‘This should still be our land’ | Families fighting to reclaim Coloma land taken by the state
Two local families want the state to return the land it acquired through the process of eminent domain & added to Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park.
Two Black Sacramento-area families are sharing their stories with ABC10 as they fight to reclaim family land the state took decades ago through the process of eminent domain.
The land is in Coloma and now comprises part of the Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park.
Jonathan Burgess traces his California roots back more than 170 years. His great-grandfather Rufus Burgess was brought to California as a slave around 1850, at the time of the Gold Rush. He became free soon after, took up gold mining, and bought land in Coloma, eventually opening a blacksmith shop and planting and farming fruit trees.
"Pretty emotional to be here,” he told ABC10 during an interview at the park.
Burgess is digging up the photos and documents to prove what in the park was once family land — and that the State of California took it from them through what he says was an unfair process.
“This is one of those situations where this should still be our land,” he said.
In the late 1940s, California acquired some of the family property, Burgess said and ABC10’s research shows, through a process called eminent domain. That's when a government condemns private property and takes it for public use, such as for highways, airports, and schools. In this case — the land was taken for Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park.
“Yet, I look around and it looks viable with houses and a resort across the way, so I don't know what was really condemned,” Burgess said, standing in the park.
Eminent domain – also known as condemnation - is essentially a sale forced by the government. Landowners are supposed to be paid fair market value. It's in the United States Bill of Rights. The Fifth Amendment of the Constitution says "private property (cannot) be taken for public use, without just compensation."
However, Burgess said his family was under-compensated and ultimately had no say in the process.
RELATED: ‘That story needs to be told’ | Black Sacramento family on a mission to reclaim land in Coloma
Historical records show some of the Burgess family lands were sold by the Burgesses to neighbors and other family members over the decades, but not every sale was made willingly. In the late 1940s, for example, the state had its eye on two lots belonging to the family.
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Using Eminent Domain Gold Rush Centennial
In the years leading up to the 100th anniversary of the Gold Rush, state officials were in a land rush, passing laws and urgency measures allowing the State Park Commission to more easily and quickly acquire property through eminent domain.
In June 1947, then-Governor Earl Warren signed a bill into law that allowed the State Park Commission to acquire land through eminent domain without first seeking the Governor's approval - as had previously been the case.
A few weeks later, the Governor approved an urgency measure, allocating $80,000 for State Parks to purchase and develop land near the Gold Discovery Site. $10,000 of that was earmarked for buying 14 acres in Coloma.
In a July 1947 memo giving the Governor the legal greenlight to approve those funds, then-Deputy Attorney General Walter S. Rountree wrote, "The grounds for the urgency are stated to be that the spot is of historical interest and immediate acquisition is necessary in that it will play a major part in the 1948 and 1949 Centennial celebration."
Months later, the state started the process of taking four parcels of land in Coloma from two Black families, ultimately paying a total of $9,858.30 to be split among six people in this forced sale.
One of those people was a man named Pearley Monroe.
Dawn Basciano is his great-granddaughter.
"True history needs to be told, no matter how uncomfortable it is,” she said. “(Pearley Monroe) went to court and was adamant about keeping what was his. And in the end, the state won, you know. In the end, they got his land."
Impacts of Eminent Domain
Jeff Lee lives in Coloma and does volunteer research for Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park and for people – including Basciano – to explore their family history. He said Pearley Monroe owned several hundred acres of land throughout Coloma and beyond, some of which Monroe lost to the state via eminent domain.
"Pearley was never ever, ever able to get back what he lost,” Basciano said. “That generational wealth was non-existent. There was nothing there to pass forward because much of it had been taken by the state of California."
Bruce's Beach A Success Story
Basciano and Burgess are encouraged to see a recent win by another Black California family.
Last year, Governor Newsom signed a law allowing Los Angeles County to transfer the land back to the descendants of Willa and Charles Bruce. They were an African American couple who opened a Southern California beach resort for Black families in the early 1900s, at a time when racial segregation barred them from many beaches.
The Bruces withstood threats from white neighbors and even the KKK, but in 1924, the city of Manhattan Beach took the land through eminent domain, saying it planned on building a park—though that didn't happen for decades. The land ownership eventually transferred to the county, and nearly a century later—this past July-- after much advocacy and that change in state law, L.A. County returned the land to the couple's heirs.
Telling the story of Coloma
In addition to fighting to reclaim family land taken through eminent domain, Basciano and Burgess want to see their families’ stories told more fully in the museum and interpretive signage throughout the Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park, along with other Black families in early Coloma, who contributed to Coloma during the Gold Rush and for decades after.
"There were blacksmiths. There was barbers. There were people that owned bath houses and then people that did cleaning and cooking for other miners and themselves," Lee said. “A lot of them became farmers, they became ranchers."
"It's important for kids, especially little Black children, to know their history,” Basciano said. “How much they had an influence out here, what they've done."
Some signs installed in the park in the past year help teach that history, as State Parks Gold Fields District Superintendent Barry Smith explained to ABC10.
"One of the asks from Jonathan (Burgess) was like, 'Could you please recognize those properties that may not be recognized?' And I thought, 'Fantastic idea.' So we've come out with several of these signs,” he said, standing beside one denoting the former site of one of the Burgess homes.
ABC10 accompanied Basciano in May as she saw her family's sign for the first time.
“Andrew's son Pearley later bought plots of land to preserve the Gold Rush history of Coloma,” it reads, in part. “The State of California then bought the land that became this state park.”
“I’m glad that they put this here and gave name to who owned this property,” she said with a smile, adding, “They didn't go into the details, but at least - you know - it's a start, right? It's a start."
Returning the land
Basciano and Burgess say righting past wrongs starts with telling the true story, but more needs to be done.
"If the state came in and took land through eminent domain, if you can - give it back - or fairly and justly compensate those families in which you took that land from, because when you talk about generational impacts, there was a generational impact to Pearley and his descendants,” Basciano said.
If the descendants of Willa and Charles Bruce could find success in Southern California, could that work for Basciano and Burgess?
"It's not a one-size-fits-all model at all,” said Kavon Ward, who leads the Justice for Bruce's Beach organization.
"One of the most important parts of our advocacy - it's where we start, actually - is informing the public of what's happened before we do any call to action. We over-inform,” Ward told ABC10 in an interview
She has now launched an organization called Where is My Land, along with activist Ashanti Martin.
“We decided to join together in order to replicate that success and to take the larger movement on a national scale - and find and help Black families who lost land or had land stolen because of their race, just like Willa and Charles Bruce did,” Martin told ABC10.
Throughout American history, she said, Black people have had land taken from them in a variety of ways.
"They endured violence to their property and terrorism…fraud, deception, coercion, playing family members against each other, you know, misrepresenting a forgery, deed theft. The list goes on, to be quite honest. Just straight up corruption,” Martin said.
She and Ward are working with Jonathan Burgess as he fights to reclaim the land in Coloma.
What about state parks?
ABC10 asked Supt. Barry Smith about this goal.
"That's kind of beyond what I could ask, right? That would be unfair to say because I don't know. That's at a much higher level,” he said. “What I can help somebody with is, if there's a story that needs to be told or would like to be told, I have no problem listening to that and coming up with a solution and maybe expanding those stories, but I can't speak upon the potential reparations or his ask of that. That's beyond my scope."
He said that kind of listening has led to not only the addition of the interpretive signage denoting land that formerly belonged to Black families but also the addition of expanded, more nuanced information throughout the park about people of many different cultures who called Coloma home. Some of those changes are detailed on the park's site HERE.
ABC10 also spoke with Leslie Hartzell - Chief of State Parks’ Cultural Resources Division - about a broader effort within California State Parks called the Reexamining Our Past Initiative.
“(It’s) really sort of a gut check, if you will. Like, we have a lot of historic parks that came into our system over, you know, 100+ years now, and some of them - visitors will see - have some older memorial markers or older names,” Hartzell said. “I think it's time, with this initiative, to really take a look at that and see if we need to advance some changes.”
The initiative includes everything from renaming landmarks to – in this case – adding more information at Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park about the Black families who lived in Coloma.
Basciano said – she understands that it’s a long, slow process.
“You know, most of the folks here up at the park are wonderful, engaging, and they want change. They recognize that there's been some holes missing from the history and what's told up here,” she said. “They're working on it. They're actively trying to plug those holes and make things better.”
Still, she said, "a lot of the things are outside of the (hands of the) individuals that work inside the state parks. They don't have the control that they need to make those big, wide, sweeping changes and decisions,” she said. “So it has to come from, you know, folks higher up."
She and Burgess are calling on state lawmakers, but Burgess said it can feel like an endless cycle where all the answers they get point them to a different department or decision-maker.
And Burgess is clear — when it comes to reclaiming land, he doesn't want to displace anyone.
"If anybody were to want to uproot somebody, that means we haven't learned and we haven't gotten better, and I think we are better,” he said. “But in areas where there's nothing being done (with the land) and it clearly should be returned, I want those people to be in support of that. And say, 'Yeah, we shouldn't be returning it.'"
He sees it as an opportunity to rebuild family and regional wealth...
"Anything that we put here, like a bed-and-breakfast or a barbecue shop, would bring value not only to the park, but to the region,” he said. "It could be a part of the local economy...You know, who knows, the House of Burgesses Restaurant. Bed and Breakfast. Tell the story."
California Reparations Task Force Latest news
California’s first-in-the-nation statewide Reparations Task Force produced a preliminary report in June, with findings from their monthly meetings in which they heard testimony from experts and people personally impacted by the long legacy of slavery in America.
The Task Force is set to produce a final report – with recommendations for reparations – to state lawmakers at a future date.
Burgess, however, said he doesn’t want to wait that long. He and Basciano hope that they can see some action taken on their situation. By sharing their stories, they hope to get the attention of someone with the power to do something.
