William Leidesdorff - Early Life and Education

Early Life and Education

Born in Christiansted in Saint Croix when the Virgin Islands was under Danish (Danish West Indies), William Leidesdorff, Jr. was the oldest son of four children of Danish sugar plantation manager Wilhelm Alexander Leidesdorff (who used Alexander Leidesdorff as his name) and his common-law wife Anna Marie Sparks, reportedly of African and Spanish descent. Wilhelm Leidesdorff Sr. was reportedly of Jewish descent from the community of Altona, Hamburg. It was part of the Danish Schleswig-Holstein, then across the river from but now part of today's port of Hamburg, Germany. He migrated to North America and later the Caribbean to further his career as a merchant. Leidesdorff and Anna Marie lived in New Orleans under Spanish rule before the Louisiana Purchase, and he worked as a sugar factor.

Leidesdorff, Jr.'s mother Anna Marie Sparks, was described in one account as a Carib Indian woman; she was believed also to have had African and European ancestry. Her race was noted in a census report. Many people observed that what were called "Carib" people had skin of various hues that likely reflected mixed ancestry, ranging from dark brown to lighter shades of brown, resulting in a Virgin Islands Creole, to which she may have belonged. Other sources said the mother Marie Anne Spark (as she was also known) was a mixed-race woman of African and Spanish heritage, thought to have been born in Cuba. In census records, Marie Anne Spark was classified as a free Carib Indian, but few Carib survived into the late 18th century, according to Gary Palgon's biography of Leidesdorff. Other sources document tens of thousands of Caribs, most of mixed heritage, living in the Windwards and Trinidad at the time of Leidesdorff's birth. Together the accounts describe Spark as a light-skinned woman of mixed-race ancestry, yet classified as black by the 1850s California Court System, where blacks were restricted from testifying in court. According to Sue Bailey Thurman, "With the name of William Alexander Leidesdorff, we begin the documentary history of pioneers of Negro origin in California."

Today, William Alexander Leidesdorff, Jr. is recognized as the "African Founding Father of California", as noted by the California State Legislature. 2011 is the United Nations International Year for People of African Descent.

As an infant, William Leidesdorff, Jr. was baptized as a Lutheran, as all the Leidesdorff children were, the adopted faith which his father and many other people of Jewish ancestry in Europe assumed to avoid conflict. In 1837 Leidesdorff, Sr. officially "adopted" all four of his own children from Anne Marie Sparks to give them legal standing by Danish Law.

Leidesdorff, Jr. was said to leave St. Croix at about fifteen years of age to be educated in Denmark.