Authors: H.W. Brands
Joseph Winans replied that a slave-owner passing through a free state, for example on his way to another slave state, might reasonably expect to be secure in his chattel. But as the merest glance at a map showed, California wasn’t on the way from any slave state to any other. And Stovall clearly wasn’t passing through California. He had opened a school and hired out Archy, and in doing so gave every indication of remaining for some substantial time, if not permanently. He had chosen to live in California, and therefore must submit to California’s laws.
Associate Justice Peter Burnett wrote the opinion of the court. Burnett was a politician before a jurist, and a slave-owner (in Missouri) before coming west. While living in Oregon he had taken the lead in persuading the
territorial legislature there to bar entrance to blacks, slave or free; as California governor in the early 1850s he had led an unsuccessful fight to keep free Negroes out of the state. Beyond his anti-black prejudices, Burnett was a California booster, eager to attract visitors from every region of the United States. California, he averred, should do nothing to discourage such visitors. “When they come to visit us for health or pleasure, shall they be permitted to bring their domestic servants with them, to attend upon them or their families as waiters? The citizens of the free States can bring their confidential servants with them—why should not the citizens of the slave States be allowed the same privilege?” Honesty and the facts required Burnett to rule that Stovall was not a visitor but a resident. And he rejected the argument of the Stovall side that the California legislature implicitly authorized slavery by not explicitly barring it. Yet having said that Stovall was a resident, and that residents couldn’t keep slaves, Burnett nonetheless managed to find for Stovall. “This is the first case; and under these circumstances we are not disposed to rigidly enforce the rule for the first time,” he declared. “It is, therefore, ordered that Archy be forthwith released from the custody of the Chief of Police, and given into the custody of the petitioner, Charles A. Stovall.”
This remarkable conclusion struck many in California as bizarre. The San Francisco
Argus
expostulated, “It vies with the most despotic decision in the world; and it reflects disgrace upon the spirit of liberty.” Another observer cited what was becoming a cynical proverb regarding the slave question: “The law was given to the north and the nigger to the south.”
Yet the South was denied Archy. Stovall soon recognized how controversial his victory was, and he took pains to keep Archy out of sight. Opponents of slavery and members of California’s black community mobilized to prevent Archy’s being taken out of the state; lookouts were posted in Sacramento and around San Francisco Bay. Stovall managed to transport Archy to Stockton, but Archy’s supporters heard of the move, and the lookouts began searching every riverboat traveling from Stockton to San Francisco. They scanned the passenger lists of every ship preparing to depart the Golden Gate. At this time the black population of California numbered perhaps four thousand; the watch for Archy gave outsiders the
impression that the entire group was involved. In particular, black-owned businesses lent employees to the watch, while the many black dockworkers, ship’s stewards, and deckhands were well placed to spot Stovall trying to slip Archy out of the state. Meanwhile, Archy’s friends found a sympathetic judge who issued a writ for Archy and a warrant charging Stovall with kidnapping.
In early March 1858 the pro-Archy, antislavery forces received a tip. The source seems to have been the cook on the
Orizaba
, a man married to Mary Ellen Pleasants. Mammy Pleasants was a formidable figure in the African-American community, the owner of a boardinghouse and a principal in the Atheneum saloon, a watering hole and gathering place for San Francisco blacks. The tip suggested that the
Orizaba
, about to depart San Francisco, would receive two unnamed passengers between the wharf and the Golden Gate. Acting on this intelligence, a deputy sheriff and two lieutenants surreptitiously boarded the
Orizaba
and rode with her out into the bay. As the vessel neared Angel Island, one of the passengers waved a white handkerchief from the rail; soon a second handkerchief replied from a rowboat close to the island. The officers, still silent, watched carefully as the rowboat approached the ship. Four men could be seen, one of whom matched the description of Stovall. Only at the last moment did the officers spy Archy, who had been compelled to crouch in the bottom of the boat.
Just as Stovall and Archy were to board, someone on the
Orizaba
recognized the sheriff and called out to Stovall to keep off. But the sheriff leaped from the rail of the ship into the bucking boat. A fight broke out, which spread to the ship as several pro-slavery passengers tried to prevent the sheriff from seizing Archy and arresting Stovall. Luckily for Archy, the ship’s captain was a liberty man, and his crew enforced respect for the law.
The sheriff and deputies returned Archy and Stovall to the San Francisco dock. A jubilant crowd of African-Americans and other opponents of slavery greeted them. That night a large rally was held at the Zion African Methodist Episcopal Church on Pacific Street, to raise money for Archy’s legal defense fund. (It was characteristic of California that, in contrast to the East, where attorneys in contested slave cases often worked pro
bono, those in San Francisco worked only pro auro.) At the end of the meeting the collection basket went around, eliciting $150.
When his case resumed, Archy had yet another new lawyer (doubtless their insistence on pay contributed to the turnover among Archy’s attorneys). James Hardy continued to represent Stovall. The kidnapping charge against Stovall was tossed out on a technicality; as this charge had been simply a device to regain custody of Archy, Edward Baker—Charles Cora’s defender, and now Archy’s new counsel—let it go without a fight. More serious was the charge by Hardy that the basis for the writ to seize Archy was invalid, being based on a complaint by a black man, whose testimony was inadmissible under California law. Baker—a child of English Quakers and an old friend from Illinois of Abraham Lincoln—eloquently ignored the law, including the judgment of the California Supreme Court (which judgment, legally speaking, should have settled the matter), and argued from first principles of natural right and human justice. He concluded with an impassioned plea to the trial judge to honor those principles and set Archy free.
To the astonishment of all present, when the judge solicited a response from Hardy and Stovall, they indicated their willingness to concede Archy’s freedom. After a moment to absorb the surprise, the judge slammed his gavel down and ordered the prisoner released.
But Archy’s tribulations were not over even yet, for to the still greater astonishment of the crowd, he was immediately arrested again, by a federal marshal acting under the terms of the Fugitive Slave Act. Needless to say, Archy was in despair; his supporters in the courtroom and on the street outside were ready to revolt. Hand-to-hand combat erupted as the marshal and a tight circle of pro-slavery men tried to push their way through the much larger crowd of antislavery partisans. But black leaders pressed restraint on their fellows, and what might have become a really bloody race riot terminated in bruises and abrasions and the arrest of two black men.
Although Federal Commissioner Johnston was unhappy to have to deal with Archy again, the terms of his commission had required him to order the arrest upon Stovall’s application. Yet Archy’s situation hadn’t changed materially in the two months since Johnston had originally declared
in Archy’s favor. Nor did Stovall help his case by altering his story, saying this time that Archy had actually escaped from bondage in Mississippi and therefore
was
a fugitive slave under the federal law.
The facts of the case again seemed to weigh against Stovall, but he and Hardy were counting on politics to come to their aid. Johnston was a Democrat, and the Democrats were then trying to push a law through the legislature barring blacks from entering the state. Stovall and Hardy hoped Johnston wouldn’t wish to keep this particular black, Archy, in California at a time when he and his fellow Democrats were trying to keep all blacks out.
But Stovall’s case was too flimsy to stand. When Archy’s lawyers brought suit against Stovall alleging assault, battery, and false imprisonment, and when even Johnston began talking about perjury charges, Stovall decided to drop the case. In the middle of the proceeding, without telling anyone, he abruptly fled town.
Yet, unbelievably—except that by now nothing in this case was unbelievable—even Stovall’s flight didn’t end the strange affair. A brother, William Stovall, mysteriously appeared, determined to carry on in Charles’s absence. The second Stovall’s testimony managed to provoke a fistfight between Archy’s lawyer (another new one) and Hardy. That Hardy was packing a gun rendered the melee even more memorable, and caused Commissioner Johnston himself to step between the two antagonists. Shortly thereafter Hardy, too, disappeared, leaving Stovall’s representation to an assistant.
Finally the farce—for such it had become, to all but Archy, anyway— ended. After some additional delay suggesting a reluctance to relinquish the spotlight, Johnston ruled that Archy was not a fugitive slave and therefore was a free man.
In the excitement of the moment, many in the courtroom had failed to notice that Archy himself was not present. Some of those who did notice suspected still another ploy to keep the unfortunate young man in chains. In fact, Johnston, a bit of a publicity hound, hadn’t wanted to share his stage, and had ordered that Archy be freed from the jail rather than from the courtroom. The boisterous yet understandably skeptical crowd
surged through the city to the Kearny Street jail to make sure Archy finally got his freedom. On their arrival, the jailkeeper went to the cell that had been Archy’s home for many weeks, unlocked the door, and declared, “Archy, my boy, you’re all right. You’re a free man now. Pick up your duds and be off; your friends are waiting for you outside.”
Archy’s victory was a blow for freedom in California, besides—naturally— being a great relief to Archy himself. Yet it hardly represented a trend, for in the second half of the 1850s, California appeared increasingly sympathetic to the cause of the slave South. Sometimes the sympathy was simply that: a fellow-feeling toward southerners and an emotional sharing in their desires. Sometimes the sympathy was more substantive, as when Californians rejected John Frémont—despite his favorite-son status—in the 1856 election, in favor of James Buchanan. Sometimes the sympathy came armed, as in the astonishing activities of William Walker, who made California the base of operations for an expansion of slavery beyond the borders of the United States, and in so doing gave the South reason to believe that in a parting of the ways, California and California’s gold might follow the South out of the Union.
Like Leland Stanford, Walker was a second-generation Gold Rusher. Born in Tennessee, trained as a doctor in Pennsylvania and a lawyer in Louisiana, and practicing as a journalist in New Orleans when he got the itch to move again, Walker arrived in San Francisco amid the corruption and thuggery that provoked the first wave of vigilantism in the city. In his capacity as a journalist he took dead aim at one particularly crooked judge, who hauled him into court and found him guilty of contempt. When
Walker refused to pay the $500 fine, the judge ordered him imprisoned. This sparked a mass meeting against the judge and in support of Walker. A superior court, moved by the popularity of Walker’s cause, ordered him released.
Had he desired, Walker could have launched a political career at this point. And so he did—but not the kind of career those who protested in front of his jail cell expected. Although the Gold Rush wasn’t three years old, the best placers had played out, forcing many argonauts to work for wages, which wasn’t at all what they’d expected on leaving home. More than a few of the frustrated assumed that mines similar to those in California existed south of the border in Mexico—in Sonora especially, long known for its mineral wealth. Why slave for others, or pick through deposits a hundred hands had already sifted, when fresh mines lay ripe for the seizing in Sonora?
Walker initially approached the Mexican government for permission to colonize in Sonora, but was rebuffed. Indeed, President Santa Anna, who after losing Texas in 1836 had no desire to repeat the humiliation, took such offense at Walker that he reportedly put a bounty on his head. Yet Walker didn’t discourage easily, and he returned to San Francisco to commence recruiting volunteers for a military expedition against Sonora. Amid the restive placermen, he had no difficulty raising a force.
Most of the appeal of his pitch was the easy wealth the expedition promised, but a not inconsiderable element was his own strange magnetism. “His appearance was that of anything else than a military chieftain,” explained a traveler who encountered Walker briefly but unforgettably. “Below the medium height, and very slim, I should hardly imagine him to weigh over a hundred pounds. His hair light and towy, while his almost white eyebrows and lashes concealed a seemingly pupilless, grey, cold eye, and his face was a mass of yellow freckles, the whole expression very heavy. His dress was scarcely less remarkable than his person. His head was surmounted by a huge white fur hat, whose long knap waved with the breeze, which, together with a very ill-made, short-waisted blue coat, with gilt buttons, and a pair of grey, strapless pantaloons, made up the ensemble of as unprepossessing-looking a person as one would meet in a day’s walk.”
There was more to this man, however. “Any one who estimated Mr. Walker by his personal appearance made a great mistake. Extremely taciturn, he would sit for an hour in company without opening his lips; but once interested, he arrested your attention with the first word he uttered, and as he proceeded, you felt convinced that he was no ordinary person.” And when he spoke of his Sonoran project, he seemed “insanely confident of success.”