Mary Ellen Pleasant  

Mary Ellen Pleasant was born a slave around 1814, on a plantation near Augusta, Georgia.  In her own memoir, she claimed that her mother was a voodoo priestess, descended from a long line of “voodoo queens” of Santo Domingo.  She said that her father was John H, Pleasance, the White son of a governor of Virginia.  It was a fact that Mary Ellen was very fair-skinned and throughout much of her life she “passed” as White.  

According to her (there is some controversy over the accuracy of the account) at the age of nine or ten Mary Ellen was sold to Americus Price of New Orleans, who sent her to a convent to be educated, then sent her to Cincinnati to work for a friend of his, Louis A. Williams.  She was told that after she worked for a time for Williams in Cincinnati, she would be freed.  However, Williams’ wife became fond of the girl and Williams wanted to be rid of her, so he sent her to work as an indentured servant to a Quaker merchant in Nantucket.  In Nantucket, Mary Ellen learned about the principles of business in the general store owned by the Quaker family, and she also adopted Quaker beliefs concerning the equality of human beings in the eyes of God, and abolition of slavery.  Mary Ellen developed a warm and loving relationship with the Quaker family.  

Her indentured servitude ended around 1841 and Mary Ellen Williams went to Boston where she became a tailor’s assistant and church soloist.  She married James W. Smith, a Cuban merchant, whose White father had left him a plantation near Harper’s Ferry, Virginia.  Smith, a wealthy man, was a light-skinned person who was also able to “pass” as White.  He was involved with the Underground Railroad, and he and Mary Ellen helped hundreds of slaves escape to freedom.  Smith died suddenly in the mid-eighteen forties, leaving Mary Ellen about $45,000, which he wanted to be used toward abolitionist causes.  Mary Ellen’s detractors spread gossip that she was responsible for Smith’s death, but nothing came of these rumors.  

The widowed Mary Ellen remarried, this time to a man named John James (“JJ”) Pleasants (no connection to her father, who had a similar surname; JJ Pleasants’ actual surname may have been Christophe).  She continued her work with the Underground Railroad of her own volition.  It was said that she would travel south in disguise (a delivery man with a wagon, etc.) to help slaves to escape.  Her courageous exploits earned her a price on her head, and after a few years, authorities in the slave-owning states were hot on her trail.  

Around 1850, the Pleasants traveled to Nantucket to hide out for a while, and then continued to New Orleans where she became acquainted with a “Voodoo Queen,” Marie LaVeaux, who was an influential figure in New Orleans society.  Mary Ellen remained in New Orleans for some time, studying voodoo with LaVeaux.  Her primary interest was said to be methods of manipulating rich people to benefit the poor and oppressed.  Her husband continued west to see if San Francisco would be a good place for a new start.  

In 1852 the slavers seemed to be getting too close for comfort, so Mary Ellen took the four-month long voyage around Cape Horn to join JJ in San Francisco.  San Francisco was a Gold Rush boomtown in those days, with a lot of rough edges.  Mary Ellen Pleasant used her business acumen to run restaurants and boarding houses. (The ratio of men to women in San Francisco was six to one, and boardinghouses were a popular living option for many single men.)  

Pleasant lived a double life, as well.  Some discretion was necessary for her success, as California law allowed for African American people without emancipation papers to be captured and returned to slavery in the South; Mary Ellen Pleasant had no papers.  In her role as White businesswoman Ellen Smith, she made social inroads with San Francisco’s wealthiest citizens.  She had a particularly fruitful 30-year business relationship with Scotsman Thomas Bell, the director of the Bank of California, whom she had met on the voyage around Cape Horn to the West Coast.    

In the African American community, she was known as Mrs. Pleasant, a philanthropist who used her financial resources to help new arrivals obtain a foothold, and to provide legal assistance to fight discriminatory laws.  

In 1858 Pleasant returned to the East to act as an ally and financial backer of abolitionist John Brown, who was planning his historic raid on the federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, designed to force an end to slavery.   Pleasant, in disguise, rode ahead of the raiding party to notify slaves in the area that the party was coming. The action failed and Brown was hanged for treason, but Pleasant escaped and returned to California.  

A few years later, after the Civil War and the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, Mary Ellen Pleasant was able to drop her White persona and let everyone know that she was, in fact, African American.  She provided financial assistance for Black people challenging the Jim Crow laws in California, and fought a legal battle to guarantee Black Californians the right to testify in court.  In 1868 she brought a lawsuit against two San Francisco trolley car lines whose conductors had refused to allow her to ride.  Her suit went to the California Supreme Court, where she won the right for all African Americans to ride the streetcars. 

As Pleasant grew in power and influence, she attracted the attention of the media and various detractors, who began to refer to her as “Mammy Pleasant” behind her back.  There were many rumors about her, concerning the way she obtained influence over San Francisco’s richest families—learning their secrets through African American servants whom she had helped to obtain the positions, then blackmailing the families, was something that many people thought she did.  She was also said to practice voodoo to control people, and people claimed she had “hypnotic powers”.  She ran a boardinghouse for her young female “protégés” who socialized with the wealthy and powerful men who knew Pleasant through business dealings; some accounts referred to her as a madam.  Rumors circulated regarding mysterious deaths of several people connected with her, but she was never charged with a crime.  In 1935 a San Francisco newspaper reported that a family acquaintance of Thomas Bell, the banker, swore before he died that Pleasant had given Bell drugged wine and pushed him over a banister to his death.  Afterwards, Bell’s house was said to be haunted.  

In any case, Mary Ellen Pleasant was one of the most influential women in San Francisco’s early history.  She increased her fortune through speculation on mining ventures and investment in other businesses.  African Americans referred to her as “the Black City Hall.”  Pleasant died in San Francisco at the age of 89.  While accounts of her life are full of controversy, there is no question that she was a major force in San Francisco’s early days, and was the first powerful person to fight for the civil rights of Black Californians. [] 

5.9.05
Republished

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