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The Horton family of San Jose. For her latest book about African Americans in Santa Clara County, Jan Batiste Adkins talked to families whose presence in the South Bay dates back several generations.
(Courtesy of Sourisseau Academy/San Jose State University)
In 1777, five families of mixed Mexican and African heritage arrived in Alta California with the Spanish to help establish El Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe. They grew the food for the presidios, the military installations in the Bay Area, explains local historian Jan Batiste Adkins, who s written three books on the history of African Americans in the Bay Area. Adkins says those are the first Black families in the South Bay she s found records for.