Black Pioneers in San Diego: 1880-1920

Actually, the black presence in what is now San Diego County was established long before whites from the United States began arriving in numbers. During the Spanish and Mexi can periods blacks, who had accompanied Cortez in 1519 and had been slaves until 1829, as well as mixed-blood Californios were found at all levels of society. They had been assimilated into the population of Mexican-ruled California. In fact, Pio Pico, the last Mexican governor of California, was part black -- his grandmother was described as a "mulatta" in a census taken in 1790. The first known black from the United States to set foot in San Diego was a sailor named John Brown who in 1804, while the naval vessel O'Cain was anchored in San Diego Harbor, jumped ship and successfully deserted.

When California entered the Union in 1850 only eight blacks in a total population of 798 resided in the county. In 1870 there were only seventeen, but by 1880 there were fifty-five. The great majority came from the rural South, which is noteworthy in that proportionately fewer blacks migrating to other parts of California came from the former slave states.