Biddy Mason – From Enslaved Mormon Pioneer to Free Philanthropist

Biddy Mason’s life is a powerful testimony of perseverance, resilience, and quiet resistance. Born into slavery in Georgia in 1818, she was never given a choice about the course of her life—but she made powerful choices when finally given the chance. Her story intersects with the early Mormon Church in a way that many today are unaware of: Biddy Mason was a Black Mormon pioneer, brought to Utah Territory against her will as property of a Latter-day Saint convert.

Her journey exposes an often-sanitized truth about the early Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its entanglement with slavery and white supremacy, even as it sought refuge from persecution.

Born into Bondage

Mason was born in Mississippi in 1818. She was given the name Bridget without a surname, and was later nicknamed Biddy. She was owned by slaveholders in Georgia and South Carolina before being returned to Mississippi. Robert Marion Smith, her last owner, was a Mississippi Mormon convert. He decided to follow the call of the church and moved his family and enslaved persons to the West. There he would help establish a Mormon community in what would become Salt Lake City, Utah. At this time Utah was still a part of Mexico.

NPS: Bridget “Biddy” Mason
https://www.nps.gov/people/biddymason.htm

Bridget “Biddy” Mason was born into slavery in Hancock County, Georgia. Like many enslaved people, her early life was undocumented and dehumanized by the system that bound her. She was sold several times, eventually becoming the property of Robert Mays Smith, a Mississippi plantation owner. Smith and his family joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the 1840s, during the faith’s southern missionary outreach that often emphasized patriarchal order and obedience, without challenging the practice of slavery.

In 1847, Brigham Young led the Mormon migration to Utah, and in 1848, Robert Smith joined that journey—taking his entire household, including enslaved people like Biddy, on the 1,700-mile trek westward. The journey was grueling, and Biddy walked most of the way, tending to livestock and delivering babies (she was a skilled midwife), all while caring for her own children. She was not a free woman making a pilgrimage of faith; she was forced to follow, held in servitude by members of a church that today denies having condoned slavery.

Enslaved in Zion

Utah Territory, despite being north of the Missouri Compromise line, was not a land of freedom for Black people. Under Brigham Young’s governance, Utah legalized slavery in 1852. In a territorial address that same year, Young declared:

In 1848, Mason, then 30, walked 1,700 miles behind a 300-wagon caravan. The caravan eventually arrived in the Holladay-Cottonwood area of the Salt Lake Valley. Along the route, Mason was responsible for setting up and breaking camp; cooking the meals; herding cattle; and serving as a midwife. She also took care of her three young daughters, aged 10, 4, and a newborn.

NPS: Bridget “Biddy” Mason
https://www.nps.gov/people/biddymason.htm

“In as much as we believe in the Bible … we must believe in slavery. This colored race have been subjected to severe curses which they have brought upon themselves.”

Brigham Young

Statements like these justified the continued enslavement of Black people by Mormon settlers and laid the theological foundation for racial discrimination that persisted in the church for generations.

Though Biddy Mason lived in Utah for only a few years, those years mattered. They demonstrate the cognitive dissonance within a religion that preached divine equality while actively upholding systems of human bondage.

The Path to Freedom

The Smith family, similar to the Flake family, were asked to resettle in California and build Zion there. The Flake’s gave Green Flake, as a slave, to Brigham Young as their tithing payment. While the Flake family left Green behind so as not to jeopardize their property, the Smith family opted to take the risk. In 1851, Robert Smith moved his household to San Bernardino, California, a Mormon colony. California was a free state, and by law, slavery was not permitted there. The church speaks highly of this settlement in southern California and merely mentions that the “African-American servants” who came with the settlers “ultimately received their freedom.” They don’t however, mention any details about this freedom. They allude to these slaves being willingly granted freedom due to California law.

Whitewashed Church History

In church publications, the saints and settlers are praised for their true community and for being a place “where all were welcome and all worked together.” This glosses over many points of the story for those “African-American servants” who were still held as slaves in a free state.

In the fall of 1851, the San Bernardino Valley was transformed from a Mexican rancho into the largest predominantly Anglo-American settlement in the California southland with the arrival of some 400 Latter-day Saints. They possessed a unique commitment to their new community forged by persecution and pioneering challenges. Some had traveled across the plains with President Brigham Young. Others had come west around Cape Horn to San Francisco on the ship Brooklyn. Some were Mormon Battalion veterans, who had marched thousands of miles for God and country. The group also included an entire branch of Southern converts, some of whom had given up plantations and come west, bringing with them their African-American servants, including slaves who ultimately received their freedom. This diverse group of colonists, unified by their faith, was well suited to help establish a community where all were welcome and all worked together. …

“All Are Alike unto God”

The new community was ethnically diverse. In addition to the LDS pioneers of European descent, there were African-Americans, including colony midwives Biddy Mason and Hannah Smith, who was noted for her daring rides on horseback in the middle of the night to “catch babies.” …

In 1857, when a federal army threatened to invade Utah, President Young requested that colonists from outlying areas return to Utah to help deal with the crisis…. Clearly, these early pioneers made some of the most significant contributions in California history…. The more significant but less tangible aspect of the economic success of early San Bernardino was the colonists’ belief in the brotherhood of man, which allowed the spirit of true community to thrive….

Today, descendants of the early African-American pioneers and Native Americans from the Serrano and Cahuilla tribes also recount stories of good will between their forefathers and the Latter-day Saint pioneers. The enduring strength of such family traditions is a testament to the community spirit of the San Bernardino colony. Perhaps Mary Ann Phelps Rich, wife of Elder Charles Rich, best described the sense of community when she wrote that the colony residents “worked almost as one family, they were so united.” Historian Edward Leo Lyman, great-great-grandson of Elder Lyman, noted that “few instances in the history of the American West would have better exemplified true community spirit and enterprise than San Bernardino at that time.”

Marilyn Mills, True Community: Latter-day Saints in San Bernardino, 1851–1857, Ensign Feb 2003.
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2003/02/true-community-latter-day-saints-in-san-bernardino-1851-1857

This narrative is deeply problematic and whitewashes the experiences of enslaved Black people—particularly Biddy Mason—under Mormon settler-colonial rule in California, especially in a state where slavery was explicitly outlawed.

The story of the Mormon settlement in San Bernardino, California, as presented by the church, is deeply problematic in its portrayal of enslaved Black individuals—particularly Biddy Mason—and its whitewashed interpretation of early LDS pioneer history. Claims that the African Americans brought to California by Southern converts were “servants, including slaves who ultimately received their freedom,” is a misleading framing and minimizes the violence and illegality of slavery in a free state. Biddy Mason did not simply “receive” her freedom; she was held in bondage for years by Mormon pioneers in violation of California law and had to courageously resist her enslavers by secretly seeking legal help. In 1856, through the court case Mason v. Smith, she successfully secured her freedom and that of 13 others. Her liberation was not a gift from the community—it was a legal victory against it.

The church describes the San Bernardino colony as “a community where all were welcome and all worked together,” which blatantly ignores the reality that some of its members were enslaved. Enslavement, especially in a state where it was outlawed, directly contradicts the ideal of a unified, inclusive community. To portray it otherwise is to romanticize oppression. Furthermore, the mention of Biddy Mason solely as a “colony midwife” erases her powerful legacy as a woman who resisted her oppressors, and later became a landowner, philanthropist, and founded the First AME Church of Los Angeles. Reducing her to a supporting role in a harmonious pioneer tale is both historically dishonest and morally unjust.

The most troubling aspect of the narrative is the invocation of “good will” and “true community spirit” between Mormon settlers and both enslaved and Indigenous people. While white descendants may pass down stories of individual kindness, such anecdotes do not excuse or undo the systemic violence and racial hierarchy that defined the era. It is offensive to hold up a community that defied state anti-slavery laws as a beacon of moral unity. Community spirit is not meaningful if it is built on the backs of enslaved labor and maintained through the dehumanization of others.

Honest History

A more honest telling of this history would center Biddy Mason as a symbol of resistance, not passive inclusion. She represents the strength and courage of Black Americans who fought against religiously justified bondage. Her story is not one of peaceful assimilation into a unified community—it is one of triumph over that community’s injustice. Any narrative that ignores or downplays these facts perpetuates harm and prevents real reckoning with the truth.

Robert Smith attempted to keep Biddy and her daughters enslaved, attempting to move them all to Texas, where slavery was still legal. Biddy learned from other Black residents in California that she had rights. Quietly, she prepared to challenge her status. With the help of local free Black citizens and white abolitionist allies, Biddy Mason filed a petition for habeas corpus in 1856.

In 1851, Smith moved his family once again. This time a 150-wagon caravan headed for San Bernardino, California. Ignoring Brigham Young’s warning that slavery was illegal in California, Smith brought Mason and other enslaved people to the new Mormon community. Along the way, Mason met Charles H. and Elizabeth Flake Rowan, a free black couple. The Rowan’s, and others, urged her to legally contest her slave status once she reached California.

Fearing that he would lose his enslaved persons, Smith decided to move to Texas, a slave state. They were prevented from leaving by the Owens family. One of Robert Owens’ sons was romantically involved with Mason’s 17 year old daughter. Owens told the L.A. County Sheriff that slaves were being illegally held. The sheriff gathered a posse and apprehended Smith’s wagon train in Cajon Pass, California.

NPS: Bridget “Biddy” Mason
https://www.nps.gov/people/biddymason.htm

Smith tried to hide the enslaved women and children from the law but the court found them and ordered a hearing. Smith claimed they were moving to Texas of their own free will, and must not have been honest with them of his intentions, since when the judge spoke with Biddy in his judge chambers, since people of color were not allowed to testify against a white person she didn’t seem to be aware of her free will. During the trial, Smith claimed his slaves were treated as family members. The judge asked Biddy privately if she was freely moving to Texas with the family and she stated she feared the trip.

I have always done what I am told to do; I have always feared this trip to Texas since I first heard of it. Mr. Smith told me I would be as free in Texas as here.

Biddy Mason, 1856. Private Testimony to Judge Hayes in Mason v Smith Court Proceedings.

Her poignant testimony swayed the Judge and he was able to ascertain that Biddy was not informed or interested in moving to Texas. Judge Hayes ruled in her favor, declaring Biddy and her children “free forever.”

And it further appearing by satisfactory proof to the judge here, that all of the said persons of color are entitled to their freedom, and are free and cannot be held in slavery or involuntary servitude, it is therefore argued that they are entitled to their freedom and are free forever. 

Benjamin Hayes, District judge

From Mississippi to California: A Black Pioneer Slave

On August 15, 1818, a slave named Bridget was born in the deep South, probably in Georgia. Most of her life people called her Biddy. She was forbid den to learn to read or write, as were most slaves, but she managed to gain a good knowledge of livestock, herbal medicine, nursing, and midwifery, skills that were useful to her owners and that would later enable her to earn her living.

Biddy became the property of Robert Marion Smith and his wife, Rebecca Crosby Smith, owners of a plantation in Mississippi. The Smiths had six children, whose births Biddy probably attended, and Rebecca Crosby Smith often needed nursing care, which Biddy later told relatives and friends she provided. It is likely Biddy was also required to do heavier work in the cotton fields and with livestock. In addition, Biddy added to her master’s wealth by bearing children who became slaves. Biddy’s first, Ellen, was born October 15, 1838, when Biddy was twenty; her second, Ann, about six years later; and her third, Harriet, four years later.

By 1847, Robert M. Smith, who had become a convert to the Mormon religion, wanted to migrate to the Utah territory to help to build up the Kingdom of the Saints in Salt Lake City. On March 10, 1848, Smith joined a party of Mississippi Mormons who gathered with ox teams in Fulton, in the north eastern part of the state, and headed north and west to the Salt Lake Basin, traveling by wagon and riverboat. Smith’s party included nine white persons and ten slaves, in three wagons, plus two yoke of oxen, eight mules, seven milch cows, and one horse. There were fifty-six whites and thirty four slaves in the larger Mississippi party, according to John Brown, a Mormon guide whose autobiography detailed the arduous trip. In rain, hurricane, and drought, Brown led the pioneers north through Lexington and Paris, Tennessee, and Fort Mayfield and Paducah, Kentucky. Catching the National Road, they journeyed west to St. Louis, Warrenton, Keytesville, and Plattsburgh, Missouri, Council Bluffs, Iowa, Grand Island, Nebraska, and then on to Fort Laramie, Fort Bridger, and finally Deseret (Salt Lake), where they arrived in late November 1847. The party rushed to complete log shelters, so they could move into them as December snows began to fall.

On this journey, Biddy was in charge of herding the livestock behind the wagons. With a ten-year-old daughter, a four-year-old daughter, and a baby daughter on the breast, she walked these thousands of miles in about seven months. Her family demands and the demands of the livestock may have been supplemented by calls for her services as a midwife. Another slave in Smith’s household, a woman named Hannah, who was four years younger than Biddy, was pregnant about the time the journey took place. Three white women in Biddy’s party also gave birth to sons on the journey, according to John Brown, and there may have been other births of daughters, as well as births to the slaves.

Brown’s accounts of the deliveries convey the atmosphere a competent midwife would have struggled against: “[The boat] . . . ran aground and stuck fast and the river was falling … they finally threw some 12 of the animals overboard, after which the boat floated … John Bankhead’s wife [gave] … birth to a fine son on board the boat.” Or “… we reached the Black Hills, where we found little or no feed, and our cattle began to die. Within a few miles of the La Prela River my ox-wagon broke down, where it remained all night. Next morning, August 29th, my wife gave birth to a fine son. . . ,” Whether or not Biddy was in attendance as a midwife at these births on this journey, her trip surely ranks as one of the most demanding a pioneer could be asked to make, since she was a single parent, a nursing mother, and a slave expected to work for her keep and to walk behind the animals while others rode.

Between 1848 and 1851, Smith’s household, including his slaves, settled in Utah in the Salt Lake Basin. The Mormons were generally outspoken in their belief in the inferiority of Blacks and women. Biddy and Hannah were not recognized as independent family heads, but remained with Smith’s household as slaves. Given the Mormon practice of polygamy, Black women’s status as slaves or indentured servants of a Southern master not only remained low, but there was also a religious justification for any sexual exploitation a master wished to enforce.

Fortunately for Biddy and her family, the Salt Lake Basin was not Smith’s final stopping place. Three years after their arrival, a Mormon wagon train of 150 wagons left Utah to establish a new outpost in California at San Bernardino. This settlement was intended to become a way station for Mormons coming by ship around the Horn to San Pedro, and then journeying overland to Salt Lake. Robert Smith joined the San Bernardino pioneers, along with his slaves, who now included Biddy, Hannah, and their eight children. Again Biddy herded livestock behind the wagons.

Freedom

During their time in the San Bernardino area, Biddy got to know not only Mormons but also a number of free Blacks who had settled there after California was admitted to the Union as a free state in 1850. Among them were Elizabeth Flake Rowan and her husband, Charles H. Rowan, who were also in the caravan from Salt Lake arriving in June 1851. The status of the Black slaves in Smith’s household?by 1855, Hannah and Biddy, their ten children, and one grandchild of Hannah’s—must have been discussed with the free Blacks, since the slaves’ legal position was much strengthened by California’s statehood. After the Mexican War, a California constitution was drafted in 1849, forbidding slavery. The next two years passed with endless bickering in Congress between pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions until California was admitted to the Union as a free state in September, 1850. Congress’ passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in the same year was a concession to Southern slave owners. Thus, the years when Biddy trekked across the continent, 1848 to 1851, were years of transition from Mexican rule, to military rule, and to statehood in California, with all three types of law administered simultaneously and in confusion. Courts were generally more sympathetic to whites than people of color, and to slaveholders rather than slaves.

Although California’s state constitution prohibited slavery after September 1850, slave owners who had arrived before that date were permitted to keep their slaves as indentured servants. Other slaveowners simply remained unchallenged, or won their cases in court. Because the Fugitive Slave Act made it easy for masters to recapture escaped slaves, bounty hunters seeking runaway slaves advertised openly in local papers such as the Los Angeles Star through the 1850s. Former slaves who had been freed by their masters were also subject to harassment. According to the Alta California of April 20,1853, “a person by the name of Brown attempted to have a Negro girl arrested in our town a few days since as a fugitive slave, but was taken all a-back by the girl’s lawyer, F.W. Thomas, producing her Freedom Papers. Brown’s father set the girl at liberty in 1851, and it is thought by many that the son knew the fact, and thought to catch the girl without her Freedom Papers but fortunately for her he did not.”

Despite the legal and administrative confusion, sentiment in California against slavery grew after Robert Smith became concerned, and late in 1855, he began to make preparations to depart for Texas, a slave state, taking Biddy and the rest of her family. Hannah, large with child, was about to deliver her eighth baby. Most of the members of Smith’s household camped in a canyon in the Santa Monica Mountains, readying themselves for the trip, waiting until Hannah was ready to travel. Possibly Smith was hiding from those who wished to stop him.

Two free Black men of Los Angeles, Charles Owens and Manuel Pepper, wanted to prevent Smith’s departure, because Charles was in love with Biddy’s seventeen-year-old daughter Ellen, and Manuel was in love with Hannah’s seventeen year-old daughter Ann. Biddy Mason had confided to Charles Owens that she was extremely worried about Smith’s plans to take them to Texas, and Charles told his father, a formidable character who decided to intervene. Bob Owens, a well-known Black citizen of Los Angeles, was a trader in horses and mules who had crossed from Texas by ox team in 1850. He ran a flourishing corral on San Pedro Street, where he and the ten vaqueros who worked for him broke wild animals supplied by ranchos near San Diego and sold them to new settlers. (According to his grandson, “Many a mule half broken to the saddle returned to the ranch after dumping its rider,” perhaps to be resold to the next newcomer disembarking from the San Francisco steamer, Orizaba, looking for a place to buy an outfit.) Bob Owens was also the owner of real estate, and in him Biddy found a respected ally, a free Black businessman who was also a cowboy not afraid of a good fight. Another free Black who showed her concern was Elizabeth Flake Rowan of San Bernardino.

Between them, Robert Owens and Elizabeth Rowan were able to get the law in both Los Angeles County and San Bernardino County interested in the case. One or two sheriffs, plus Robert Owens and his vaqueros, swooped down on the camp in the mountains and challenged Smith’s right to take his slaves out of California. The challenge took the form of a petition for a writ of habeas corpus by Biddy and her family. Most of the members of Biddy’s family were put “under charge of the Sheriff of this county for their protection” in Los Angeles.

Biddy and her family were stationed at the County Jail, under the eye of “Turnkey” Frank Carpenter, who later gave evidence at the trial of their fear of their master. Benjamin Hayes, Judge of the District Court of the First Judicial District, State of California, County of Los Angeles, presided over the case from January 19 to January 21, 1856, and summarized the issues in his disposition of the case, quoted in an article for the Los Angeles Star: “the said Robert Smith is persuading and enticing and seducing said persons of color to go out of the State of California.” He noted that none of the slaves could read or write, and all were ignorant of the differences between the laws of California and of Texas. While slaves in California were free by law, it was impossible to be free and Black in Texas, since Texas law forbade the importation of free Blacks into the state, and Texans would have regarded them as slaves.

The petitioners stated that they were free. The defendant, Robert Smith, represented in court by Alonzo Thomas, argued that the petitioners were members of his family, that they “left Mississippi with their own consent, rather than remain there, and he has supported them ever since, subjecting them to no greater control than his own children, and not holding them as slaves; it is his intention to remove to Texas and take them with him.” Furthermore, he argued that “Hannah and her children are well disposed to remain with him, and the petition was filed without their knowledge and consent.” He added, “It is understood, between said Smith and said persons that they will return to said State of Texas with him voluntarily, as a portion of his family”

Judge Hayes knew that the law of California was perfectly clear: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, unless for the punishment of crimes, shall ever be tolerated in this State.” Hayes noted, “Although, then there ought to be no difficulty in the matter in hand, it is not to be disguised that, in some vague manner, a sort of right is claimed over, at least, a portion of these petitioners. It is styled a guardianship, likened to ‘patriarchal’ rule, and by a few strenuously insisted upon—so much so, as to incommode and obstruct a public officer in the discharge of his duty.” This refers to Smith’s claims to legal guardianship, as well as the attempts of one Hartwell Cottrell, a member of Smith’s party, perhaps his overseer, to get two of the Black children to go to Texas during the court proceedings. Described as “unscrupulous” by the judge, who saw him as a kidnapper, Cottrell took off for Texas one step ahead of the law.

There was a hint of Mormonism in Smith’s advocacy of patriarchal guardianship, and possibly a use of the concept of plural wives from Utah to justify Smith’s position. The Los Angeles Star described Hannah as Biddy’s sister and also as “… a woman nearly white, whose children are all nearly so, one of whose daughters (of eight years) cannot easily be distinguished from the white race.” In addition to being Smith’s slaves, some of Hannah’s children may indeed have been his own offspring, or perhaps Cottrell’s. The judge observed: “… the said Robert Smith from his past relation to them as members of his family does possess and exercise over them an undue influence in respect to the matter of their said removal inso far that they have been in duress and not in possession and exercise of their free will so as to give a binding consent to any engagement or arrange ment with him.”

To understand Biddy’s courage in going to court against her master, it is first necessary to think of her lifetime in Mississippi, her complete immersion in the culture of the southern plantation, where physical torments such as whipping and being hosed down in brine would have been common punishment for both male and female slaves’ minor infractions. Even pregnant slaves were routinely whipped, but in special pits to protect the fetus. Any slave’s loved ones could be put on the block—husband, wife, child—and sold, never to be seen again. In this context, all slaves’ courage in risking a public test of white men’s justice is striking. It is also important to note that after 1850, California law prohibited Blacks, Mulattoes, and Indians from testifying against white persons in either criminal or civil cases. They were present in court as petitioners, but had to remain silent.

Biddy served as head of the extended family throughout the trial. Although she could not speak in court, when questioned by the Judge in his private chambers, with Abel Steams and Dr. J.B. Winston present as two disinterested “gentlemen witnesses,” she said, “I have always done what I have been told to do; I always feared this trip to Texas, since I first heard of it. Mr. Smith told me I would be just as free in Texas as here.” Hannah’s daughter Ann, questioned apart from Biddy, also asked the judge, “Will I be as free in Texas as here?” a question the legal experts found a poign ant response to Smith’s bluster that all would travel willingly. “No man of any experience in life will believe that it was ever true, or ever intended to be realized—this pleasant prospect of freedom in Texas,” the judge concluded. He observed that Smith had only “$500 and an outfit,” that he had “his own white family to take care of,” and seemed to have no reason to transport fourteen slaves so far—unless he intended to sell them.

The biggest mistake Smith and his lawyer made was bribing the lawyer for Biddy and the other petitioners, offering him $100 to quit the case on the second morning of the trial without telling his clients. Possibly threats were uttered as well. The lawyer (unnamed in the Star article) slipped a note to Judge Hayes and to the opposing counsel saying he was off the case. Biddy and the children, abandoned in the courtroom without any idea of what was going on, aroused the sympathy of the judge: “I was pained by an occurrence not to be passed by unnoticed. There was a motion to dismiss the proceedings, based on a note from the petitioners’ attorney to the attorney on the opposite side, in these words: I, as attorney for the petitioners, being no longer authorized to prosecute the writ, and being discharged by the same and the partner who are responsible to me, decline further to prosecute the matter.” The judge then subpoenaed and examined the attorney, and denounced his lack of legal propriety.

Accounts of the trial suggest that Smith probably threatened both Biddy and Hannah, as well as their lawyer. Judge Hayes tried to establish whether or not any of the slaves consented to Smith’s wish to go to Texas. Ultimately he decided that the “speaking silence of the petitioners” must be listened to, and that Hannah, in particular, had probably
been the subject of threats. “Nothing else—except force—can account rationally for a favorable disposition in Hannah, if she has had any.” The Judge decided “… as to the immediate cause of her hesitance—not her silence (for her very hesitation spoke a volume)—she is entitled to be listened to when, breathing freer, she declares she never wished to leave, and prays for protection.” The judge saw Biddy as the leader of the group and noted: “It is remarkable that the defendant does not pretend that Biddy and her three children are ‘well-disposed’ to remain with him.” Hayes believed that Biddy had Hannah’s consent from the beginning in seeking freedom for the whole group. Ultimately the Judge decided that “all of the said persons of color are entitled to their freedom and are free forever.”

Court costs were to be paid by Robert Smith, who, on Monday, January 21, 1856, failed to appear, and this concluded the legal side of the proceedings. Smith could have appealed this local verdict to the California Supreme Court, where it is likely he would have won the support of conservative justices, such as Hugh C. Murray. However, presumably because of his bribery of the opposing council, and Cottrell’s attempted kidnapping of the children, Smith left town. Biddy Mason and her family were delivered from slavery, unlike other slaves in this decade who struggled with the courts and lost.

This escape was based on Judge Hayes’ straight forward interpretation of the California constitution in 1856, a year before the U.S. Supreme Court would have invalidated Biddy’s right to protest in court at all. In 1857, in the Dred Scott decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled a slave was not a person, but property, and a slave’s residence in free territory did not make that slave free. So Biddy Mason and her thirteen family members won a timely escape from bondage. At the end of their trial, what remained was, in the words of Judge Hayes, for the “petitioners to become settled and go to work for themselves—in peace and without fear.”

Hayden, D. (1989). Biddy Mason’s Los Angeles 1856-1891. California History, 68(3), 86–99.
https://archive.org/details/californiahistor68cali/page/86/mode/2up

A Life of Legacy

Once free, Biddy Mason remained in Los Angeles and began building a new life from nothing. She worked as a midwife and nurse, eventually saving enough money to buy property—becoming one of the first Black women to own land in LA. Her community-minded spirit led her to feed the hungry, visit prisoners, and shelter the homeless.

After spending five years enslaved in California, Mason challenged Smith for her freedom. On January 21, 1856, L.A. District Judge Benjamin Hayes approved Mason’s petition. The ruling freed Mason and thirteen members of her extended family. She took the surname Mason from the middle name of Amason Lyman, who was the mayor of San Bernardino and a Mormon Apostle. Mason moved her family to L.A. where her daughter married had the son of Robert and Minnie Owens. She continued working as a midwife and nurse, saving her money and using it to purchase land in what is now the heart of downtown L.A. There she organized First A.M.E. Church, the oldest African American Church in the city. Mason used her wealth, estimated to be about $3 million, to become a philanthropist to the entire L.A. community. She donated to numerous charities, fed and sheltered the poor, and visited prisoners. Mason was instrumental in founding a traveler’s aid center and an elementary school for black children.

NPS: Bridget “Biddy” Mason
https://www.nps.gov/people/biddymason.htm

In 1872, she co-founded the First African Methodist Episcopal Church in Los Angeles—the city’s first Black church—using her own land as the meeting place.

Together with Charles Owens, she gathered a group of people to form the Los Angeles branch of the First African Methodist Episcopal Church, and at a meeting in her home in 1872, the church was officially organized. Mason was described by many as a woman whose common sense was as strong as her religious faith, and one historian has noted that from her own pocket she paid the taxes for the church property, as well as the calling for the minister, the Reverend Jesse Hamilton. Nevertheless, she continued to attend the largely white Fort Street M.E. Church, across the street from her homestead.

Hayden, D. (1989). Biddy Mason’s Los Angeles 1856-1891. California History, 68(3), 86–99.
https://archive.org/details/californiahistor68cali/page/86/mode/2up

Biddy never publicly renounced the Mormon Church, but she quietly chose her own path of liberation. Her legacy stands in stark contrast to the faith community that once sought to control her body and future.

Remembering Biddy

Today, Biddy Mason is honored with a memorial in downtown Los Angeles, near where she once lived. Her story complicates the Mormon pioneer narrative—a reminder that not all pioneers were willing participants, and not all suffering on the trail was sanctified.

The legacies of Biddy Mason were legal, mate rial, social, and spiritual. She has been celebrated in the past in a superficial way as a “good woman, and a pious woman, and a slave who won her freedom. But she should be seen as a female head of a group of fourteen slaves, a woman whose intelligence and skill enabled her to provide for her family during arduous cross-country travels. She continued providing for them during her transition from rural life as a slave to independent survival in the city, at a time when women of color did not find it easy to enter the labor market and earn an adequate living.

Hayden, D. (1989). Biddy Mason’s Los Angeles 1856-1891. California History, 68(3), 86–99.
https://archive.org/details/californiahistor68cali/page/86/mode/2up

Her courage, wisdom, and compassion live on. As a woman once enslaved by Latter-day Saints, Biddy Mason’s life is a quiet but powerful act of ex-Mormon resilience.

“If you hold your hand closed, nothing good can come in. The open hand is blessed, for it gives in abundance, even as it receives.”

Biddy Mason

Despite her pivotal role in the westward migration under Mormon ownership, Biddy Mason never recorded or was quoted saying anything directly about her time in the church, its doctrines, or its leaders. This silence could reflect several things: a desire to move forward, the trauma of her past, limited literacy or records, or simply a lack of interest in preserving that part of her history.

We do know that after gaining her freedom, she did not continue any association with the Mormon faith. Instead, she became a founding member of the First African Methodist Episcopal Church in Los Angeles—a clear sign of her chosen spiritual community.

Biddy Mason and Jane Manning James were two remarkable Black women who endured enslavement and hardship in early Mormon history, but their paths diverged in revealing ways. Biddy left the Mormon Church after gaining her freedom and went on to fully participate in the civic and religious life of Los Angeles—becoming a nurse, landowner, philanthropist, and founder of the First AME Church. In contrast, Jane Manning James remained faithful to the LDS Church for her entire life, despite being repeatedly denied temple blessings. She pleaded multiple times to receive her endowment and be sealed to her family, but was refused, dying without those rites. The only sealing the church would give her in her lifetime was the unique position of being sealed to Joseph as a servant for eternity. It wasn’t until 1979—nearly 70 years after her death—that she was posthumously endowed, after the church finally lifted its priesthood and temple ban on Black members.

Biddy found literal freedom and fulfillment almost immediately after leaving the church—building a life of purpose, faith, and community on her own terms. Jane, despite a lifetime of unwavering loyalty, was never fully accepted and was even promised eternal servitude in the next life as a consolation. Their stories reveal a stark and uncomfortable truth: in early Mormonism—and too often still today—faithfulness does not guarantee belonging, and for many, true liberation begins only after walking away.

True Stories

Biddy Mason’s life is a powerful testament to resilience, moral clarity, and the unwavering pursuit of freedom. Born into slavery and brought to California by her Mormon enslavers—who defied state law to keep her in bondage—Biddy had the courage not only to reject the physical chains of slavery, but also the spiritual and social oppression embedded in the racist teachings of the Mormon Church. When threatened with being illegally trafficked to the slave state of Texas, she bravely secured her freedom through the courts, despite California law barring Black testimony. That single act of resistance reshaped her life—and history. Once free, Biddy remained in southern California, where she lived with radical generosity, serving as a nurse, midwife, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. She purchased land in what is now downtown LA, used her wealth to support the poor of all races, and co-founded the First African Methodist Episcopal Church of Los Angeles in 1872—one of the first Black churches in the city. Her faith was lived, not imposed; it grew from compassion, not coercion. Had she remained a slave—or stayed within the Mormon Church—none of these accomplishments would have been possible. Biddy Mason didn’t just survive injustice; she transcended it and built a legacy of freedom, dignity, and service that continues to inspire generations.

Were you ever taught about Biddy Mason in church history or Sunday School lessons? Did you know that Black women like her were part of the Mormon migration to the West? Probably not—and that’s no accident. The LDS Church has long avoided sharing honest history because it challenges the tidy, faith-promoting narratives it prefers to tell. Biddy Mason’s life doesn’t fit the mold: she was enslaved by faithful Mormon pioneers, resisted them through the legal system, and then built a remarkable, inspiring life after leaving both slavery and the church behind. Her story undermines two damaging myths the church often upholds: first, that the pioneers were righteous and benevolent, and second, that those who leave the church only find misery and darkness. Biddy defies both. Her prosperity, community impact, and unwavering faith—outside the bounds of Mormonism—expose the lie that there is no happiness outside the gospel. It’s no wonder the church doesn’t highlight her legacy. As Boyd K. Packer once admitted, “Not all truths are useful.” Biddy Mason’s story is a truth that is both powerful and inconvenient—but not useful to the narratives the church tells, so they keep it quiet.

Biddy Mason’s legacy is a reminder that our lives don’t end when we leave the church—they often begin. Like her, many of us have found freedom, clarity, purpose, and deep connection after stepping away from the controlling narratives and conditional love of Mormonism. That’s why it’s so important that we tell our own stories. The church will never celebrate our growth; in fact, it works hard to paint those who leave as broken, bitter, and lost. But we know better. We’ve lived the story, and live better after leaving the church. And when we speak our truth, we light the way for others who are questioning, doubting, or quietly yearning for more. If you’ve found peace, success, or healing after Mormonism, your voice matters. Don’t let the church define your story. Own it. Share it. Show that life after Mormonism isn’t a fall from grace—it’s often the first step toward it.

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biddy_Mason
• https://www.americanheritage.com/biddy-sues-freedom
• https://www.laconservancy.org/learn/historic-places/biddy-mason-memorial-park/
• https://www.nps.gov/people/biddymason.htm
• https://goodblacknews.org/2022/05/05/history-bridget-biddy-mason-from-property-to-property-owner-listen/
• https://www.aclunc.org/sites/goldchains/explore/biddy-mason.html
• https://www.searchablemuseum.com/bridget-biddy-mason-2/
• https://freedomcenter.org/heroes/bridget-biddy-mason/
• https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/mason-v-smith-bridget-biddy-mason-case-1856/
• https://blackandeducation.org/stories/2017/10/31/biddy-mason-an-american-pioneer
• “Suit for Freedom,” Los Angeles Star, vol. 5, no. 38. February 2, 1856. This article is a full account of the case and the legal arguments supporting the decision by Judge Hayes. https://dp.la/item/7e2db47d377c6f958eb806db2132dfc9
• https://archive.org/details/californiahistor68cali/page/86/mode/2up
• https://biddymasoncollaborative.com/
• https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/hv6k30/mormon_slavery_the_story_of_biddy_mason_in/
• Jane Manning James: Faithful Servant, Denied Sisterhood, Sealed into Slavery
• Green Flake, The Man and Slave Labor The Church Accepted as Tithing
• Elijah Able, Early Black Mormon Received Priesthood via Joseph Smith
• Joseph Smith on Slavery
• Mormonism’s Legacy of Slavery
• Book of Mormon Most Racially and Ethnically Unifying Book on Earth
• Mormons and Interracial Marriage
• President Oaks Fibbing For The Lord Again – Prompt and Public Disavowal of Racism?
• Standing Against Racism?
• Racism and Victim Blaming From God’s Anointed
• Painted into a Corner: Prophets, Revelation, and the Mormon Church’s Integrity Crisis
• The Lowry Nelson Letters and Racist Mormon Doctrine
• Mormon Church Whitewashes Racist History in Essay
• Racist Brigham Young
• Brigham Young’s Racist Remarks on Slaves, Seed, and Priesthood Doctrines