Queens of the Mines

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this week, I am posting an old episode that was subscription only. I’m sorry. I caught the ‘vid. Back to regular programming next week! In Yosemite, for thousands of years before the discovery of gold, Native Americans traveled through and inhabited the area that the Sierra Nevada’s melting snow spills dramatically over rocky cliffs on the walls into the Valley. Waterfalls that sit over three thousand feet above its floor. The treasures the park holds are unduplicated, each wonder differing from the next, each overwhelmingly spectacular. From 1850 to 1851 Native Americans and Euro-American miners in the area were at war, the Mariposa War. Some Euro-American men had formed a militia known as the Mariposa Battalion. Their purpose - drive the native Ahwahneechee people onto reservations. The Mariposa Battalion were the first non-natives to enter Yosemite. When this war ended, Yosemite was then open to settlement and speculation. Today we are going to talk about Jennie Curry, half of the curry couple who founded Camp Curry in Yosemite, and the history of the Yosemite Firefall. Season 3 features inspiring, gallant, even audacious stories of REAL 19th Century women from the Wild West. Stories that contain adult content, including violence which may be disturbing to some listeners, or secondhand listeners. So, discretion is advised. I am Andrea Anderson and this is Queens of the Mines, Season Three.

Welcome back to Queens of the Mines. This is Season 4. Yosemite. This season of Queens of the Mines explores the making of Yosemite National Park and true stories of women who were there along the way, and women that were there before. In this episode, I am going to tell you about To-tu-ya, who was later known as Maria Lebrado. She was part of that 5 percent and she was the last survivor born of the Ahwahneechee band that was driven out of the Yosemite Valley by the Mariposa Battalion during the Mariposa War.  5,500 years ago, Indigenous tribes were the first to settle what we now know as Yosemite. The most recent native group to live there was primarily an extension of the Southern Sierra Miwok. They had named the Yosemite Valley “Ahwahnee” and they referred to themselves as the Ahwahneechee. People of the valley. The Ah-wah-nee´-chees had been a large and powerful tribe and 171 years ago, before white men arrived to Yosemite, there were 37 indigenous villages in the area with over 10,000 Miwok living there.  After a war, and what the Miwoks called the fatal black sickness, the majority had died or had fled to live with other tribes. When it was all said and done, only around 500 of the 10,000 Miwoks remained. That is five % of their population. Subscribe now for Ad-Free Episodes

“This is Queens of the Mines, where we discuss untold stories from the twisted roots of California. Today, we’ll be talking about Indian Boarding Schools in the US and California. We are in a time where historians and the public are no longer dismissing the “conflict history” that has been minimized or blotted out. We now have the opportunity to incorporate the racial and patriarchal experience in the presentation of American reality. The preceding episode may feature foul language and or adult content including violence which may be disturbing some listeners, or secondhand listeners. So, discretion is advised. Over 1,300 bodies of First Nations students were found at former Canada‘s residential schools this year. In response, Canada has declared September 30 2021, as the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. Since 2013, this day has been commemorated as Orange Shirt Day. Like most of our topics on the podcast, the truth about our Indian boarding school has been written out of the US history books. The system has long been condemned by Native Americans as a form of cultural genocide. By 1926, nearly 83% of Indian school-age children were attending boarding schools. There once were over 350 government-funded Indian Boarding schools across the US where native children were forcibly abducted by government agents, sent to schools hundreds of miles away, and beaten, starved, or otherwise abused when they spoke their native languages. Nothing short of the previous Mission System, truly. This Episode is also brought to you by the Law Offices of CHARLES B SMITH. Are you facing criminal charges in California? The most important thing you can do is obtain legal counsel from an aggressive Criminal Defense Lawyer lawyer you can trust. The Law Office of Charles B. Smith has the knowledge and experience to assess your situation and help you build a strong defense against your charges. The Law Offices of CHARLES B SMITH do not just defend cases, they represent people. So visit their website cbsattorney.com, we know even in the gold rush no one liked attorneys, but Charles you will love. Between 1869 and the 1960s, hundreds of thousands of Native American children were voluntarily or forcibly removed from their homes, families, communities and placed in boarding schools. where they were punished for speaking their native language, banned from acting in any way that might be seen to represent traditional or cultural practices, stripped of traditional clothing, hair and personal belongings and behaviors reflective of their native culture. The United States government tied Native Americans’ naturalization to the eradication of Native American cultural identity and complete assimilation into the “white culture.” Congress passed an act in 1887 that established “every Indian born within the territorial limits of the United States who has voluntarily taken up… his residence separate and apart from any tribe of Indians…[and] adopted the habits of civilized life…” may secure a United States citizenship. Often these residential schools were run by different faith groups including Methodists, Latter-day Saints (LDS) and Catholics. Like the Missions, often crowded conditions,students weakened by overwork and lack of public sanitation put students at risk for infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, measles and trachoma. None of these diseases were yet treatable by antibiotics or controlled by vaccines, and epidemics swept schools as they did cities. Often students were prevented from communicating with their families, and parents were not notified when their children fell ill; the schools also failed sometimes to notify them when a child died. ”Many of the Indian deaths during the great influenza pandemic of 1918–19, which hit the Native American population hard, took place in boarding schools. ”The 1928 Meriam Report noted that death rates for Native American students were six and a half times higher than for other ethnic groups. Th

Have you ever experienced the breathtaking California wilderness? Yosemite National Park is known for its giant waterfalls and granite cliffs. Boasting Giant sequoia groves, grand valley, and lakes and streams. Yosemite receives over 3.5 million visitors annually. Just before the United State’s largest migration, the California gold rush, Yosemite remains vastly untouched and was the home of 10,000 California Miwoks.  Join me Andrea Anderson through the history of the making of Yosemite National Park and the women that were there along the way, and before.  Queens of the Mines- Yosemite  Premieres September 19th 2023 Listen for free on Spotify or subscribe for ad free episodes with bonus content.

Last Time in Luzena Wilson’s Story it was late December 1849. Luzena was serving up to 200 boarders a week in Sacramento and charging each twenty five dollars. Customers were happy to pay the high price tag for a meal prepared by Luzena Wilson, for the white woman, was a rarity. In 1850 women made up just three percent of the non-Native American population in California‘s mining region, numbering about 800 in a sea of 30,000 men. As a married American woman, Luzena Wilson reminded many of the American men of home, of their wives, mothers or sisters. They treated Luzena, as she put it, like a ”queen.” Luzena had put her boys to bed, and under dim light, wrote out her list of goods needed for the next week. She would make her largest purchase yet in the morning. Six months had passed in Sacramento and now she longed for a friend. She set down her steel dip-pen, blew out the beeswax candle next to it, and laid down beside Mason. The rain began to furiously pound on the family home’s weak roof, and it did not stop all night.

Queens of the Mines features the authentic stories of gold rush women who blossomed from the camouflaged, twisted roots of California. In the next episodes, we will hear the story of The Queen of Devotion in the California Gold Mines. Much if this story is told in the own words of this entrepreneur who knew how to capitalize on her strengths and proved that some men in the Old West would eventually tire of strong, successful women during America’s Largest Migration, The Gold Rush. Sources Source: J. S. Holliday, The World Rushed In (1981)  My Checkered Life. Luzena Stanley Wilson in Early California https://www.sierracollege.edu/ejournals/jsnhb/v4n2/wilson.html http://clic.cengage.com/uploads/70430dd28565018b949bcdd2c8f6f027_2_5312.pdf http://www.solanohistory.net/articles/207/207.1.pdf

Queens of the Mines features the authentic stories of gold rush women who blossomed from the camouflaged, twisted roots of California. In Ah Toy’s final episode, we will finish the story of the true pioneer of San Francisco’s Chinatown, Ah Toy, whose story highlights important aspects of the role the Chinese immigrants played in America’s Largest Migration, The Gold Rush. Find the Spotify Playlist - Shelter in Place/Quarantine curated just for my listeners. You do not need a Spotify account to listen. Sponsors www.facebook.com/ColumbiaMercantile1855/ www.thebop209.com Ways to Support the QOTM family during the coronavirus Venmo @queensofthemines Cash App @queensofthemines www.queensofthemines.com youniqueproducts.com/queensofthemines Resources Jacqueline Baker Barnhart, Working Women: Prostitution in San Francisco From the Gold Rush to 1900 (Santa Cruz: University of California Santa Cruz, 1977) Mud, Blood and Gold: San Francisco in 1849 (San Francisco: Heritage House Publishers, 2009) Joann Levy, They Saw the Elephant: Women in the California Gold Rush Susan Lee Johnson, Roaring Camp: The Social World of the California GoldRush (New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company, 2000) Unsubmissive Women The Bawdy House Girls: A Look at the Brothels of the Old West By Alton Pryor Historic Spots In California BY Mildred Brooke Hoover, Hero Eugene and Ethel Grace Rensch, William N Abeloe revised by Douglas E Kyle Pacific Crossing: California Gold, Chinese Migration, and the Making of Hong ... By Elizabeth Sinn The White Woman’s Burden Chinese Prostitution in San Francisco THE CHINESE by Henry Kittredge Norton The California Gold Rush: A Sexual Nightmare for Minority Women A short history of bordellos in San Francisco, part 2 Ah Toy - The Oldest Profession Podcast Badass Ladies Of Chinese History: Ah Toy Wild West Women: Ah Toy – A China Blossom in Old San Francisco A Gutsy Chinese `Working Girl‘ in Gold Rush San Francisco HISTORICAL HOTTIES ”The Best Bad Things”: An Analytical History of the Madams of Gold Rush San Francisco The Hakka People San Francisco’s Chinatown was a seedy ghetto. Chinese Deathscape; From Cradle to Grave The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy (1920) by Lothrop Stoddard https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file?accession=bgsu1372091610

Queens of the Mines features the authentic stories of gold rush women who blossomed from the camouflaged, twisted roots of California. In Chapter Three, we will continue the story of the true pioneer of San Francisco’s Chinatown, Ah Toy, whose story highlights important aspects of the role the Chinese immigrants played in America’s Largest Migration, The Gold Rush.   Lotus “Between the graves and the city wall stood a low building, in a clump of cedar trees.” Two Americans noted as they passed by a large cemetery while visiting China during the early 1850’s. “That is the Baby-tower, tended by the Buddhist Nunneries.” The building was a structure that was commonly built for the disposal of infants, used by parents too poor for burial costs or too ashamed of the murder of thier child. Tied up in a package, the infant would be thrown into one of the openings of the tower, or rather well, as it is sunk some distance below the earth. The babies left in the towers soon died of hunger, cold, or the heat but sometimes survived for up to two days. “The top, which rose about ten feet above the ground, was roofed, and looking into it, we saw that the tower was filled.” In a mound of bamboo straw that moves with the crawling of the worms, tiny legs and arms, and little fleshless bones, protrude. Those who passed by had to ignore the screaming cries.     Every few days the person or group of people who built the tower would clear it out and either bury the babies or burn the heap. They would spread the ashes over the land. “Was this a cemetery or a slaughterhouse?” The Chinese said it was only a tomb. There was no inquiry, no check. The parent had the power to kill or to save. As the conditions worsened in 19th century China, families were struggling to feed all of the members just to survive. If you were a woman born in China at the time, you would not have been considered as valuable in comparison to being born male. You would have been extremely vulnerable to being given up, killed, or sold off by your family. If not, you would have been perceived as subservient, your future role, a homemaker. Confucianism in China considered a son necessary for the guarantee of provision of security. It was believed that money spent on raising a female was not a logical investment. For the purpose of avoiding poverty, and population control, female gendercide, also known as gynocide, femicide or infanticide, has been practiced since ancient times. In result, female babies were left in the towers, or often suffocated, drowned or starved. The pressure on a woman to have a boy, and not have more than one child was beyond worrying. Buddists condemned the killings of young girls and insisted it would bring bad karma. However, the Buddhist belief in reincarnation meant that they believed that the death of an infant was not final. The child would be reborn. This belief eased guilty feelings that consumed parents. If your family was not in danger of poverty, actions would be taken to make you a more desirable bride. The ultimate woman bore a three-inch foot, known as a “golden lotus. Four-inch feet or “silver lotus”, were considered respectable, and feet that were five inches or longer were called the “iron lotus” and much less desirable. The prospects for marriage would be low for a girl with the iron lotus. Tiny feet were made possible by the process of foot binding, which began when a girl was at the age of 5 or 6. The pain was excruciating yet millions of Chinese women were devoted to the tradition. Try to imagine what it must have been like to endure this process as a young child. First, your feet would be submerged into extremely hot water, your toenails cut down as short as possible. Your feet would then be oiled and massaged before all of your toes, except the big toes, were snapped and forced flat against your sole, making a triangle. Bent double, the arch of your foot would be strained and folded in half. Ten foot long silk strips that w

Queens of the Mines features the authentic stories of gold rush women who blossomed from the camouflaged, twisted roots of California. These are true stories, with some of my own fabrication of descriptive details. In Chapter Three, we will hear the story of the true pioneer of San Francisco’s Chinatown, whose story highlights important aspects of the role the Chinese immigrants played in America’s Largest Migration, The Gold Rush.    Lotus “Between the graves and the city wall stood a low building, in a clump of cedar trees.” Two Americans noted as they passed by a large cemetery while visiting China during the early 1850’s. “That is the Baby-tower, tended by the Buddhist Nunneries.” The building was a structure that was commonly built for the disposal of infants, used by parents too poor for burial costs or too ashamed of the murder of thier child. Tied up in a package, the infant would be thrown into one of the openings of the tower, or rather well, as it is sunk some distance below the earth. The babies left in the towers soon died of hunger, cold, or the heat but sometimes survived for up to two days. “The top, which rose about ten feet above the ground, was roofed, and looking into it, we saw that the tower was filled.” In a mound of bamboo straw that moves with the crawling of the worms, tiny legs and arms, and little fleshless bones, protrude. Those who passed by had to ignore the screaming cries.     Every few days the person or group of people who built the tower would clear it out and either bury the babies or burn the heap. They would spread the ashes over the land. “Was this a cemetery or a slaughterhouse?” The Chinese said it was only a tomb. There was no inquiry, no check. The parent had the power to kill or to save. As the conditions worsened in 19th century China, families were struggling to feed all of the members just to survive. If you were a woman born in China at the time, you would not have been considered as valuable in comparison to being born male. You would have been extremely vulnerable to being given up, killed, or sold off by your family. If not, you would have been perceived as subservient, your future role, a homemaker. Confucianism in China considered a son necessary for the guarantee of provision of security. It was believed that money spent on raising a female was not a logical investment. For the purpose of avoiding poverty, and population control, female gendercide, also known as gynocide, femicide or infanticide, has been practiced since ancient times. In result, female babies were left in the towers, or often suffocated, drowned or starved. The pressure on a woman to have a boy, and not have more than one child was beyond worrying. Buddists condemned the killings of young girls and insisted it would bring bad karma. However, the Buddhist belief in reincarnation meant that they believed that the death of an infant was not final. The child would be reborn. This belief eased guilty feelings that consumed parents. If your family was not in danger of poverty, actions would be taken to make you a more desirable bride. The ultimate woman bore a three-inch foot, known as a “golden lotus. Four-inch feet or “silver lotus”, were considered respectable, and feet that were five inches or longer were called the “iron lotus” and much less desirable. The prospects for marriage would be low for a girl with the iron lotus. Tiny feet were made possible by the process of foot binding, which began when a girl was at the age of 5 or 6. The pain was excruciating yet millions of Chinese women were devoted to the tradition. Try to imagine what it must have been like to endure this process as a young child. First, your feet would be submerged into extremely hot water, your toenails cut down as short as possible. Your feet would then be oiled and massaged before all of your toes, except the big toes, were snapped and forced flat against your sole, making a triangle. Bent double, the arch of your foot w

Support Queens of the Mines with a tip! Venmo- @queensofthemines CashApp $queensofthemines Paypal [email protected] Queens of the Mines is a historical, non-fiction collection of the stories of Gold Rush California’s top ten women. The stories address racism, immigration, genocide, human trafficking, depression, losses, success, civil rights, the earliest profession and the dark side of show business through the lens of their stories. In this episode, Andrea discusses her inspiration for the series and sets the scene of a pre-rush California.

Support Queens of the Mines with a tip! Venmo- @queensofthemines CashApp $queensofthemines Paypal [email protected]

In Vermont in 1812, Mary and Ebenezer Parkhurst, a young couple, had three children, Maria, Charlotte, and Charles. After the sudden death of one of the children, the couple abandoned the other two. They were sent to an orphanage in Lebanon, New Hampshire where they were raised under the care of an unkind man named Mr. Millshark. Men had a greater advantage over girls in the battle of life. Charlotte, the youngest of the two, became aware that women had few economic opportunities. She felt her only chance was to be a seamstress, laundress, teacher or sex worker. So, when she was 12 years old, she left Maria, her older sister at the orphanage, stole a few pieces of boys clothing and ran away to Worcester, MA. Charlotte then took on the name of her deceased brother, Charles, or, Charley.

Queens of the Mines features the authentic stories of gold rush women who blossomed from the camouflaged, twisted roots of California. In this episode, we are taking a different approach than we have been doing. Today, we will meet one of California’s most famous Stage Drivers, and learn their fabulous story of economic self-determination, freedom of movement, and opportunity for free association. I am Andrea Anderson, This is a true story from America’s Largest Migration, The Gold Rush. This is Queens of the Mines.

Support Queens of the Mines with a tip! Venmo- @queensofthemines CashApp $queensofthemines Paypal [email protected] Here is the story of a Mexican-American pioneer, healer, trailblazer, businesswoman and landowner. Her name is Doña Juana Briones de Miranda and she is the woman remembered as the ”Founding Mother of San Francisco”, for she was one of the first three settlers in Yerba Buena before it became San Francisco. Juana left an important legacy in California. She was an active and caring person who impacted the lives of many people — Hispanic, indigenous and Anglo-American. In 1769, Marcos Briones and his father Vicente arrived in Alta California from San Luis Potosí, New Spain - today’s Mexico. Marcos and Vicente were soldiers in the Portola expedition. In Alta California, Marcos met and married Isidora Tapia. Isidora and her family arrived later, her father Felipe, a soldier on the de Anza expedition in 1776. Star crossed lovers, whose families traveled over 1600 miles on a mission to colonize and explore the region and establish the Mission San Francisco de Asi.

Support Queens of the Mines with a tip! Venmo- @queensofthemines CashApp $queensofthemines Paypal [email protected] Until february of 1850, Sonora was known as the Sonorain camp, then named Stewart, then to Sonora. The History of Tuolumne stated that according to the California blue book the word Tuolumne meant “many stone houses or caves” having a similar meaning as the word Shasta in another native tongue. I love this because Shasta is my sister‘s name!

Queens of the Mines features the authentic stories of gold rush women who blossomed from the camouflaged, twisted roots of California. She was one of the richest and most powerful people in California, and she was a black woman. Known as the “mother of civil rights in California”, one of San Francisco’s most notorious madams, a savior of the downtrodden, an exploiter of the wealthy and the “Queen of Voodoo”, while breaking racial taboos she played a remarkable role in the early years of San Francisco, and I want you to know her name. Ways to Support the QOTM family during the coronavirus Venmo @queensofthemines Cash App @queensofthemines www.queensofthemines.com youniqueproducts.com/queensofthemines Sponsors www.facebook.com/ColumbiaMercantile1855/ www.thebop209.com Sources: The Making of Mammy Pleasant by Lynn Hudson Mary Ellen Pleasant: Unsung Heroine” by Steve Crowe in Crisis, Jan-Feb 1999] NY Times Overlooked The Paris Review Found SF SF Museum MEPleasant.com Don‘t Call Her Mammy KQED How a Heroine became a demon in victorian SF Face 2 Face Africa KALW SF Public Radio Meet Mary Pleasant - film Nantucket Historical Association America Comes Alive! Encyclopedia - Mary Ellen Pleasant Burial Information

“We‘re all ghosts. We all carry, inside us, people who came before us.” ― Liam Callanan, The Cloud Atlas This bonus episode is based on the true story and occurrences from The National Hotel, that began with a love story, and ended in murder, over 120 years ago. This Story was Created From the Links Below. http://weekinweird.com/2016/12/12/meet-flo-resident-ghost-californias-historic-national-hotel/ https://www.national-hotel.com https://sacramentopress.com/2009/03/26/a-haunting-night-to-remember-the-historic-national-hotel-jamestown/ https://tchistory.org/TCHISTORY/Jamestown.htm https://www.railtown1897.org http://www.parks.ca.gov/railtown/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierra_No._3#Movie_appearances

Support Queens of the Mines with a tip! Venmo- @queensofthemines CashApp $queensofthemines Paypal [email protected] The famed Alcatraz prison on Alcatraz Island was in operation from 1934 to 1963. For most, the thought of Alcatraz may bring up a Hollywood film or some of the most notorious criminals in America. But the island carries a different symbolism to the native coastal peoples of California. The California Ohlone Mewuk which translates to coastal people, passed down an oral history that tells us that Alcatraz was used by their Native population long before anyone else “discovered” the San Francisco Bay. Trips would be made to the island in tule boats for gathering foods, such as bird eggs and sea-life. It was also used as a place of isolation, or for punishment for naughty members of the tribe. The island was also a camping spot and hiding place for many native Americans attempting to escape the California Mission system. In 1895, the island was being used as a US fort and military prison and 19 Hopi men served time on Alcatraz for trying to protect their children from being sent to federal Indian boarding schools, which we discussed last week.

Olives, technically classified as a fruit, is a powerful fruit. It would benefit most people to eat around 5-10 olives a day. A rich source of powerful stuff,antioxidants, minerals and vitamins and 80 percent of the calories in an olive come from healthy fats. They are a great way to prevent cancers in today’s toxic world, and Bonus! Eating olives improves the appearance of wrinkles by a whole twenty percent! When it comes to the history of olive groves in California, you need to know about Freda Ehmann, the human responsible for the perfect black rings we eat on our pizza today, the ‘Mother’ of the California ripe olive industry. Season 3 features inspiring, gallant, even audacious stories of REAL 19th Century women from the Wild West. Stories that contain adult content, including violence which may be disturbing to some listeners, or secondhand listeners. So, discretion is advised. I am Andrea Anderson and this is Queens of the Mines, Season Three. Our story takes place in California, where nowadays olive trees are abundant, but fun fact, olive trees are not native to California. It was at the San Diego Mission in 1769, where the first olive cuttings were planted in California. Many of the olive groves in California are up to 150 years old, but olive trees have an average lifespan of 300 to 600 years. Average, some can live as long as 2000 years. The oldest known cultivated olive trees in the world were grown before the written language was even invented.

Happy International Women’s Day! Stories of important women from California history!

Support Queens of the Mines with a tip! Venmo- @queensofthemines CashApp $queensofthemines Paypal [email protected] Chineses Camp is terror ridden by the queerest ghost on record. From the SF Chronicle September 1904.

In 1843, Cathay Williams was born to an enslaved woman and a free black man, ironically in Independence, Missouri. It is hard to know an exact day, because records were not kept for the birth of slaves, and if you were born to an enslaved woman, you were born property. Cathay’s childhood was spent on the outskirts of Jefferson City, Missouri, working for years as a house slave on the plantation of a wealthy planter by the name of Johnson. Union forces took over Jefferson City in the early stages of the Civil War. Slaves were released and persuaded to serve in voluntary military support roles. Captured slaves within Union lines were officially designated as contraband. When we say contraband today, usually the first thought would be illicit drugs, or something else forbidden. But back then, humans were labeled Illegal goods, “contraband.” Over 400 women served in the Civil War posing as male soldiers. Today we are talking about Cathay Williams, the only known female Buffalo Soldier. Williams was not only the first black woman to enlist, but the only documented woman to serve in the United States Army, while disguised as a man, during the Indian Wars. She was a pioneer for the thousands of American women serving in armed forces in the United States today. Season 3 features inspiring, gallant, even audacious stories of REAL 19th Century women from the Wild West. Stories that contain adult content, including violence which may be disturbing to some listeners, or secondhand listeners. So, discretion is advised. I am Andrea Anderson and this is Queens of the Mines, Season Three.

This is Queens of the Mines. Today I am going to tell you the story of the Murderous Mail Order Bride of Tuttletown from 1929. The preceding episode may feature foul language and or adult content including violence which may be disturbing some listeners, or secondhand listeners. So, discretion is advised. On a ranch on blanket creek, near the current Kress Ranch Road, lived  Carroll and his parents Stephen Rablen and Corrine Brown. They were a well known family in Sonora who were pioneers there during the gold rush. Corrine was the daughter of the late C.C. Brown, a prominent lawyer of Sonora.

Today, we are talking about a murder at Dragoon’s Gulch, in Sonora, Ca. No evidence of the gulch’s murderous past remains. On the Dragoon Gulch walking trail area in Sonora.  The trail begins at the top of Woods Creek Rotary Park across from the Mother Lode Fairgrounds. When you cross Wood’s Creek you reach the bottom of Dragoon Gulch.  It is free to walk the trail, and dogs are welcome.  Sources: https://www.sonoraca.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/dragoon-trail-history.pdf http://mygoldrushtales.com/murder-at-dragoon-gulch/ the journal of william perkins the history of california - sonora murders 282 the century vol 63

Today we talk about the incredible life of Hattie McDaniel. She was the First African-American to Win an Oscar, but also, so much more. Season 3 features inspiring, gallant, even audacious stories of REAL 19th Century women from the Wild West. Stories that contain adult content, including violence which may be, disturbing to some listeners, or secondhand listeners. So, discretion is advised. I am Andrea Anderson and this is Queens of the Mines, Season Three. From the early 19th to the early 20th century, minstrelsy was a popular form of American theater. Minstrel shows were based on the comic enactment of racial stereotypes. This tradition hit its peak between 1850 and 1870. The earliest shows were staged by white male traveling musicians mimicking the singing and dancing of slaves, with their faces painted black. Minstrel troupes did not welcome actual black performers until after the Civil War. And then, these minstrel shows were the only theatrical medium in which gifted Black performers of the period could support themselves. By the 20th century, women were also appearing in minstrel shows. On June 10 of 1893, Susan had their thirteenth child, a daughter. They named her Hattie. On the account of the family being so poor, Hattie was malnourished, weighing only three and a half pounds at birth. Although the McDaniel family often went hungry, they were tight-knit and creative.

The history of Cinco De Mayo unviels the importance of the landscape of North America as a whole, and, did you know, it was very first celebrated in our very own Gold Rush town of Historic Columbia?

Wherever you are in this hemisphere, you are on Native land.  Never forget, that before the Spanish arrived in California, for thousands of years, from sea to shining sea, this was indian country, with more than 300,000 Natives living here, representing more than 100 tribes, each with its individual traditions and cultures, most completely lost by the arrival of settlers. Write that down, and burn it into your brain.   “The history of genocide casts a shadow over California. It hovers over the land of the endless summer, over Disneyland, over the surfers, the Beach Boys, the palm trees, the Hollywood Sign … and yet, there is also a story of California Indian resistance and survival that is miraculous.”  This was said by my hero, Benjamin Madley, he is an associate professor of history at UCLA and has been on a more than decade-long odyssey to document and reveal the existence of this government-sponsored genocide. The Youreka Podcast Network is literally days away from launch. You will be able to download a free app, and have all of the Network podcasts at your fingertips! Including my new shows, Here Lies, an audio tour of historic cemeteries, Rustic Rituals, affirmations and meditations for country folk, Queens of the Mines Two and MORE! Find us on Libsyn and instagram now to keep up @yourekapodcasts. That is YOUREKA, because this network is yours. https://sarahannegraham.com

Wherever you are in this hemisphere, you are on Native land. Never forget, that before the Spanish arrived in California, for thousands of years, from sea to shining sea, this was indian country, with more than 300,000 Natives living here, representing more than 100 tribes, each with its individual traditions and cultures, most completely lost by the arrival of settlers. Write that down, and burn it into your brain. “The history of genocide casts a shadow over California. It hovers over the land of the endless summer, over Disneyland, over the surfers, the Beach Boys, the palm trees, the Hollywood Sign … and yet, there is also a story of California Indian resistance and survival that is miraculous.” This was said by my hero, Benjamin Madley, he is an associate professor of history at UCLA and has been on a more than decade-long odyssey to document and reveal the existence of this government-sponsored genocide. The Youreka Podcast Network is literally days away from launch. You will be able to download a free app, and have all of the Network podcasts at your fingertips! Including my new shows, Here Lies, an audio tour of historic cemeteries, Rustic Rituals, affirmations and meditations for country folk, Queens of the Mines Two and MORE! Find us on Libsyn and instagram now to keep up @yourekapodcasts. That is YOUREKA, because this network is yours.

Wherever you are in this hemisphere, you are on Native land. Never forget, that before the Spanish arrived in California, for thousands of years, from sea to shining sea, this was indian country, with more than 300,000 Natives living here, representing more than 100 tribes, each with its individual traditions and cultures, most completely lost by the arrival of settlers. Write that down, and burn it into your brain. Never forget that the Russians, European-American colonists, and Spanish missionaries‘ arrival on the Pacific coastline forever changed the native people’s way of life. The first known interaction with the Natives in California was in the Monterey area in 1602, when Sebastián de Vizcaíno’s Spanish expedition was searching for a safe harbor for their ships. Well over 100 years then passed with little attention paid to Alta California. Then, Gaspar de Portola’s expedition of Spanish missionaries arrived in the Monterey area in 1769 and Spain began colonizing. Erasing the identities of the California indigenous people who entered the mission, in exchange, they were given a wool shirt with long sleeves called a cotón, and a wool blanket. The women were also given a wool petticoat and men received a breechclout to cover their groin area. They were then forcibly baptized into the Catholic faith, and thrown into labor camps that were filthy and disease ridden.

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Support Queens of the Mines with a tip! Venmo- @queensofthemines CashApp $queensofthemines Paypal [email protected] Samuel Clemens arrived in Angels Camp in 1865 in the middle of a rainstorm so intense that it left Clemens stranded in Calaveras County for the next two weeks. Many local townspeople gathered at the Angels Hotel at the corner of Main at Birds Way to pass the time. While local residents were  sharing stories, a local man told the tale of his friend who possessed a frog that he had trained. Clemens found the story amusing and took notes in the corner. Later that year he embellished the story when he wrote “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” under his new pen name, Mark Twain. It was his first published short story.  Sixty-three years later in honor of the legend, a frog jumping contest was held on the Main St of Angels Camp. Over 15,000 people swarmed the streets for the tournament on the sloping street. In the coming years, the event grew in attendance so much, that the frog jumping contest was moved to the county fairgrounds they called Frogtown in 1928. But we are not here to talk about the Frog Jumps in Calaveras County. We are here to talk about the brothel that operated was across the street and down the road from Frogtown. After America’s largest migration, the gold rush, brothels thrived in the California foothills for over 100 years. In my book Queens of the Mines, I wrote about Belle Cora, who ran the Sonora Club, one of the many bawdy houses that were in operation in Sonora, Ca during the gold rush. The Sonora Club, which was somewhere along Woods Creek, accumulated a profit of over one hundred and twenty six thousand dollars in less than a year. That would equal the spending power of 4.4 million dollars in 2021. To buy that book, visit queensofthemines.com. 14 miles away, Vallecito was the home to over eighty ladies of the night in 1855. Some of these so-called houses of ill repute continued operation until the 1950’s. But none were as famous as the last brothel in Calaveras County.  This is Queens of the Mines, where we discuss untold stories from the twisted roots of California. We are in a time where historians and the public are no longer dismissing the “conflict history” that has been minimized or blotted out. I’m Andrea Anderson. The preceding episode may feature foul language and adult content including violence which may be disturbing some listeners, or secondhand listeners. So, discretion is advised.

Today’s episode features the lives of mother - daughter outlaws, Belle Starr, the Bandit Queen and her daughter, Pearl. Season 3 features inspiring, gallant, even audacious stories of REAL 19th century women from the Wild West. These stories sometimes contain adult content which may be disturbing to some listeners, or secondhand listeners. So, discretion is advised. I am Andrea Anderson and this is Queens of the Mines, Season Three. Carthage, Missouri is America’s Maple Leaf City, and the site of the first official engagement of the American Civil War, which took place July 5, 1861. Thirteen years earlier, Myra Maybelle Shirley, was born there on Feb. 5, 1848. They called her Belle. In an attempt to raise her to be a lady, the Shirley’s sent their daughter to be educated at the Carthage Female Academy. Belle was intelligent but she was also hot tempered and if unchecked, her mouth could turn a mule skinner’s face scarlet. As a result, she got into fights with girls and boys alike at the academy. She would carry this attitude throughout her whole life.

When Agnes Moulton Coolbrith joined the Mormon Church in Boston in 1832, she met and married Prophet Don Carlos Smith, the brother of Joseph Smith, founder of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. There, at the first Mormon settlement, Agnes gave birth to three daughters. The youngest was Josephine Donna Smith, born 1841. Only four months after Josephine Donna Smith’s birth, Don Carlos Smith died of malaria. In spite of Don Carlos being a bitter opposer of the ‘spiritual wife’ doctrine, Agnes was almost immediately remarried to her late husband’s brother, Joseph Smith in 1842, making her his probably seventh wife. Today we will talk about Josephine Donna Smith’s, who’s life in California spanned the pioneer American occupation, to the first renaissance of the 19th century feminist movement. an American poet, writer, librarian, and a legend in the San Francisco Bay Area literary community. Season 3 features inspiring, gallant, even audacious stories of REAL 19th Century women from the Wild West. Stories that contain adult content, including violence which may be, disturbing to some listeners, or secondhand listeners. So, discretion is advised. I am Andrea Anderson and this is Queens of the Mines, Season Three. They called her Ina. But Sharing your partner with that many people may leave you lonely at times. Not surprisingly, during the marriage, Agnes felt neglected. Two years later, Smith was killed at the hands of an anti-Mormon and anti-polygamy mob. Agnes, scared for her life, moved to Saint Louis, Missouri with Ina and her siblings. Agnes reverted to using her maiden name, Coolbrith, to avoid identification with Mormonism and her former family. She did not speak of their Mormon past. Queens of the Mines was created and produced by me, Andrea Anderson. You can support Queens of the Mines on Patreon or by purchasing the paperback Queens of the Mines. Available on Amazon. This season’s Theme Song is by This Lonesome Paradise. Find their music anywhere but you can Support the band by buying their music and merch at [email protected]

Are you ready for more stories of inspiring, gallant, even audacious REAL 19th Century women from the Wild West? Queens of the Mines is returning Jan 15 2023 with it’s third Season! You can expect 10 new episodes, coming out every other Sunday. Get early access to episodes and bonus content on patreon.com/queensofthemines. As always, you can still purchase my paperback book on Amazon, and follow us on Instagram @queensofthemines. This season’s Theme Song is by This Lonesome Paradise. Find their music anywhere but you can support the band by buying their music and merch at thislonesomeparadise.bandcamp.com.

Buy the book here! https://www.amazon.com/Queens-Mines-Women-twisted-California/dp/B09DN1J6GB Stories of astonishing women from California’s 1849 gold rush history. What was it like for the women in California during the 1850’s? What hardships did they face? What victories were they able to realize? Who were the first women who came to California, and who was already here? Explore the lives of brilliant people who made their own way, whose stories contributed to the shaping of the future of California and the United States, in a time where women were not so welcome to do so. They are rarely talked about, and I want you to know their names. Including but not limited to, Belle Cora, Ah Toy, Josefa Segovia, Madame Moustache, Mary Ellen Pleasant, Nika, Luzena Wilson, Lola Montez, Lotta Crabtree, and Charley Parkhurst.

It is my birthday week so today I am talking about my new favorite queen, the American poet and writer who became an activist demanding better treatment of Native Americans from the United States government. Her name was Helen Hunt Jackson, and I will share some of her poetry throughout the story. We will start the story with Deborah & Nathan Fiske, in Amherst, Massachusetts. The couple both suffered from chronic illness through their lives. Nathan was a Unitarian minister, author, and professor of Latin, Greek, and philosophy at Amherst College. Unitarians did not believe in the concepts of sin and of eternal punishment for sins. Appealing to reason, not to emotion. They believed that God is one person. They did not believe in the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, the God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Their daughter, Helen Maria Fiske, was born on October 15 of 1830. Deborah encouraged Helen to have a cheerful disposition and Helen was smart and she worked hard to live up to her father’s expectations. As a result of their parent’s disabilities, Helen and her younger sister Ann often stayed with relatives. Deborah died from tuberculosis when Helen was fourteen. A few years later, Nathan Fiske was also suffering from tuberculosis. His doctor advised him to find a new climate to alleviate his symptoms. He arranged for Fiske’s education to be paid for and left on his last adventure. He was in Palestine in the summer of her 17th year when her father died of dysentery. He was buried on Mt. Zion. Helen’s maternal grandfather, Deacon David Vinal, assumed financial responsibility for the sisters. Julius A. Palmer, a prominent Boston attorney and state legislature representative, took on the role as their guardian, and the girls moved into his puritan home. Palmer sent Helen to the private schools and while she was away for education, she formed a long lasting friendship with the young Emily Dickinson. After school, Helen moved to Albany, New York. The following year, a Governor’s Ball was held in Albany. Helen went, and met Lieutenant Edward Bissell Hunt, who was also in attendance. Hunt graduated from West Point, was an Army Corps of Engineers officer and a civil engineer. The couple married on October 28th of that year. She lived the life of a young army wife, traveling from post to post. Helen said she was almost too happy to trust the future. A woman’s intuition is often right. Helen gave birth to a son the year after the wedding. His name was Murray. Sadly, Murray was born with a disease attacking his brain and he did not live to see his first birthday. She became pregnant soon after and had a second son, Warren, a year after they lost Murray. They nicknamed him ”Rennie”. Eight years later, Helen’s husband was testing one of his own designs of an early submarine weapon for the military when he fell and suffered a concussion, overcome by gunpowder fumes. It was a devastating loss. The perhaps most profound loss next. Up to this time, her life had been absorbed in domestic and social duties. Her son Warren, her last living family member, soon died due to diphtheria. When she was young, her mother had encouraged her to expand on her vivid imagination by writing. Helen also suffered from chronic illness like her parents, and she took inspiration from her mom and started to write poetry, withdrawing from public view to grieve. Two months later, her first poem was published. She emerged months later dressed in all too familiar mourning clothes, but now determined to pursue a literary career. “And every bird I ever knew Back and forth in the summer flew; And breezes wafted over me The scent of every flower and tree: Till I forgot the pain and gloom And silence of my darkened room“ Most of Hunt’s early melancholic work grew out of this heavy experience of loss and sorrow. Like her mother, she continued turning negatives into positives in spite of great hardship. She was 36 years old and writing had beco

Today we are going to talk about Bridget “Biddy” Mason, the grandmother of Los Angeles, one of the most influential Black women in California. She overcame unimaginable prejudice and inequity and was one of the first prominent landowning citizens of Los Angeles. Briget was born into slavery in Georgia on August 15 of 1818. Her parents were of mixed African American and Native American descent. She wasn’t given a last name. Because of this common practice with slaves, many African Americans can only go back so far in their ancestry. Stolen. One of her several slaveholders in Georgia and South Carolina started calling her Biddy. Biddy spent much of her childhood enslaved on John Smithson’s plantation in South Carolina, performing tasks in the cotton fields, the South’s most important crop. Biddy was forbidden to learn to read or write but she learned about herbs and midwifery from the older enslaved women. Smithson gave her, two other female house servants, and a blacksmith as a wedding gift to his cousins, Robert and Rebecca Smith. The Smiths were successful landowners in Logtown, Mississippi. Biddy was 18. Smith was Mormon convert who cultivated cotton and traded slaves. Although, Mormons were better known as opponents of slavery. For the Smith family, Biddy did domestic work, toiled hard in the cotton fields and performed farm labor. At other times, she worked as a midwife and house nurse — a job she liked. Biddy took care of Rebecca Smith, who was often ill and helped her during the birth of her six children. During her years in Mississippi, Biddy gave birth to Ellen, Ann and Harriet, aged ten, four, and a newborn. It’s likely that Smith himself fathered these children. Like countless other enslaved women, Biddy was almost certainly the victim of sexual violence. In 1848, Smith decided to follow the call of the church with his fellow Mississippi Saints in the great Mormon Exodus to Utah. He moved his family and his 14 slaves west to the Salt Lake Valley where Joseph Smith established a new Mormon community seventeen years prior. The area was still part of Mexico at the time but would soon become Utah. Smith, his wife and children sat in the wagon on the journey while Biddy, her daughters and the other slaves walked barefoot behind the 300 wagon caravan. Biddy was in charge of herding the animals for the 1,700 mile trek. While they walked from Mississippi through Illinois and Colorado towards Salt Lake City, Biddy had a ton of responsibilities, including herding the cattle, preparing and serving the campfire meals and setting up and breaking down camp. All this while acting as the midwife and herbalist for the party, and still tending to her three young daughters. The trail must have been disturbing, frightening and strange. There were moments when surely there was a chance to escape, and for this reason, Biddy’s value increased on the trail. With young children, she didn’t have the option to leave. They lived in Utah for three years until Governor Brigham Young authorized another Mormon community, this time in San Bernardino. Brigham Young warned Smith that California, had been admitted to the Union as a free, non-slave state the year prior. Smith ignored his warnings and set out with his family and slaves and a 150-wagon caravan in 1851, to establish the Mormon settlement and extend the reach of his Church. When Smith arrived in San Bernardino, he became one of the counselors to the bishop and owned a very large property. He was among the wealthiest settlers in San Bernardino. Held in bondage in the Mormon colony were dozens of African Americans as well as an untold number of local Native Americans, as well as an untold number of local Native Americans. San Bernardino was built, in part, by enslaved laborers like Biddy. Even though California was technically a free state, it was a land made up of unfree laborers of various kinds. Many indigenous people weer being forced to work in the Los Angeles ”slave mart.” This

Today we are going to talk about the Trail of Tears, specifically my grandmother’s family’s experience on the journey. We start in Georgia, where tens of thousands of acres of land had been occupied and cultivated since the 8000s BC by the indigenous people. During the Manifest Destiny “delusion”, some American officials thought that the best way to solve what they were disgracefully calling an “Indian problem” was to “civilize” the Native Americans. To do this, they encouraged them convert to Christianity, taught them to speak and read English and had them adopt to European-style practices such as individual ownership of land and other property, such as owning African slaves. So, here is a big shocker, in the winter of 1829, gold was discovered in great abundance upon Cherokee soil in Georgia after a little Cherokee boy living on Ward creek had sold a gold nugget to a white trader the year prior. Mining operations quickly sprang up. As prospectors rushed in, so did armed brigands claiming to be government agents, who paid no attention to the rights of the natives who were the legal possessors of the country. Their land was valuable and desired by the white settlers. Tensions with them and the Cherokee increased. They called it the ”Great Intrusion”. Sound familiar? We talk about the California gold rush all the time on this podcast, but the rush in Georgia came in second for the most significant gold rush in the United States. John Ross, the elected Chief of all the Cherokee Tribes did all he could. Laws were made benefiting the settlers, and the Cherokees homes were burned, fences and crops destroyed and their cattle was mutilated. Men were shot in cold blood as the lands were confiscated. Cherokee Principal Chief John Ross sent Chief Junaluska as an envoy to plead with President Jackson for protection for his people. Chief Junaluska knew President Andrew Jackson after he brought 500 warriors to help Jackson win the battle of the Horse Shoe. 33 of Junaluska’s men ended up dead. In the battle, when the Creek had Andrew Jackson at his mercy, Junaluska drove his tomahawk through the skull of the Creek warrior about to kill Jackson. But when Junaluska approached Jackson, his manner was cold and indifferent. “Sir, your audience has ended. There is nothing I can do for you.” The doom of the Cherokee was sealed. In 1830, Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act. It was a tiny, wealthy minority of Cherokee who signed a fraudulent treaty that ceded their eastern lands. The Act gave the federal government power to relocate the native population to the west and move Americans into their cotton kingdom. It promised that their new land would remain unmolested forever, but the boundaries of “Native Land” diminished as the line of white settlement pushed westward. The gold extracted from Georgia those years would equate to over 22 million dollars in 2022. Differences over remaining in their Southeastern homeland or moving to the West had split Cherokees before removal. Some Cherokee asked to postpone removal until the fall, and to voluntarily remove themselves. The delay was granted, provided they remain in internment camps. Only 2,000 Cherokees had left their simple log cabins, cornfields, orchards, and livestock by 1838. So, the government sent General Winfield Scott and thousands of soldiers to gather the remaining families in Eastern Cherokee Territory and put them in concentration camps before the removal. As the Cherokee were arrested and dragged from their homes at the bayonet point that May, the American men looted their belongings and robbed their dead’s graves to get their jewelry and other little trinkets. A small child had died during the commotion and was lying on a bear skin couch. His family was preparing the little body for burial. All were arrested and driven out leaving the child in the cabin. Men working in the fields were arrested and driven to the stockades. Women were dragged from their homes

Support Queens of the Mines with a tip! Venmo- @queensofthemines CashApp $queensofthemines Paypal [email protected] Today, we are talking about an active and daring freedom fighter from California history! For decades after America’s largest migration, the gold rush began, the men who came alone to California to seek their fortunes longed for wives and women of pleasure. It was easier for Chinese traders to convince families to sell their daughters rather than their sons. The traders would offer money to the parents for their daughters, some as young as five years old. The parents were straight up lied to. They were told the traders would help their girls find wealthy husbands, or arrange for them to get an education. The girls would became domestic slaves or were sold into prostitution. The young women lived brutal lives. The youngest girls didn’t last more than a few years before their worn and abused bodies gave out. They would usually die within five years after they were first held captive. Some who were on the verge of death were put in a solitary room to starve. Chinese gangs known as Tongs, usually headed up the operations. The local government overlooked the crime. San Francisco City Hall took kickbacks from Tong groups at the time so there was little government action against this problem. Donaldina Cameron was born on a sheep farm in New Zealand in July of 1869. She spent the first three years of her life there with her Scottish family including her six older siblings. By the time she was four years old, the entire family had immigrated to the United States of America. They brought their skills and knowledge from the farm and made their home on a large sheep ranch in the San Gabriel Valley in California. San Gabriel Valley is to the east of Los Angeles in present-day Pasadena. Her family and friends called her Dolly. Dolly’s childhood was secluded from the outside world. On the ranch, she spent the days picking Johnston’s bush lupine and dreaming of marrying. She would have a hard working ranch family and live the kind of comfortable life that her parents had always provided. She knew of nothing else in her new home state of California. When she was thirteen years old, The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was passed, the first piece of federal immigrant legislation in the United States. It was said to be originally passed to prohibit sex trafficking of Asian women and an influx of Asian male laborers. The Chinese slave trade was as much a part of San Francisco history as was the gold rush. Under the Chinese Exclusion Act, any immigrant from any area considered “undesirable” was prohibited from entering the United States. This included most of Asia. Chinese women could not enter the United States unless they were already married to a man living there. A dangerous and illegal system dubbed the ”paper daughters” was created, where papers were forged stating the trafficked victims were already members of Chinese families in the United States. Hours north, cable cars were first climbing San Francisco’s hills. The city had been built to a massive scale since the gold rush began. Protestant women were launching an attack on “yellow slavery” in San Francisco. Cameron came to the city as a young woman to attend school to be a teacher. In the bay, she fell in and out of love. Her best friend at school had an activist mother, who volunteered at the Presbyterian Mission House in San Francisco. Young Chinese girls who had been shipped from China or kidnapped to work as indentured servants were taking refuge under Maggie Culbertson’s team’s care. They were provided with “food, shelter, and the teachings of the Christian faith.” At the time, females made up 60 percent of the missionary force. Missionary work, and social work in general, was an example of leadership that was acceptable for Victorian women. Maggie Culbertson, the founder of the Presbyterian Mission House, was ill and needed help. Dolly had recent

Support Queens of the Mines with a tip! Venmo- @queensofthemines CashApp $queensofthemines Paypal [email protected] In this episode, we dive into the life of Isadora Duncan. In How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, the film from 2003, Kate Hudson’s character Andy dons a yellow diamond necklace in one scene that they call the “Isadora Diamond”. That $6 million 80-carat yellow diamond in the necklace was designed by Harry Winston and is named after Isadora Duncan. whose philosophy earned her the title of “the creator of modern dance”. Angela Isadora Duncan, was born in San Francisco on May 26, 1877. The youngest of the four children of banker, mining engineer and connoisseur of the arts, Joseph Charles Duncan and Mary Isadora Gray. Soon after her birth, Joseph was caught embezzling from the two banks that he was hired to set up. He used the money to fund his private stock speculations. Joseph was lucky to avoid prison time. Her mother Mary left Joseph and moved the children to Oakland to find work as a seamstress and piano teacher. The family lived in extremely poor conditions in Oakland and Angela Isadora attended school until she was ten years old. School was too constricting for her and she decided to drop out. To make money for the family, Angela Isadora joined her three older siblings and began teaching dance to local children. She was not a classically trained dancer or ballerina. Her unique, novel approach to dance showed joy, sadness and fantasy, rediscovering the beautiful, rhythmical motions of the human body. Joseph remarried and started a new family, they all perished aboard the British passenger steamer SS Mohegan, which ran aground off the coast of the Lizard Peninsula of Cornwall England on the 14th of October in 1898. Only 91 out of 197 on board survived.  Eventually, Angela Isadora went east to audition for the theater. In Chicago, she auditioned for Augustin Daly, who was one of the most influential men in American theater during his lifetime. She secured a spot in his company, which took her to New York City. In New York, she took classes with American Ballet dancer Marie Bonfanti. The style clashed with her unique vision of dance. Her earliest public appearances back east met with little success. Angela Isadora was not interested in ballet, or the popular pantomimes of the time; she soon became cynical of the dance scene. She was 21 years old, unhappy and unappreciated in New York, Angela Isadora boarded a cattle boat for London in 1898. She sought recognition in a new environment with less of a hierarchy. When she arrived, ballet was at one of its lowest ebbs and tightrope walkers and contortionists were dominating their shared music hall stages. Duncan found inspiration in Greek art, statues and architecture. She favored dancing barefoot with her hair loose and wore flowing toga wrapped scarves while dancing, allowing her freedom of movement. The attire was in contrast to the corsets, short tutus and stiff pointe shoes her audience was used to. Under the name Isadora Duncan, she gave recitals in the homes of the elite. The pay from these productions helped Isadora rent a dance studio, where she choreographed a larger stage performance that she would soon take to delight the people of France.  Duncan met Desti in Paris and they became best friends. Desti would accompany Isadora as she found inspiration from the Louvre and the 1900 Paris Exposition where Loie Fuller, an American actress and dancer was the star attraction. Fuller was the first to use theatrical lighting technique with dance, manipulating gigantic veils of silk into fluid patterns enhanced by changing coloured lights.  In 1902, Duncan teamed up with Fuller to tour Europe. On tour, Duncan became famous for her distinctive style. She danced to Gluck, Wagner and Bach and even Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. Female audiences adored her despite the mixed reaction from the critics. She inspired the phenomenon of young women dancing

Support Queens of the Mines with a tip! Venmo- @queensofthemines CashApp $queensofthemines Paypal [email protected] Were you in the Herring Creek Area between December 3-6 of 2021? The Sheriff’s Office is seeking information from anyone who was. Please call 209-694-2910 if so. After seeing the positive impact the RAD Card program has had on local business and consumers, The Sonora Area Foundation has thrown another 100,000 into the pot. So if you missed your chance for a Rad card, hurry up and fill yours up now! An individual is only allowed a max of $100 to be doubled, but the app will continue to allow you to add unmatched funds on it, so you can use contact free payments at local businesses if you please. Originally, $500,000 of federal American Rescue Act funds was used for the program; those funds ran out in one week. The new funds will be available soon, so download the app and keep your ears open! Ok, moving on! The Temperance movement began when, across the country, different groups began arguing that alcohol was morally corrupting and hurting families economically. Claiming men would drink their family‘s money away. This temperance movement paved the way for some women to join the Prohibition movement, which they often felt was necessary due to their personal experiences dealing with drunk husbands and fathers, and because it was one of the few ways for women to enter politics in the era.

Support Queens of the Mines with a tip! Venmo- @queensofthemines CashApp $queensofthemines Paypal [email protected]

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We are in a time where historians and the public are no longer dismissing the “conflict history” that has been minimized or blotted out. We now have the opportunity to incorporate the racial and patriarchal experience in the presentation of American reality. That is why today we are going to talk about Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. The preceding episode may feature foul language and or adult content including violence which may be disturbing some listeners, or secondhand listeners. So, discretion is advised. Today, we are not talking about California History. This is an ad free episode. We are back to our regularly scheduled episodes next week. Have you heard of #MMIWG? The meaning behind the hashtag is Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. 95 percent of these cases were never covered by national or international media. It’s a hidden epidemic. I bring this up in light of the case of Gabby P, and the national coverage the case is getting in comparison to media coverage on the missing Indigenous women in the nation. 18% of Indigenous female homicide victims had newspaper media coverage, as compared to 51% of White homicide victims and the newspaper articles for Indigenous homicide victims were more likely to contain violent language, portray the victim in a negative light, and provide less information as compared to articles about White homicide victims. This is not different for other communities of color. Education lawyer Johnathan S. Perkins tweeted, “Name one Black woman who went missing and garnered national media attention. I’ll wait.” Indigenous people account for less than 3% of the population in Wyoming. The largest number of Indigenous people were Eastern Shoshone and the Northern Arapaho and living on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Fremont County. There were 34 Indigenous female homicide victims between 2000 and 2020. In the latter of the 10 years, the homicide rate was 6.4 times higher than the homicide rate for White females. Despite their small percentage of the population, Indigenous people experience violence, homicide, sexual assault, and are reported missing at disproportionate rates relative to any other race/ethnicity in Wyoming. I would like to take the time to acknowledge one of this year‘s most recently vanished Indigenous Women, and she also went missing in Wyoming, just like Gabby. It’s not that there shouldn’t be concern and outrage surrounding Petito’s disappearance, but despite the fact that 40 percent of Americans reported missing are people of color, this national outcry is rarely replicated for anyone other than a white person. Jade Keilee Wagon born Feb 3, 1996 was a Northern Arapaho tribal woman, Her Northern Arapaho Indian name was Cedar Tree Stands Alone. She stood 5‘4‘‘ tall and weighed roughly 140 pounds with brown hair and brown eyes. She had a one of a kind sense of humor and you could spot her cute silly laugh in the largest crowd. Jade was a dedicated mother of two children, MaeLeah and Raphael, and was close with her family. Wagon graduated from St. Stephens Indian School in 2014 and was preparing to attend the Wind River Job Corps to learn a trade and someday have a career in the medical field. From the time she was 19 she had the privilege of being a stay at home mother. Before she was 23, she visited the following states; Utah, Montana, Colorado, South Dakota, New Mexico as well as Florida. She loved to spend time in the mountains. Being outdoors and enjoying nature gave her the feeling of empowerment of being free. Jade was devoted to her Native Ways attending sweats, fasting, and looking for guidance. She had a strong faith that no one could take from her. She was baptized into the Catholic faith and was a devoted member of both St. Stephen’s Catholic Church and St. Margaret’s Catholic Church. She worked at the Wind River Casino for a short time. 30 minutes away from the Wind River Casino was the Shoshone Rose Casino. On January 2nd 2

It was Labor Day last Monday, and I wanted to take this week to honor a labor union organizer who was a woman named Sue. I found most of my information from the US National Park Service but you can find a more extensive list of references in the show notes for this episode. Make sure to follow the Queens of the Mines instagram and facebook pages this week for images from the story! If you enjoy the podcast, please make sure to rate, subscribe and check out what Queensofthemines.com has to offer, including the new book Queens of the Mines,in paperback and on Kindle. Sue Ko Lee Ok, so let’s talk about Sue Ko Lee, just you and me. Next week, I will have a guest but today it is just us. Sue Ko Lee was born in Honolulu, Hawaii March 9, 1920. She grew up in Watsonville, California, for our out of state listeners, that is in Santa Cruz County, just south of the Santa Cruz that you may know. Sue was the oldest of ten children. - already in a leadership role. She met Lee Jew Hing, who was an immigrant from China. He was a bookkeeper for National Dollar Stores. Most Chinese workers in San Francisco worked for Chinese employers like Joe Shoong, the owner of National Dollar Stores. They married when Sue was 18. She soon took a job at the same factory, along with several of her family members as Chinese American garment workers. Chinese American garment workers were working in poor conditions and making low wages. They had limited options because most white-owned businesses refused to hire them. Also, the Chinese immigrant community was so close-knit, many workers were connected to their bosses through family and friendship ties. Such personal relationships sometimes made workers reluctant to speak out against poor treatment. Many unions had supported the Page Act and the Chinese Exclusion Act. The Page Act of 1875 was the first restrictive federal immigration law in the United States, which effectively prohibited the entry of Chinese women, marking the end of open borders. Seven years later, the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act banned immigration by Chinese men as well. So Chinese workers like Lee and her family had a complicated relationship with the labor movement. Until the 1900s, Chinese and Chinese American workers were locked out of unionized factories by racist hiring practices. They reasonably feared that if all the factories were unionized, their jobs would be taken by white workers. Unions like the International Ladies‘ Garment Workers‘ Union were working hard to organize Black, Latino, and Asian American workers in the 1930’s. The International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union was one of the largest labor unions in the United States in the 1900s, representing hundreds of thousands of mostly female clothing industry workers. In the 1930s, the garment industry was the largest employer in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Chinese-owned factories undercut white-owned union shops by charging lower prices for work, paying lower wages and assigning their workers longer hours. Here the workers continued to toil under sweatshop conditions, earning wages ranging from $4 to $16 a week. Sue Ko Lee, a button hole machine operator, worked in the National Dollar Store factory for 25¢ an hour. These practices allowed them to stay in business in the face of the hardship of the Great Depression—but came at a high cost to their workers. This concerned the International Ladies‘ Garment Workers‘ Union. The International Ladies‘ Garment Workers‘ Union organizers struggled to make any headway among Chinese workers until Jennie Matyas, an immigrant from Hungary arrived as the new organizer. Matyas built personal relationships with the workers and their Chinese community and earned their trust. Sue Ko Lee and her coworkers voted to join the International Ladies‘ Garment Workers‘ Union, using ballots written in both English and Chinese. They became the Chinese Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, Local 341. In 1938, she participated in a strike against th

xWhat would it have been like for women in California in the 1850’s? What hardships did they face and what victories were they able to realize? Who were the first women to come to California and who was already here?  The new book, Queens of the Mines, features stories of ten brilliant people who made their own way, in a time where women were not so welcome to do so. They are rarely heard of, and I want you to know their names.  Queens of The Mines the Paperback Book is Now Available on Amazon and in ebook form on the Kindle Store. Find it all at queensofthemines.com. With the lessons you learn, you may as well strike gold.

Queens of the Mines features the authentic stories of gold rush women who blossomed from the camouflaged, twisted roots of California. Today, we learn the story of Emma Nevada,  The Comstock Nightingale.  QOTM is looking for sponsors, and advertisers. New and old episodes are being downloaded everyday. If you are interested in supporting the continuation of QOTM, reach out to us via the link on queensofthemines.com Thank You to our Sponsors -Sonora Florist -Columbia Mercantile 1855 -The Law Office of Charles B Smith -River Ranch Music Festival #21

The Youreka Podcast Network launches in October! A single audio feed to amplify the unheard voices of the Motherlode. Today, you will hear a sneak peek from one of the New Shows on the Network. If you want to help with the production of the network, you can donate to the Youreka Podcast Network at queensofthemines.com. “We are gathered here today for, Here Lies, an Audio Tour podcast that guides you through fascinating lives of some of the residents of the historic gold rush cemeteries in California. Known, but rarely heard, and I want you to know their stories.” Today we’re talking about the Sonora Masonic Cemetery in Downtown Sonora CA, I’m Andrea Anderson the hostess of QOTM.” For who could put a price on a memory? This is, Here Lies. The Sonora Masonic Cemetery is located at the cross road of Otis and Cemetery, at 185 Cemetery Lane Sonora, California in Tuolumne County. Disclaimer :This audio tour is off trail, climbing aa dirt hill. RESOURCES USED: Find a grave, Ancestry.com, and History Hunters Youtube Channel which I highly recommend if you are an out of town listener www.queensofthemines.com/donate

The baby fuzz on her lip had now developed into a growth of unusual proportions for a woman. A disgruntled miner who’d lost his temper in Bannack  and a bundle at her table gave her the name “Madame Moustache”.