Mary Ellen Pleasant
| Mary Ellen Pleasant | |
|---|---|
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| Born | 19 August between 1812–1817 |
| Died | January 4, 1904 San Francisco, California, USA |
| Known for | Entrepreneur and abolitionist |
Mary Ellen Pleasant (born 19 August 1814? – 1817 - died 4 January 1904) was a 19th-century African American entrepreneur widely known as Mistress Pleasant. She identified herself as "a capitalist by profession" in the 1890 United States Census. People called her "Mammy" Pleasant but she did not approve. Mistress Pleasant used her fortune to further the abolitionist movement. She worked on the Underground Railroad across many states and then helped bring it to California during the Gold Rush Era. She was a friend and financial supporter of John Brown, and was well known in abolitionist circles. After the Civil War, she took her battles to the courts in the 1860s and won several civil rights victories, one of which was cited and upheld in the 1980s and resulted in her being called “The Mother of Human Rights in California”.
Pleasant made contradictory claims about her earliest years, and her exact origin remains unclear. Her birthday is known to be August 19, but the year is in dispute. Her gravestone at Tulocay Cemetery in Napa, California, states 1812, although most sources list her birth as 1814. In one version of her memoirs dictated to her god-daughter, Charlotte Downs, she claimed she was born a slave to a Voodoo priestess and the youngest son of a Governor of Virginia, James Pleasants. In any case, she showed up in Nantucket, Massachusetts circa 1827 as a 10- to 13-year-old bonded servant to a storekeeper, "Grandma" Hussey. She worked out her bondage, then became a family member and lifelong friend to Hussey's granddaughter Phoebe Hussey Gardner. The Husseys were deeply involved in the abolitionist movement, and Pleasant met many of the famous abolitionists.
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