 When John Jacobs went to California in 1850, he went because the Fugitive Slave Act had been passed. He went because California was not a state and had not passed the law that obligated people in the North to help capture fugitive slaves who had made it to the North. Soon after, California becomes a state and actually passes a more severe version of the Fugitive Slave Law. And many African-American miners, I would say 400 to 500 at least, took boats for Australia