For understandable reasons, black American records of the Gold Rush are very rare, and so are underground railroad accounts from those fleeing to freedom; yet here in this single book is the account of a self-taught escaped slave and underground railroad worker who also succumbed to the lure of the California Gold Rush. James Williams was all of these things and more, a fascinating individual who in this memoir manages to cram more life into fewer pages than almost anyone, a habit of a traveling life that must have served him well. We learn about Williams's birth and escape from the South, his travels and exciting experiences on the West Coast in the mid-nineteenth century, and we become privy to his views on the many people he met, including Chinese immigrants, and his observations on notable events of his time, such as the Modoc War in California.The clear voice and keen eye of James Williams provide a unique glimpse into a complex, rapidly changing world, an America bustling and growing on two shores of a continent yet poised to soon divide itself in a civil conflict.Malcolm J. Rohrbough is a professor of history at the University of Iowa. His books include Days of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the American Nation (1996).