Leidesdorff's correspondence (1845-1847) as vice-consul; correspondence, account books, orders, and receipts (1834-1848) reflecting Leidesdorff's activities as a merchant in Yerba Buena (later San Francisco), including accounts with the crew of the Schooner Julia Ann and Hawaiian and Indian sailors; papers relating to Leidesdorff's land grant, Río de los Americanos, and the legal battle between Joseph L. Folsom and Anna Maria Spark, Leidesdorff's mother, regarding the inheritance of Leidesdorff's estate; and papers of Henry W. Halleck from his law practice with Halleck, Peachy, and Billings, consisting of Halleck's drafts for clients' land grant claims and other legal documents, some dealing with Leidesdorff's grant.
William Alexander Leidesdorff is probably one of the best-kept secrets in the pioneering of the West and the creation of the State of California. Born out of wedlock in St. Croix, Danish West Indies in 1810 to a Jewish Danish sugar planter and a black plantation worker, he went on to become the first Black millionaire when gold was found on his property shortly before he died in 1848.
The Museum of the City of San Francisco presents a biographical sketch of the African-American businessman and steamboat owner William Alexander Leidesdorff, written by Sue Bailey Thurman and originally published in the work entitled "Pioneers of Negro Origin in California" by the author.
Boki's predicament : Sandalwood and the China trade -- Make's dance : Migrant workers and migratory animals -- Kealoha in the Arctic : Whale blubber and human bodies -- Kailiopio and the tropicbird : Life and labor on a Guano Island -- Nahoa's tears : Gold, dreams, and diaspora in California -- Beckwith's Pilikia : "Kanakas" and "Coolies" on Haiku plantation -- Epilogue : Legacies of capitalism and colonialism
Description: Various letters to and from various people. Of particular interest are letters to and from a Guerrero regarding issues with Mexicans. Some original Spanish letters transcribed into English.
Letter written from Leidesdorff in Yerba Buena to Smith in Bodega, concerning the chartering and hauling of the Brig Commodore Stockton. The letter also refers to two beach lots in Yerba Buena owned by Smith, part of land dealings involving Smith, Leidesdorff, Washington A. Bartlett, and George Hyde.
Consists of the legal correspondence of J.L. Folsom and his San Francisco lawyers, H.W. Halleck, A.C. Peachy and P. Warren Van Winkle, regarding Folsom's San Francisco tenants and properties. Also contains letters from Folsom's New York lawyers, Snydum, Reed & Co., regarding Folsom's acquisition of William A. Leidesdorff's property from his mother, Anna Maria Sparks. After Folsom's death, Halleck, Peachy, and Van Winkle became his estate's executors, and continued Folsom's legal correspondence. Also includes a statement "In the matter of the Estate of J.L. Folsom", a bill remitted by Folsom, and leases signed by Folsom. Finally, there is one deed signed by Jacob C. Biedermann.
In this wide-ranging study Stephen Foster explores Puritanism in England and America from its roots in the Elizabethan era to the end of the seventeenth century. Focusing on Puritanism as a cultural and political phenomenon as well as a religious movement, Foster addresses parallel developments on both sides of the Atlantic and firmly embeds New England Puritanism within its English context. He provides not only an elaborate critque of current interpretations of Puritan ideology but also an original and insightful portrayal of its dynamism. According to Foster, Puritanism represented a loose and incomplete alliance of progressive Protestants, lay and clerical, aristocratic and humble, who never decided whether they were the vanguard or the remnant. Indeed, in Foster's analysis, changes in New England Puritanism after the first decades of settlement did not indicate secularization and decline but instead were part of a pattern of change, conflict, and accomodation that had begun in England. He views the Puritans' own claims of declension as partisan propositions in an internal controversy as old as the Puritan movement itself. The result of these stresses and adaptations, he argues, was continued vitality in American Puritanism during the second half of the seventeenth century. Foster draws insights from a broad range of souces in England and America, including sermons, diaries, spiritual autobiographies, and colony, town, and court records. Moreover, his presentation of the history of the English and American Puritan movements in tandem brings out the fatal flaws of the former as well as the modest but essential strengths of the latter.
