Erika D. Smith: Of course, Black people should get reparations. The question is which Black people
Jonathan and Matthew Burgess had a story — well, a truth — to tell, and they wanted to tell me at Sutter's Fort State Historic Park in Sacramento, California.
It seemed appropriate.
Like many a Sacramentan, the twin brothers had walked through the preserved stone buildings, dirt paths and old trees as schoolchildren. It's where they learned about John Sutter, the pioneer who founded what would become California's capital city and who controlled land 45 miles away in Coloma, where an employee named James W. Marshall discovered gold in the American River, starting the Gold Rush.
Or so the whitewashed story goes.
The Burgess brothers insist the truth — based on old records, photos and stories passed down from generation to generation — is a lot more complicated.
They say that it wasn't just Sutter who had land in Coloma. Free Black people did, too, including their formerly enslaved ancestors, before it was unfairly seized by the state. For that, the brothers say their family is owed reparations.
"If there were descendants of Sutter right now, talking about
