WILLIAM ALEXANDER LEIDESDORFF
by Sue Bailey Thurman

WITH THE NAME OF William Alexander Leidesdorff, we begin the documentary history of pioneers of Negro origin in California. No nationality or racial minority migrating to the state could wish to have a more distinguished antecedent. Born in the Virgin Islands, the gifted son of William Leidesdorff, a Danish sugar planter, and Anna Marie Spark, a native woman having Negro blood, Leidesdorff found his way to California as early as 1841.

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