today we're looking at biddy mason
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for more resources that go along with many of the bellringer videos biddy mason was a woman
that was born into slavery then later in life was able to break free from slavery and became one of
the wealthiest african-american entrepreneurs in the american west she was born bridgette mason
but she went by bitty now she was born in august of 1818 in either mississippi or georgia
again records of enslaved people's births were not accurately recorded
so many enslaved people did not know their exact birth date or even exactly where they were born
what is clear is that when she was very young she was taken away from her parents and forced
to work on other plantations in south carolina and georgia in the 1840s when biddy would have been
somewhere in her early to mid-20s she was sold to robert mays smith and forced to move to his
plantation in mississippi by this time biddy had become very skilled in the use of herbal medicines
and in being a midwife which a midwife is someone who is trained to help women in childbirth
in fact while on smith's plantation in mississippi biddy had three children of her own in 1847 robert
smith's family converted to the mormon faith and it was right around this time that a large group
of mormons had been attacked in nauvoo illinois and their leader brigham young called for mormons
to move west and establish a new mormon community remember it's at the same time that manifest
destiny and western migration was occurring in america and thousands of people were moving west
robert smith biddy's owner decided that his family was going to follow the mormon exodus to the west
and that he was going to bring his enslaved people with him bitty would walk seventeen hundred miles
with with a wagon train moving west while on the journey biddy had to break down and set up camp
serve as a cook herd cattle plus take care of children on the journey by 1848 the smith family
along with biddy and other enslaved people had settled in the salt lake valley in utah
in 1851 robert smith decided to move his family to california this is where biddy would get her
opportunity at freedom in the compromise of 1850 california had entered the union as a free state
so slavery was illegal there but robert smith made sure none of the enslaved people he owned were
made aware of this including biddy for the next few years biddy remained under the rule of smith
in 1856 with the help of free african americans living in the area law enforcement in the area
was made aware of how smith was holding enslaved people in bondage the los angeles county sheriff
confronted smith and gave him a court order to free any enslaved people in his possession
biddy then petitioned the court in los angeles to give her freedom and on january 21st 1856 the
court issued a ruling freeing biddy along with 13 members of her family from slavery
interestingly when she was freed she had no last name she was only known as biddy she decided to
take the last name of mason from amasa mason lymon who was a leader in the mormon church
mason then began to work in los angeles as a midwife and helped deliver hundreds of children
during a smallpox outbreak in los angeles in 1862 she used her skills with medicine to help save the
lives of hundreds of citizens during the time she was working she was very frugal and savvy
with her money she earned and she ended up saving somewhere around three hundred thousand dollars
which was a lot of money back then she was one of the first african-american women to purchase
land in los angeles she gave to many charitable organizations and helped to feed and shelter
the poor she donated land to help build the first african methodist episcopal church of los angeles
which was los angeles first african-american church for the remainder of her year she
continued to care for others until her death on january 15th of 1891 at the age of 72. bitty mason
is an example of someone who had to endure terrible conditions and was mistreated on a
scale that few know yet when she did get her freedom she used her time and her resources
to help everyone she could so with that hopefully you learned something and thanks for watching
you