African Americans of Monterey County

By Jan Batiste Adkins

People of African heritage have traveled to Monterey since the 1770s, when African Spaniard Alexo Nino, a ship's caulker, traveled with Fr. Junipero Serra to Monterey via the San Antonio. For centuries since Nino, black men and women migrated to the Monterey Bay area in search of a new life. In the 20th century, some African Americans established businesses, bought homes, and encouraged family members and friends to settle in Monterey County. Others pursued military careers. Out of these communities came churches, schools, service organizations, and social groups. For the next century, the history of Monterey County's African American communities have mirrored the nation's slow progress toward integration with triumphs and setbacks that have been captured in images of employment opportunities, churches, business successes, and political struggles.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: Jan 19, 2015
• ISBN: 9781439649053

Jan Batiste Adkins

Jan Batiste Adkins, an educator, lecturer, and author of African Americans of San Francisco, has spent the last several years researching the African American experience in the Bay Area. This book documents the successes of African Americans and encourages schoolchildren and adults to read about their local history. It celebrates the rich African American experience as seen in photographs from area archives, museums, local newspapers, historical societies, libraries, and family oral histories.

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INTRODUCTION

Unknown to many, African Americans have journeyed to communities in Monterey County to explore, work, or establish homes since as early as the 18th century. African Americans of Monterey County examines the history of black explorers, adventurers, and pioneers of the 18th and 19th centuries. Further documentation was done through oral interviews and family stories and photographs of the migration of African Americans in the 20th century to the Monterey Peninsula. This book explores the establishment of a sense of community for African Americans throughout Monterey County. The history of African Americans in Monterey will add to the established history of other ethnic communities within the peninsula and the Salinas Valley. This book depicts the journey of African Americans with the common goal of establishing communities in Monterey County where families could flourish. The story begins with the first known person of African heritage to journey to Monterey.

Since Fr. Junipero Serra led soldiers and priests and Native peoples from Baja to the Monterey Peninsula in 1769, people from various countries have migrated to communities in Monterey County, which was at that time considered Mexican territory. Several African ship workers, such as caulkers (ship maintenance), were aboard a ship during his expedition. Those Africans helped build the Mission of Carmel, among them Alejo Nino. Following Alejo Nino in the 1770s, two governors of the Mexican territory of Alta California in the mid-1830s, Lt. Col. Manuel Victoria and Pio Pico, were of mixed blood and considered mulattos or Afromestizo, meaning of African descent. Even though Mexico maintained a system of classifying people, those of African heritage were neither enslaved nor restricted, as was the case in America.

In the 19th century, many black men and women who were either slaves, runaway slaves, or freedmen journeyed to California. Some were freemen in search of land, gold, or new adventures; some were cowboys or miners who came as slaves to drive cattle or to pan for gold for their owners. Many who arrived as slaves were able to buy their freedom or escape slavery once in the West, since California was not a slave state. Such men as James Beckwourth, James Anthony, Allen Light, Ishmael Williams, and many more lived as freemen in Monterey. However, in rare cases, some, such as Lewis Bardin, lived in Monterey in bondage until after the Civil War. Others migrated to California in search of land to build homes. African Americans from all over America—states in the South, North, and the Midwest—settled in the communities of Monterey, California. Those early African Americans who settled here found the communities more welcoming to those seeking a new life and new opportunities.

During the 20th century, the great migration out of the South brought African Americans to California, increasing the black population by over 400 percent. Others journeyed from the Midwest states of Oklahoma and Arkansas. Some African Americans came from as far as Boston seeking new opportunities. Many African Americans left farms as sharecroppers and migrant workers, or city jobs in the East, to establish new homes and to find new opportunities in the communities of Monterey County. People from around the world were attracted to its mild weather, beautiful coastline, and fishing opportunities. For African Americans, the Monterey Peninsula was a place for employment in the service industries, or, as early as 1902, a place for military service.

African Americans of Monterey County is based on oral histories from early-20th-century black families, including the following: Cooper, Walker, Harris, Tebo, Boutte, Niblett, Gatlin, Smith, and Broussard. These families moved to Monterey in the later part of the 1800s or early 1900s, and, in most cases, their stories are documented in this book. Many members of these families established homes in the communities of Pacific Grove, Monterey, Salinas, and the then unincorporated areas known today as Seaside. After building homes, these pioneers started the first churches for members of the African American community and established social groups and organizations such as the NAACP. They also started a baseball team to compete with black teams in the Negro leagues.

Before World War II, many African American family members who moved to the peninsula encouraged other family members to leave sharecropping and agricultural jobs or unemployment in the South and Midwest and follow them to a new life in the cities of Monterey County. Some family members relocated to the Monterey Bay area as a result of military assignments; others migrated to Monterey to work in the service industry, seeking jobs as domestic workers and drivers. Monterey was known as a tourist destination, and for many African Americans, this meant employment opportunities at the Del Monte Hotel and Hotel San Carlos and in restaurants as cooks and dishwashers. Some found jobs as maids and as domestic workers for wealthy homeowners living in Carmel and Pebble Beach. African Americans worked as drivers and housekeepers for military officers, and others worked in the canneries and at Speckles Sugar Plant.

After Pres. Harry Truman signed Executive Order 9381 in 1948, which integrated the military, many African American servicemen who achieved an officer’s rank or who were married to a spouse of white or Asian ethnicity were assigned to Fort Ord, which resulted in a surge in the black population in the Monterey Peninsula. However, Seaside was affected the most, since many communities of Monterey County had established the practice of racially restrictive covenants. Often, African Americans found it difficult to purchase homes outside of Seaside, the county’s unincorporated areas. Many black military personnel had been educated at established black colleges and universities, and they often retired to Seaside. Among Seaside’s retired military officers were the renowned Tuskegee Airmen and buffalo soldiers.

After World War II, African Americans could rent or buy homes only in Seaside, due to restrictions placed on deeds and mortgages and redlining by bonds; overnight, the city saw a surge in the black population. Life was not easy for black military personnel; they often faced discrimination, and many, after leaving the military,