Savvy investor, real estate mogul, and revolutionary abolitionist Mary Ellen “Mammy” Pleasant was born enslaved 210 years ago on Aug. 19, 1814.

From birth, this woman’s story is absolutely amazing. She is the first Black female self-made millionaire. She also was a leading Underground Railroad stationmaster. And she is known as “The Mother of Civil Rights in California.”

Pleasant was born to a Black Louisianan mother who was a Vodoun/Voodoo priestess. And her Hawaiian father reportedly was an abolitionist.

She stated in her autobiography that she was born right here in Philadelphia on Barley Street (although some historians say Virginia or Georgia).

In 1828 at age 14, she became an indentured servant in Massachusetts to Mary Hussey, a Quaker store owner. When Pleasant’s term of servitude as a general worker then store clerk and unofficial accountant ended, she was accepted as a member into the abolitionist Hussey family. It was around this time that people began noticing this girl’s innate business acumen.

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