Clara Brown

Clara Brown (1800 - 1885) was a Esclave and a Philanthrope of Virginia to the the United States which became one of the leaders of the Gold rush of the Colorado, and in particular the first woman Afro-américain E to be taken part in it.

Youth

Brown was born parents slaves from Virginia in 1800. Very young person, his/her mother and it were separated from her father when they were bought by a farmer of tobacco of the name of Ambrose Smith. Child, it worked primarily in the fields, until the family passes from Virginia to the Kentucky. At 18 years, Brown met another slave, of the name of Richard, with whom it Marie. Of this union four children come: Richard, Margaret, Paulina Ann and Eliza Jane. Paulina Ann will die in low-age.

In 1835, their owner died and the family was sold with the biddings, which caused to separate them.

Emancipation

In around fifty, its owner died and his/her daughters gave to Clara Brown her freedom as well as the possibility of working in a laundry if she wished it. It remained a short moment and then decided to find its family. It voyaga towards the west with their research, hoping that some of them will have been carried in the furrow of the gold rush. It obtained its passage to the west while engaging like cooker for a group of gold diggers. It is thought that it was the first woman Afro-American to make the voyage of the gold rush of the Colorado.

Gold rush

Once arrived, it began its prospections to find its family as well as to profit from economic opportunities. Energy of city downtown, it settled finally with Central City with the Colorado and opened a laundry, which enabled him to invest in the mines around. At the same time, it started to use its time to help people around them better than it could, lodging religious services (Clara Brown was very pious, of rite Méthodiste) in its house and helping people in the need. It helped sixteen former slaves to find work with Central City.

To find to them his

After the Civil war, Brown turned over in the south in order to find the members of her family. There, she learned that his/her Margaret daughter had died, but she did not find trace of her husband and her son.

In spite of that, in 1879, then old 79 years, it went to Kansas in order to help a colony of slaves émancipés to settle and cultivate the ground.

Lastly, then octogenarian and relatively impoverished, it managed to learn that his/her daughter Eliza Jane was alive and lived in the Iowa. Meeting again were organized after 50 years of separation.

Clara Brown died in 1885, but little before its death, it was allowed within Society off Colorado Pioneers ( Société of the pioneers of Colorado ) for its participation in the gold rush.

Sources

Clara Brown Biography
Colorado Women' S Hall off Famed
Note on Clara Brown with the Museum of the Americans of the West
Note of Clara Brown on denvergov.org

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