William Alexander Leidsdorff, Jr (1810-1848)
William Alexander Leidsdorff, Jr (1810-1848) was born on the island of St. Croix in the Danish West Indies. His father was a Danish merchant and his mother, Anne Marie Spark, was of mixed-race ancestry. Leidsdorff became an American citizen in New Orleans in 1834 and served as a ship’s captain for several years. He emigrated to California in 1841, opened several successful businesses including a hotel in San Francisco and obtained Mexican citizenship in 1844. The following year Leidsdorff was appointed US Vice Consul to Mexico. This diseño, or map, from the collections of the California State Archives shows the 35,000 acres of land Leidsdorff received as a grant from the Mexican government in 1844. Known as Rancho Río de los Americanos and located in what is now Sacramento County, the value of this land increased greatly after the discovery of gold. Leidsdorff’s death at the age of 38 in 1848 without any children or direct heirs meant that the question of inheritance would be decided over the course of many years and several complicated court proceedings. In 2004 the California State Legislature recognized Leidsdorff as “the first African-American diplomat in history” and the “African Founding Father of California.
