Mary Ellen Pleasant (born 19 August 1814 1817 - died 4 January 1904) was a 19th-century African American entrepreneur widely known as Mistress Pleasant. She identified herself as a capitalist by profession in the 1890 United States Census. People called her mammy pleasant but she did not approve. Mistress Pleasant used her fortune to further the abolitionist movement. She worked on the Underground Railroad across many states and then helped bring it to California during the Gold Rush Era. She was a friend and financial er of John Brown, and was well known in abolitionist circles. After the Civil War, she took her battles to the courts in the 1860s and won several civil rights victories, one of which was cited and upheld in the 1980s and resulted in her being called The Mother of Human Rights in California. Show less «