Talk:William Leidesdorff

Cleanup (Initial post)

I started cleaning up the article. I removed the duplicate information from the article and made the birth and death information more presentable. Exhartland 08:26, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

All it says on the main thing is Hi. That is really irritating. I need to do a project on him and get info on him. But all it says is Hi.

THANKS A LOT WIKIPEDIA. YOU SURE HELPED ME.

African American Heritage

This should probably be discussed more at length, especially since there are claims of him being America's first black millionaire. [1] 67.185.99.246 09:10, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

You are exactly right. William Leidesdorff's role in the establishment of the City of San Francisco is almost criminally overlooked, as well as his position as probably the nation's first black millionaire. I have tried to add some things to this article and will come back to it when I have more time. Thanks for pointing this out.MarmadukePercy (talk) 18:35, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm unclear about the latest addition to the Leidesdorff piece, concerning his mother's Carib ancestry. Is this questioning, then, whether Leidesdorff was black? (Because such a suggestion is ludicrous.)MarmadukePercy (talk) 05:47, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for clearing that up. Leidesdorff is almost universally acknowledged to have been black, which makes his considerable accomplishments all the more remarkable.MarmadukePercy (talk) 21:34, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Compulsively altering Leidesdorffs profile to match interpretations which ignore the census record is not the same thing as his being universally acknoweledged as black. It is in fact doubtful if either he or his contemporaries would have so categorized him. In probability he was part African but his mother was racially mixe and categorized as Indian in census records. There are some people who would categorize any Caribbean Indian as Black or anyone part African as Black and only on this basis in the absence of persistence on the part of his main ethnic racial constituents could Leidesdorff be categorized as Black.RichardBond (talk) 17:47, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

His estate was valued at more than $1 million when auctioned off in 1856, but that was after the Gold Rush increased the value of the American River property, and rising prices lifted the value of the San Francisco property. When he died in 1848, it was valued at $50,000. He was still a really successful man, but people need to be careful with the facts. Also, he was mixed-race West Indian, of Danish, African and Spanish heritage, not typically African American, although he became a US citizen after CA was taken over by the US. Before that, he'd become a naturalized Mexican citizen. He was not a US diplomat, but was appointed Vice Consul under Mexican rule.--Parkwells (talk) 21:08, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Who is

Who is Wolf Leidesdorfer of Szathmar, Hungary exactly, and what does he have to do with the subject of this sketch, the extraordinary William Leidesdorff? Sorry, but this escapes me.... MarmadukePercy (talk) 18:51, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

A member of the Leidesdorff family in Europe - not a descendant. The book "The First Black Millionaire..." has a lot about the estate battle and various characters.--Parkwells (talk) 21:09, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Mother

Was she Marie Anne or Anna Marie ? -- Beardo (talk) 14:54, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

POV edits

I've removed the more glaring POV comments and tried to introduce an encyclopedic tone, as well as adding more inline citations. Will be continuing to go to the sources to see what the facts are. It needs to be focused on Leidesdorff. This article is not the place for more general comments about the status of African Americans at the time or in general. Also, many of the comments were inaccurate and did not reflect any familiarity with the sources.--Parkwells (talk) 16:07, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Since your excellent clean-up, the page has suffered again from inaccurate POV editing. Emargie (talk) 16:26, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Black Jewish?

Since Leidesdorff was baptized as Lutheran, and neither Leidesdorff's father nor he practiced Judaism, and his mother wasn't Jewish, it seems stretching it to emphasize in the lead that he was black Jewish. It seems more appropriate to write about Jewish ancestry as one of the strands of his heritage, or editors are rewriting history.--Parkwells (talk) 18:45, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Leidesdorff was not Jewish. His father Alexander was born in Copenhagen, Denmark on 7 April 1778 and was baptized in Stockholm, Sweden. William Alexander Leidesdorff was born on 23 October 1810 and was baptized 18 November 1810 in the Lutheran Mission Church and classified as a castice [an octaroon]ToldotResearch (talk) 00:55, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Chart demonstrating racial mixtyures including Castizo Castice http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/Casta_painting_all.jpg RichardBond (talk) 20:02, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

This is an example of an octroon I have seen her family pictures her father worked for a friend of my family who was my first cousins godfather. Someone of this degree of racial admixture is part [African or Black] but it is not a defining condition.RichardBond (talk) 23:48, 1 March 2011 (UTC) http://www.contactmusic.com/pics/la/sport_legend_dinner_2_230908/gabrielle_reece_5190900.jpg

We don't use charts, pictures, etc to make statements about ethnic groups, we use what reliable sources say about a subject. Dougweller (talk) 21:48, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

The reliable source in this case are the vital records not a feature columnist like Thurman or now Percy who does not adhere to actual history.RichardBond (talk) 23:16, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

William Leidesdorff Racial Identity

- Marmaduke Percy creates serious doubts as to his quality as a journalist if he depends on repeating previous inaccuracy in what are themselves secondary sources rather than going off the actual historical vital records. Leidesdorff's father was White his mother was a Caribbean indigenous. She appears by accounts to have been part African but to a lessed degree. The result being that only be repeating prior inaccuracy can his identity be defined as Black rather than part Black. RichardBond (talk) 23:17, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

POV and lack of sources

Material has been added that is OPED, POV and lacks sources, as well as being thrown in without regard to sentence structure. Have tried to clean up the article, but editors need to cite their additions, especially on aspects of what was a contentious legal case.Parkwells (talk) 19:38, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Why I removed from Danish-Jewish descent cat

1-These should be in the same line. The way it is described in the lede makes it unclear if any ancestor was a Jew in Denmark, if his ancestors who were Jews were Jews elsewhere and either his Danish ancestors were on another line or his ancestors converted to Christianity before moving to Denmark, he is inapropriately so cat. 2-The lead where his ancestry is described says "possibly Carib, Danish and Jewish". It makes it unclear if the possibly is modifying just Carib or all three. If possibly is modifying all three (which would make sense, since one should list known ancestries followed by possible ones to avoid confusion) than he should not be so categorized since categories need to be undisputed. 3- This one I learned from reading discussion, but doing so convinced me that I was right in my previous action. There is dispute about what Leidesdorff's ancestry was, and the evidence of his Jewishness is not clearly spelled out. This ancesty is unclear for him, only undisputed categorizations should be done.John Pack Lambert (talk) 06:31, 28 July 2011 (UTC)