![]() (Security Pacific National Bank Collection/Los Angeles Public Library Collection)īy the 1870s, Ballard had fallen on hard times. Along with Biddy Mason, he helped found the First A.M.E church and he became one of the first Black men to vote in L.A. He soon established himself as a successful businessman, buying and selling real estate. Colman explains that Ballard was probably born enslaved and came to Los Angeles in the 1850s. In John Ballard and the African American Community in Los Angeles, 1850-1905, author Patty R. In Los Angeles, Black pioneer John Ballard also claimed a homestead after a lifetime of firsts. According to the National Parks Service, pioneering filmmaker Oscar Micheaux drew on his experience as the only Black man homesteading in South Dakota to write and direct The Homesteader a 1919 film thought to be the first feature by a Black director. Many formerly enslaved people who came out West to build new lives also became homesteaders. One of their original cabins is preserved at the Placerita Canyon Nature Center. Today, the Placerita Canyon State Park sits on land once owned by the homesteading Walker family, which had come from the French Alps. According to Sides, members of the famous Verdugo, Figueroa and Noriega families settled around the Santa Clarita River while Italian, Polish and Jewish families homesteaded near Placerita Canyon. In Southern California, many descendants of Californios, the Spanish-Mexican aristocracy who had ruled during California's colonial days, attempted to recover their families' lost fortunes through homesteading. The Homestead Act was the most sweeping act of American social policy before the Social Security Act/New Deal, and it fulfilled an earlier Jeffersonian vision of a more egalitarian society based on universal property ownership," Sides says. "Homesteading was a tough way to live, nothing romantic about it, but it gave many struggling Americans as well as recent immigrants from Ireland, Germany and Mexico an opportunity to own land. Also barred were the indigenous people from whom this "public land" had been stolen, since they too were barred from becoming American citizens. to build railroads but had been barred from becoming citizens, were unable to participate in homesteading. Due to racism, Asian immigrants, who had come to the U.S. (California Historical Society/University of Southern California, Libraries)ĭespite the high cost of entry, which made it impossible for many people to participate, the program was open to a large number of Americans including Black people, women and most immigrants. It meant hard work but my daughter is young and brave, and she only laughed at all my objections." After securing the paper establishing our right to the property, we went out to build a home. So we decided that the mountains was the place for us. My daughter, who has a college education, secured employment, but her health failed and she decided to give it up. ![]() "When my daughter and I came to Los Angeles we were absolute strangers," Friederich told the Los Angeles Times. "I admire your courage," he said, "but to be perfectly honest, I think you are attempting the impossible." County, the women pointed to two parcels of unclaimed land in Topanga Canyon, amid the wilds of the Santa Monica Mountains.Īccording to historian Josh Sides, author of the new book Backcountry Ghosts: California Homesteaders and the Making of a Dubious Dream, the clerk doubted the women could survive on the unforgiving homestead. Studying the Land Office Clerk's massive four-page, 5' x 5' map of L.A. Louis where Elizabeth had read about free government land available in California through the 1862 Homestead Act. ![]() In 1906, a slight, gray-haired Swiss immigrant named Elizabeth Friederich and her daughter, Lizzie, appeared at the Los Angeles Land Office at 5th Street and Central Avenue. ![]()
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