There were a relatively small number of Gold Rushers of African ancestry, probably fewer than 4,000. One of the miners was an African American slave named Edmond Edward Wysinger (1816–1891). After arriving in the Northern mine area of the California Mother Lode with his owner in 1849, Wysinger and a group of 100 or more African American miners were surface mining in and around Morman, Mokelumne Hill at Placerville, and Grass Valley. It took him about a year to buy his freedom for $1,000.