Here is a picture from earlier: (on right)
This was an African-American miner. Although free African-American were very rare at the time, it was proven that this African American WAS free. the reason he's here is to find gold is because he has probably escaped recently and needed money to sustain himself. In the 1840s, racism was far worse and much more plentiful. Arriving immagrints faced much more racism than they normally would have because the white men consided them theives that had come to take thier gold. However, when an African-American was seen,he was assumed to be a slave(and almost always was).

-Peter
Deborahs class