Who was the first African-American consul?
On October 29, 1845, Thomas O. Larkin, U.S. Consul in Monterey, California (then part of Mexico) appointed William A. Leidesdorff as Vice Consul at Yerba Buena (now San Francisco). Leidesdorff was born in the Danish West Indies (now the U.S. Virgin Islands) to a Danish planter and an Afro-Caribbean woman in 1810. He was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 1834 while living in New Orleans. While living in California, he became a Mexican citizen in 1844 in order to increase his landholdings. His service as Vice Consul lasted until U.S. forces occupied northern California in July 1846. Leidesdorff died in San Francisco on May 18, 1848.
