Mifflin Wistar Gibbs

Attorney, judge, and diplomat

• Born: April 17, 1823
• Birthplace: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• Died: July 11, 1915
• Place of death: Little Rock, Arkansas

Education: Oberlin College

Significance: Mifflin Wistar Gibbs was a prominent African American community leader in British Columbia. He later returned to the United States and become an attorney, judge, diplomat, and banker.

Background

Mifflin Wistar Gibbs was born to Jonathan C. Gibbs, a Methodist minister, and his wife, Maria, on April 17, 1823, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was one of four siblings. His youngest brother, Jonathan Clarkson Gibbs II, became a prominent politician during the American Reconstruction era and was Florida’s first African American secretary of state. His father died in April 1831, when Gibbs was just eight years old. Following his father’s death, Gibbs took on a job of holding and driving a doctor’s horse until he was sixteen years old.

In his youth, Gibbs apprenticed as a carpenter, although by his early twenties he became involved in the abolition movement and began to work for Frederick Douglass. In this capacity, Gibbs joined Douglass in lecturing against slavery in Upstate New York. In 1850, Gibbs moved to San Francisco during the California Gold Rush.

Gibbs found success in California, after working for a brief period as a carpenter and bootblack. However, he was unable to pursue a carpentry trade due to racial discrimination. He soon became a partner in a firm called Lester and Gibbs, which sold fine boots and shoes. Gibbs also helped to found the Mirror of the Times, California’s first newspaper advocating for the equal rights of all Americans. In the 1850s, Gibbs and his partner Peter Lester refused to pay the state’s poll tax. As a result, the state of California seized many of their business assets and attempted to sell them at auction. However, a white Southerner, who was sympathetic to the plight of Gibbs and Lester, was able to convince the crowd at the auction to not bid on any of their items.

Life’s Work

In June 1858, following the discovery of gold along the Fraser River, in modern-day British Columbia, Gibbs settled in Victoria, on Vancouver Island. Gibbs became a major part of the early settlement movement to the area. In 1861, he became a British citizen. During this time, Gibbs continued his work as a merchant, establishing a successful business in Victoria that was the first to challenge the dominance of the Hudson’s Bay Company in the region. He also helped to organize and finance the Victoria Pioneer Rifle Corps, an African American volunteer militia that was founded due to a dispute between the United States and the British Empire over the San Juan Islands. In 1862, Gibbs attempted to run for a seat on the Common Council of the City of Victoria. However, he was not successful and lost out by a mere four votes. Gibbs ran again for the Victoria City Council in 1866 and served from 1867 to 1869. During this time, in 1868, Gibbs served as the delegate for Salt Spring Island to the Yale Convention, which promoted popular support for British Columbia joining the Dominion of Canada shortly after Canadian Confederation.

After a decade of living in Canada, Gibbs decided to move back to the United States with his family during the Reconstruction era after the American Civil War. Gibbs for a time lived in Oberlin, Ohio, with his wife and children. While living in Ohio, Gibbs studied law at Oberlin College. In 1871, he settled in Little Rock, Arkansas, where he read law at the office of Benjamin and Barnes and later passed the Arkansas bar. In 1872, he opened his own law firm, Wheeler and Gibbs, with Lloyd G. Wheeler, in Little Rock. He then became a prominent member of the Republican Party during the Reconstruction era, and he was appointed to several prominent government positions, including a judgeship. In 1873 he was appointed the county attorney for Pulaski County, a position he later resigned after winning election to the office of municipal judge of Little Rock, making him the first elected black municipal police judge in the United States.

While holding these positions, Gibbs continued to run his successful law practice and made smart real estate investments, and by the late nineteenth century he was one of the wealthiest African Americans in the United States. Gibbs served as register of the US Land Office for the Little Rock District of Arkansas from 1877 to 1886 and as the receiver of public monies at the Little Rock Land District from 1889 to 1897. He was recognized by President William McKinley and was named the American consul to Madagascar in 1897. He resigned that position in 1901 and returned to Little Rock. In 1903 he opened the Capital City Savings Bank, the second African American–owned bank in Arkansas. He served as the bank’s president until it folded in 1908. Gibbs died at his home in Little Rock on July 11, 1915, at the age of ninety-two.

Impact

Mifflin Wistar Gibbs was a prominent community leader, both in Arkansas and in British Columbia. During his appointment as the American consul to Madagascar, Gibbs mentored William Henry Hunt, the first African American to have a lifetime career as a diplomat, and also worked to have Hunt succeed him in this role. Hunt later married Gibbs’s daughter Ida. Gibbs also had close friendships with W. E. B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington, who wrote the introduction to Gibbs’s autobiography, Shadow and Light (1902).

Personal Life

Gibbs married Maria Ann Alexander in 1859. He had five children, four of whom survived to adulthood: Donald, Horace, Ida, and Harriet "Hattie" Gibbs. Like their father and mother, both of Gibbs’s daughters were educated at Oberlin College.

Bibliography

Alexander, Adele Logan. Parallel Worlds: The Remarkable Gibbs-Hunts and the Enduring (In)Significance of Melanin. Charlottesville: U of Virginia P, 2010. Print.

Dillard, Tom. "‘Golden Prospects and Fraternal Amenities’: Mifflin W. Gibbs’ Arkansas Years." Arkansas Historical Quarterly 35 (1976): 307–33. Print.

Dillard, Tom. "Mifflin W. Gibbs." Statesmen, Scoundrels, and Eccentrics: A Gallery of Amazing Arkansans. Fayetteville: U of Arkansas P, 2010. Print.

Gibbs, Mifflin Wistar. Shadow and Light: An Autobiography. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1995. Print.

"Government of Canada Celebrates the Historical Significance of Mifflin Wistar Gibbs." Parks Canada. Govt. of Canada, 4 Aug. 2009. Web. 22 Sept. 2016.

Hawthorn, Tom. "The Island Remembers Its Black Pioneers." Globe and Mail. Globe and Mail, 6 Sept. 2012. Web. 22 Sept. 2016.

Killian, Crawford. Go Do Some Great Thing: The Black Pioneers of British Columbia. Vancouver: Douglas, 1978. Print.

Kilpatrick, Judith. "Mifflin Wistar Gibbs." Arkansas Black Lawyers. Judith Kilpatrick, 2003. Web. 22 Sept. 2016.