California, a Slave State

California was conceived in slavery, as Prof. Jean Pfaelzer has argues in her book California, A Slave State (2023). Marked and marketed with “California dreamin,” the state nurtured slavery in regimes that for 250 years sunder its true history from its utopian myth – that its people and land were there for the taking. Pfaelzer’s lecture turns to those who were enslaved to explore how California owes its origins and sunny prosperity, and its long tradition of resistance, rebellion, and revolt to those who were held in human bondage.