of slavery are often confined to the North and the South, with the West viewed as a free “promised land.” But California passed laws, like the Fugitive Slave Act of 1852, that reinforced the institution of slavery, and otherwise allowed coerced, unpaid labor in the state. And the laws impacted more than just Black people, too. Historian Stacey L. Smith writes in her book “Freedom’s Frontier” that “ diverse forms of American Indian servitude, sexual trafficking in bound women, and contract labor involving Latin Americans, Asians, and Pacific Islanders all kept the slavery question alive in California during the 1850s.” This history has been brought to the fore in recent weeks as the state’s Reparations Task Force continues to hear testimony about the impacts of slavery on African Americans. We take a closer look at this part of California’s past and why it matters. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:32.1	From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Nina Kim.
0:48.7	Coming up on forum, we look at California's complicity in slavery.
0:53.4	The focus of the history of slavery in the U.S. has often been confined to the North and South,
0:58.0	with the West viewed almost as a free promise land.
1:01.0	But while California did enter the Union as a free state, it had its own version of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1852
1:08.0	that forced freed African Americans back to their enslavers, and laws
1:12.4	that sanctioned indigenous slavery, with compounding impacts on Asians and Latin Americans.
1:18.0	We shed light on this part of California's past and efforts to make it more widely known.
1:23.3	Next on Forum.
1:35.7	This is Forum. I'm Mina Kim.
1:40.9	California's Reparations Task Force, through its ongoing work hearing testimony on the impact of enslavement on African Americans has brought to the four California's
1:46.0	history of slavery, despite entering the Union in 1850 as a free state. It's this history we explore
1:52.0	with Stacey L. Smith, Associate Professor of History at Oregon State University. Smith recently
1:57.0	gave testimony before the task force and is author of the book, Freedom's Frontier,
2:02.6	California and the struggle over unfree labor, emancipation, and reconstruction.
2:07.6	Stacey Smith, thanks so much for joining us.
	...

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