California Gold Rush: A History from Beginning to End, by Hourly History.

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CALIFORNIA GOLD RUSH: A HISTORY 

FROM BEGINNING TO END, 

by HOURLY HISTORY. 

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Well written.  

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"In some cases, incomers used even more direct methods to eradicate the Indian Problem. In 1849, the Daily Alta California newspaper reported that “Whites are becoming impressed with the belief that it will be absolutely necessary to exterminate the savages before they can labor much longer in the mines with security.”"

Nazis merely applied those identical principles, thinking and actions in Europe instead. 

"The casual killing of Native Americans by white settlers began on an ad-hoc basis, but soon, it became official policy. In 1850, California became a state, partly as a result of the influx of gold into the U.S. economy, and one of the first acts passed by the new legislature was the Act for the Government and Protection of Indians. This innocuous-sounding act actually meant that Native Americans had no right to testify in court and that white settlers could legally keep Native Americans as indentured slaves. The first governor of the state of California, Peter Hardeman Burnett, said in a speech in 1851, “That a war of extermination will continue to be waged between the races until the Indian race becomes extinct must be expected. While we cannot anticipate this result but with painful regret, the inevitable destiny of the race is beyond the power or wisdom of man to avert.”"

What else can one expect after church persecution of Jews for two millennia, continuing Roman persecution of Jews which included daily crucifixions, for centuries? 

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"By this point, the state had begun to amass weapons and to issue these to local militias. U.S. Army and militia units were encouraged to attack Native American settlements and, in some cases, were paid a bounty for every Native American person they killed and for every horse they took from the people they murdered. In 1855, in Shasta County, each Native American head presented to local government was worth $5. Although no one is certain of the precise numbers, it is estimated that anything up to 30,000 Native American people were killed in 1849 and 1850."

Exactly how and why is that not genocide? 

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"If large numbers of Native Americans were found to be living in areas close to gold-mining activities, they were frequently killed even if they had displayed no aggression toward the settlers. For example, a group of around 400 peaceful Pomo people was living close to Clear Lake, north of San Francisco. Even though there was no evidence that these people posed any threat to white settlers, a force of U.S. cavalry assisted by local volunteers attacked the settlement in 1850. Virtually every man, woman, and child living there was brutally slaughtered. Many of the volunteers took scalps as souvenirs."

Precisely what Hitler ordered his forces to perpetrate through East Europe, especially Belarus and Russia, which they did, massacring over two million civilians by burning whole villages alive. 

"In the earliest days of the gold rush, some Native Americans chose to take part in the search for gold. By the end of 1849, however, this had virtually ended, with only indentured Native Americans being forced to work in the gold fields. Yellow fever and cholera, which were endemic in the new towns and work camps, took an even greater toll on Native Americans. Traditional hunting lands were meanwhile deforested to provide timber for the miners, and Native Americans were simply forced from any land where they were perceived as presenting a potential threat to white settlers."

Replace "white settlers" with Germans and "Native Americans" with everybody else, and there's Europe under nazis. 

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"The inherent racism of the period meant that relatively few people questioned or objected to what amounted to a genocide of Native Americans in California. By the early 1850s, the Native American population of the area had declined by the tens of thousands, many confined to reservations far from gold-mining areas. The U.S. Congress reacted not with condemnation but by providing additional funds to help army units and local militias to kill and drive Native Americans from their homes.

"Native Americans weren’t the only race to be the target of discrimination and violence during the gold rush. Attracted by the news of the discovery of gold, Chinese immigrants began to arrive in San Francisco in 1848. Many of these immigrants came from southern China, where the Taiping Rebellion had led to widespread poverty and starvation. At first, when gold was plentiful and easy to find, Chinese immigrants were tolerated. When it became harder to find gold, discrimination against these Chinese people increased.

"Attacks against Chinese prospectors became commonplace, and these people had little legal redress, particularly given that many lived within their own communities and spoke little or no English. In 1850, the Californian legislature passed the Foreign Miners License Law, which required all gold miners and prospectors who were not U.S. citizens to pay a tax of $20 per month. Given that many Chinese workers were making less than $20 per month, this caused a mass exodus of Chinese people from the gold fields. Many returned to San Francisco, leading to the creation of the largest Chinatown in the world outside Asia.

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"However, the mass exodus of hard-working miners caused immediate problems, and the law was quickly repealed. Chinese immigration continued unabated, and it was estimated that in 1852, over 20,000 Chinese people arrived in California. By this point, there were anti-Chinese riots in San Francisco, and violent attacks on Chinese groups in the gold fields increased. In the same year, the Californian legislature introduced another new and discriminatory law that required all Chinese immigrants working in the gold fields to pay a tax of $4 per month.

"Much of the discrimination against Native American people and Chinese immigrants occurred as a direct result of a change in the nature of the gold rush after 1848. As gold became more scarce and much larger, industrialized approaches became necessary, the free-for-all of 1848 ended, and large corporations moved in. These businesses exploited where they could and attacked anything that seemed to undermine their ability to make a profit. No longer could individuals come to California and hope to make enough money to set themselves up for life. Instead, smaller number of people became extremely rich while the majority were forced into back-breaking work for very little return.

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"Samuel Brannan typified the new breed of entrepreneur who emerged during the gold rush to make money from the people who came to California in search of gold. Other than his initial visit to Coloma in 1848 to gather enough gold dust to fill a small glass jar, Brannan never bothered with looking for gold. Instead, he opened a second general store and then a third. The turnover at these stores was breathtaking. At their peak, each store was making more than $5,000 every day (worth almost $200,000 in current value) through selling tools, equipment, and supplies to prospectors. Brannan invested the profits in property, buying buildings in San Francisco and Sacramento. By the mid-1850s, he was generally recognized as the wealthiest man in California.

"However, like many business owners who made money during the brief period of the gold rush, he proved less adept when California became just another state in the United States. Toward the end of the 1850s, Brannan built an expensive resort in Calistoga in the Napa Valley, north of San Francisco. He hoped to cater to the city’s new rich elite, but building a railroad to the resort proved ruinously expensive, and by the time it was completed, the wealth generated by the gold rush was beginning to falter. The resort proved a costly failure, and during one acrimonious exchange with employees there, Brannan was shot eight times, though somehow, he survived. Through a series of other failed schemes, Brannan lost the fortune he had acquired during the gold rush. By 1887, he was living in Arizona and was reduced to selling pencils door-to-door. When he died in 1889, he had only a few dollars left.

"Other businesses founded during the gold rush proved to have more enduring appeal. Two businessmen, Henry Wells and William Fargo, started a new business in 1852 specifically intended to provide secure transportation and storage of gold from California to the east coast of America. Wells Fargo & Company operated stagecoaches and steamships as well as providing secure banking and storage facilities. The company expanded steadily until, by 1870, the company controlled almost all western stagecoach lines and operated the largest fleet of stagecoaches in the world. Today, Wells Fargo Bank has thousands of branches across America and affiliates around the world. The whole empire can be traced back directly to an operation started to make a profit from the California gold rush.

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"In 1849, a young man from Pennsylvania moved to Placerville in California in the hope of starting a business selling implements to miners. Here, John Studebaker began to manufacture sturdy, durable wheelbarrows, which proved very popular with prospectors and miners. He became so famous that he was universally known as “Wheelbarrow Johnny.” He used the money he made from the sale of wheelbarrows to finance his brother’s company, the Studebaker Wagon Corporation. By 1909, Studebaker was one of America’s largest manufacturers of automobiles.

"Another young man, 24-year-old Levi Strauss from Bavaria (in modern-day Germany), also moved to California during the gold rush. He opened a store on the waterfront in San Francisco selling clothing, tents, and other supplies to miners and prospectors. In 1871, he developed the product that would make his name world-famous: hard-wearing denim pants strengthened with the use of rivets in areas of particular wear. These became so popular that they sold all over America, and in the twentieth century, Levi’s blue jeans became one of the most popular types of apparel for young people across the world. When he died in 1902, Strauss’ personal fortune was worth more than $6 million, a great deal of which came directly from the durable pants he first sold to miners during the gold rush.

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"In 1849, a young man from Pennsylvania moved to Placerville in California in the hope of starting a business selling implements to miners. Here, John Studebaker began to manufacture sturdy, durable wheelbarrows, which proved very popular with prospectors and miners. He became so famous that he was universally known as “Wheelbarrow Johnny.” He used the money he made from the sale of wheelbarrows to finance his brother’s company, the Studebaker Wagon Corporation. By 1909, Studebaker was one of America’s largest manufacturers of automobiles.

"Another young man, 24-year-old Levi Strauss from Bavaria (in modern-day Germany), also moved to California during the gold rush. He opened a store on the waterfront in San Francisco selling clothing, tents, and other supplies to miners and prospectors. In 1871, he developed the product that would make his name world-famous: hard-wearing denim pants strengthened with the use of rivets in areas of particular wear. These became so popular that they sold all over America, and in the twentieth century, Levi’s blue jeans became one of the most popular types of apparel for young people across the world. When he died in 1902, Strauss’ personal fortune was worth more than $6 million, a great deal of which came directly from the durable pants he first sold to miners during the gold rush.

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"Samuel Langhorne Clemens also came to California in search of gold. Like so many others, he found back-breaking work but no wealth. One of his most famous quotes about the gold rush sums up his experience neatly, “A mine is a hole in the ground with a liar standing next to it.”

"After drifting from job to job, he found a position as a writer with a Virginia City newspaper, the Territorial Enterprise. In 1863, that newspaper published a short humorous piece of travel writing by Clemens titled “Letter From Carson.” To distinguish this piece from the straight reportage that Clemens also wrote, he signed it with a pen name: Mark Twain. Two years later, he published his first piece of fiction, “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” based partly on his experiences as a gold miner. He retained the same pen name, and as Mark Twain, Clemens would go on to become one of the most celebrated and best-loved of all early American fiction writers.

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"The United States of America was created in 1776. Seventy years later, the new nation was struggling to build a stable economy. Large areas of the continental United States remained unexplored wilderness, and increasing numbers of people came to believe in Manifest Destiny, a phrase first used in 1845 to describe what many saw as the inevitable expansion of the U.S. westward into lands that were still largely unknown.

"The president elected in 1845, James Polk, was strongly expansionist and a firm believer in Manifest Destiny. Though there were American towns in the west at that time, they were few and relatively small. Travel between east and west was hazardous and lengthy. There were few safe overland routes, and the journey on horseback or in a wagon could take nine months or more. Even an expensive steamship voyage from the east coast to the west could take three months. ... "

Is author, of this volume of the Hourly History series, unthinking or not quite literate? What "expensive steamship voyage from the east coast to the west", when, during the century and decades before Panama Canal, the only routes were either navigating Drake's Passage, something professional sailors dreaded, or via Cape Town and thence across the Pacific Ocean? 

Presumably author means latter, which may have existed, but were they merely expensive, not perilous, even if lacking hazards of Drake's Passage?

" ... When people reached the west coast, there was little existing infrastructure. There were few good roads, almost no river crossings of any kind, and travel inland was painfully slow. Most people who moved to the west were fishermen, hunters, trappers, or farmers, and they were few in number.

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"The perceived hazards of moving inland were exacerbated by the presence of Native Americans, “Indians,” who were generally believed to be both savage and implacably hostile. ... "

To begin with, they were not "Indian" in any sense except the racist redefining of the term "Indian", to indicate anyone not African or Mongoloid - but India (and indian) are nomenclature for the land (and people thereof) that is enclosed by Himaalaya in north, oceans in south and, in Northwest, Sindhu river valley, the name deformed by Europe from Sindhu to Indus - hence the name India for the land that people Northwest of the valley could only access by crossing the river, and few from Europe could access any other way until someone did do sailing around Africa. 

But Columbus who never did reach India was wrong in claiming that he'd done so, whether he knew it or not. And continuation of that lie is as incorrect as China calling all US residents Japanese. In fact the latter would be far less racist - and geographically justifiable. 

" ... While many people might have believed in the concept of expansion to the west, few were willing to face the hardships that such a move entailed. If Americans were to be persuaded to move west, they need a concrete reason to do so.

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"This reason manifested itself in January of 1848. A carpenter working on the construction of a new lumber mill on the American River, around 100 miles (160 kilometers) inland from the then-small town of San Francisco, noticed something glittering in the gravel run-off from a sluice. He showed it to the mill owner, and the two men agreed that the tiny flakes did look rather like gold. Although they didn’t realize it at the time, these men had just found something that would bring thousands of new settlers to America’s west coast and begin a transformation that would change the nation. What would become known as the California Gold Rush was about to begin."

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"“The public can see how inhuman were the operations of Sutter.” 

"—Juan Bautista Alvarado"

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"What would become the California Gold Rush began with one man: John Augustus Sutter. Many histories of the early American settlement of the west portray Sutter as a typical pioneer: bold, resourceful, and courageous. The truth is a little less positive."

That's more true of most early migrants from Europe, who necessarily flourished by not only pushing natives of the land out, but causing their deaths, by diseases as much as by warring, and often deliberately so. 

"Sutter was born in Baden (modern-day Germany) in 1803 as Johann August Suter. By his early twenties, he had become a fast-talking entrepreneur running a small store. However, his ability to secure credit proved in advance of his abilities as a businessman, and by 1834, he was facing charges of obtaining credit by making false statements. Rather than face the prospect of spending time in prison, Sutter decided to leave Europe for America, leaving behind his wife and five children."

Baden was a province or state in Germany, now integrated with Wuerttemberg to form the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg; one of the towns in Baden is Baden-Baden. 

It's unclear whether the author is not aware of the distinction, or whether the actual birthplace and early residential locations of Sutter are not known more precisely than general region of Baden. 

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"He was able to obtain a French passport that identified him as Captain John Augustus Sutter, an officer from the Swiss Guard displaced by the revolution in France. After years of travel across America, in 1839, Sutter arrived in the small port of Yerba Buena (later renamed San Francisco) on the west coast of the Mexican province of Alta California. Somehow, Sutter was able to persuade the Mexican governor of this territory, Juan Bautista Alvarado, to grant him an area of land covering more than 45,000 acres on the Sacramento River. Sutter agreed to become a Mexican citizen and to build a fortified settlement on the land to protect it from Native Americans as well as “adventurers from the United States.”

"Sutter called the fort Nueva Helvetia (New Switzerland, present-day Sacramento). It quickly became clear that Sutter had no intention of honoring his promise to the governor. He began to issue passports to American settlers and to establish businesses through which he could make money from incomers. For his workforce, he attacked, captured, and enslaved large numbers of Native American people. Even by the standards of the time, his treatment of indigenous people provoked outrage and horror among settlers. One wrote, “Villages were attacked usually before daybreak when everybody was asleep. Neither old nor young was spared and often the Sacramento River was colored red by the blood of the innocent Indians.”"

Read that "innocent natives" of the land, who had right to the land, unlike migrants from Europe - and their descendants. 

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"By the mid-1840s, Sutter had established Sutter’s Fort on the Sacramento River with an enslaved workforce of more than 800 Native Americans, kept in appalling conditions, barely fed, and subject to continual abuse. The manager that Sutter appointed to run the fort on his behalf noted with satisfaction in 1844 that “The Indians of California make as obedient and humble slaves as the N---o in the South.”

"Meanwhile, things were changing in Alta California. A new Mexican governor, Brigadier General Manuel Micheltorena, was appointed. Concerned about the growing numbers of American settlers in the territory, Micheltorena brought an army with him in an attempt to keep the region under Mexican control. As commandante militar (military commander), Micheltorena appointed John Sutter, apparently believing Sutter’s claims to have served in the Swiss Guard. The truth was that Sutter had no military experience at all.

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"In 1845, Sutter led Mexican forces against a coalition of settlers from America and other countries known as the Californios in the Battle of Providencia in the San Fernando Valley. The battle consisted of little more than a desultory exchange of artillery fire (total casualties on both sides amounted to one horse and one mule killed). Many men in Sutter’s army were persuaded to defect to the Californios, and the remainder fled back to Mexico. A few months later, a native Californian, Pio de Jesus Pico, was elected as the first governor of the autonomous state of California.

"Sutter remained in California and was determined to expand Sutter’s Fort to become a true city, with housing and a wharf on the Sacramento River. For this, he needed timber, and he had a water-driven timber mill built on the American River, 25 miles (40 kilometers) from Sutter’s Fort in present-day Coloma, California. Sutter also moved to Coloma; he had amassed a considerable debt, and in this remote area, he believed that he would be safe from his creditors. To oversee the construction and operation of the new mill, he appointed one of his most trusted workers, carpenter James W. Marshall. On January 24, 1848, Marshall was removing debris from the tailrace of the mill when he noticed several objects glittering among the gravel. They looked like gold.

"Marshall told Sutter, and the two men referred to an encyclopedia and decided that the glittering nuggets really were gold. They agreed to become partners and to keep their discovery secret. Sutter immediately began to purchase the rights to as much land as possible in the vicinity of Coloma. Nevertheless, the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill would not remain a secret for long."

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"Samuel Brannan arrived in California in 1846 with a party of Mormon missionaries intent on creating a new settlement there. He was favorably impressed with the climate and the fertile land, and in 1847, he made the arduous journey over the mountains to the valley of the Great Salt Lake, where charismatic leader Brigham Young had established the first and largest Mormon community. Brannan had hoped to persuade Young to relocate to California, but the church leader preferred the isolated seclusion of the wastes of the Great Basin. Brannan then returned to California and opened a general store in Sutter’s Fort.

"Within a few months, Brannan began to hear rumors that Marshall and Sutter had discovered gold at the mill on the American River. He made the journey to the mill and was able to fill a small glass jar with gold dust. As he returned to Sutter’s Fort, he considered what to do. He became the first (but not the last) person to realize that the discovery of gold offered two alternate routes to wealth. He could himself search for gold, but that was a hazardous and risky proposition that had no guarantee of success. Or, he could encourage others to search for gold and make money by selling them the provisions, supplies, equipment, and tools they would need. The latter course did not hold the promise of instant wealth, but it was also considerably less arduous and risky than becoming a gold prospector.

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"Brannan then traveled to Yerba Buena (which was becoming known as San Francisco amongst its 1,000 residents) and paraded through the streets, waving his hat and his jar of gold and shouting, “Gold! Gold! Gold from the American River!” Within days, there was an exodus from Yerba Buena (and from the towns of Monterey and Los Angeles) toward Coloma and the American River. A local newspaper ran a front-page article that noted, “The whole country from San Francisco to Los Angeles, and from the seashore to the base of the Sierra Nevada, resounds to the sordid cry of gold! GOLD!! GOLD!!!”

"While it might have decried the whole notion as “sordid,” a separate editorial noted that this would be the last issue for a while, as everyone who worked for the newspaper was heading to Coloma to look for gold. By late July, when officers of the U.S. Army traveled to the area around Coloma, they sent back a report noting that “Upward of four thousand men were working in the gold district, of whom more than half were Indians, and that from $30,000 to $50,000 worth of gold, if not more, was daily obtained.”

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"By that time, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo had been concluded with Mexico, and California had been formally annexed as a part of the United States. Thus, in theory, the gold discovered around Coloma belonged to the United States, but there was no simple way of controlling the prospecting or the extraction of gold. Instead, the government seemed to take the view that the gold would eventually find its way into the economy of the U.S. and left the prospectors in Coloma to continue.

"There had been rumors of gold discoveries in California before, but none had proved to be true. Because of that, when reports of the discoveries in California began to appear in newspapers, they were not initially believed. As reporters rightly pointed out, California had been occupied by Spain for over 200 years. Surely, if there was gold to be so easily found, they would have found it. However, when the military officers who visited Coloma in July sent back their report to the government, they also included a small box of gold dust. This was examined and found to be good-quality gold.

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"When President James K. Polk delivered his fourth annual report to Congress on December 5, 1848, he specifically mentioned the discovery of gold in California: “The accounts of the abundance of gold in that territory are of such an extraordinary character as would scarcely command belief were they not corroborated by the authentic reports of officers in the public service who have visited the mineral district and derived the facts which they detail from personal observation. The explorations already made warrant the belief that the supply is very large and that gold is found at various places in an extensive district of country.” "

It occurs at this point that perhaps this gold rush, with benefits all to US, may not have pleased some English men, And perhaps this was the reason why Ignatius Donnelly writes so vehemently against the two prized metals held superior throughout history, globally. 

"With President Polk’s announcement to Congress, it was official: there really was gold in California—and a great deal of gold at that. The rush of prospectors traveling to California was about to turn from a trickle to a torrent."

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"The first influx of outsiders seeking gold came from South America. As early as May 1848, the captain of a Chilean cargo ship trading tallow and hides between San Francisco and Valparaiso heard rumors of gold for sale. He offered to buy any gold available at a price of $12 per ounce. Local merchants were offering just $8-10 per ounce, so when the ship sailed from San Francisco, it carried plenty of gold dust and nuggets. The captain knew the gold would be worth at least $17 per ounce in Chile. When this ship docked in Valparaiso in August, news of the gold traveled quickly. Dozens of hopeful prospectors began to book passages to California. They would be the first of many, many thousands.

"Even before President Polk’s speech, large numbers of people from Oregon had already made to journey to California to look for gold. The only available route was the Siskiyou Trail, a system of rough tracks and high passes that linked the Willamette Valley in Oregon with the Central Valley in California. This trail, only used from the 1830s, involved up to three months of travel over rugged and inhospitable terrain. Nevertheless, rumors of gold for the taking drove several hundred people to make the journey in the autumn of 1848.

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"Others came from Mexico, Peru, and the Sandwich Islands (the present-day Hawaiian Islands). Before the end of 1848, it is estimated that up to 6,000 people from America and beyond had traveled to California. Many passed through San Francisco. The city had been briefly virtually abandoned as up to three-quarters of its residents went inland to seek gold, but now, it quickly became a hub for arriving gold-seekers. New businesses sprang up to deal with the growing demand for accommodation, provisions, supplies, and equipment.

"The early prospectors did well. They found many easily accessible deposits of gold in riverbeds in the American River, and it wasn’t long before eager prospectors began to spread out from the vicinity of Coloma to adjacent rivers. By the end of 1848, prospectors were working the Feather River, Yuba River, Clear Creek, Webber Creek, and many other small waterways in the Coloma Valley. It was estimated that every waterway for 30 miles (50 kilometers) in all directions from Coloma was being worked. Other rivers up to 200 miles (320 kilometers) to the north were also explored, and many of these were also found to hold deposits of gold.

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"The technique used by these early prospectors was extremely simple and was known as panning. This involved using a shallow metal bowl into which a mix of river gravel and water were added. The water was then carefully swirled around, and the lighter elements were washed back into the river. This process took time; most miners could effectively process only up to 50 pans per day. If it was done well, the process would leave gold nuggets or even gold dust at the bottom of the pan. The good thing about panning was that the equipment required was relatively inexpensive and easily portable.

"Soon, prospectors began to use more complex and sophisticated equipment to extract larger quantities of gold. The first was the rocker, a rectangular wooden box set at a sloping angle and mounted on a rocker. On the top level of the rocker was a sieve, and underneath were several riffles, where smaller, heavier particles were trapped. A shovelful of gravel would be dumped into the rocker, followed by water. The whole wooden box was then agitated by hand. Rocks and lighter debris were caught by the sieve and dumped out. Heavier items, including gold nuggets, were retained in the riffles. Yet although the use of the rocker allowed the processing of larger quantities of gravel, it wasn’t as thorough as panning; the rocker was a good way of finding nuggets, but fine gold dust (known to prospectors as “flour”) was often washed away.

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"Many of the earliest prospectors were able to find substantial gold deposits using these relatively simple techniques. Two prospectors working the Webber River were able to find gold worth more than $15,000 in just one week. Five prospectors who were amongst the first to investigate the Yuba River were able to extract gold worth $75,000 (worth almost $3 million in current value) in just three months. A more organized approach using a system of rockers on the Feather River manned by Native Americans was able to extract over 250 pounds (110 kilograms) of gold in just seven weeks. Even individual prospectors panning on tributaries and small waterways were able to make anything up to $100 per day, a considerable sum considering that the average wage for an unskilled worker at that time was in the region of $10 per month.

"Other finds were even more fortuitous: one newly-arrived prospector digging a hole in which to set the pole for his tent discovered a nugget weighing over three ounces. One little girl exploring a remote ravine brought back to her family an odd-looking stone—it turned out to be a gold nugget weighing almost three pounds (more than one kilogram). Three men digging out a tree stump in order to make a new road near Coloma took gold worth over $5,000 out of the hole they created. In all, it is estimated that gold worth something in the region of $10 million was found in California in 1848.

"As news of these discoveries spread across America and the world, more and more people were attracted by the dream of riches available for the taking in California. President Polk’s announcement in December 1848 seemed to confirm that there really was gold in California and that this was not just another case of newspaper hyperbole. In 1849, a torrent of people would arrive on America’s west coast hoping to find gold or to make money from those who were searching for it."

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"“The desire of gold is not for gold. It is for the means of freedom and benefit.” 

"—Ralph Waldo Emerson"

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"Many of the people who had heard about the gold rush in California lived in America’s eastern states. Large numbers decided to move to the west in search of gold, but however they decided to do that, they faced an arduous journey. The simplest (and cheapest) option was to travel west by land, on horseback, using wagons, or even on foot. In these days of high-speed, long-distance travel, it is difficult to imagine just how challenging this was. There were no hotels or inns on the few trails that existed and very few stores at which supplies could be replenished. Traveling overland from the eastern states to the west coast of America could take anything up to nine months. In California itself, there were very few roads, no ferries at most river crossings, and an almost complete lack of accurate maps.

"The alternative to crossing overland was to take a steamship, but even that was fraught with difficulty and danger. The route from the east to San Francisco involved sailing south, around Cape Horn, and then north, up the coast of South America to the west coast of America. The journey covered over 15,000 miles (25,000 kilometers) and could take anything up to five months even on a modern steamship. The ships that made this journey were often overcrowded and unsanitary; many people who made the long journey by sea died of disease en route."

Why isn't this author aware of dangers of sailing through the stormy and narrow Drake's Passage, not exactly friendly to a steamship either?

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"There was a shorter alternative, but that too provided its own hazards and challenges. Rather than sailing all the way around Cape Horn, some ships dropped their passengers on the east coast of Panama. These people could then make their way across the narrow isthmus of Panama to the Pacific Coast on horseback or on foot (the Panama Canal would not be completed until 1914). Once these travelers arrived on the Pacific Coast, they faced another problem. Until 1850, there was no regular ship service between Panama and California. People were forced to wait until a passing ship called in, and many found themselves stranded for weeks at a time.

"For many people, the only way to raise the price of a steamship ticket or a land journey was to mortgage their property or business or to invest their life savings. Coming to California in search of gold was risky, but the promise of great riches persuaded many people to make the attempt.

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"When they finally did arrive in California, this influx of prospectors found danger and hazards at every step. They found themselves in inhospitable territory and were often forced to take themselves to very remote areas in order to find rivers that weren’t already being worked. There was no healthcare, and accidents, illness, and snakebite accounted for large numbers of deaths. There was also virtually no law; anyone lucky enough to find gold had to make their way back to civilization before they could safely transform that gold into cash. Along the way, they faced the prospect of ambush and robbery. Some estimates suggest that as many as 20% of all prospectors who came to California’s gold fields in 1849 were dead within six months of their arrival.

"It wasn’t just Americans who came to California in search of gold. The news of the gold discoveries had spread across the world, and prospectors arrived from virtually every European country as well as Australia, New Zealand, and China. These travelers arrived by ship. Precise numbers are difficult to ascertain, but it is believed that up to 50,000 arrived in San Francisco in 1849 by ship, with unknown numbers also arriving by the overland route. This influx of new people became known as the forty-niners, though they gave themselves another name: Argonauts.

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"One of the first impacts of this influx of new arrivals was on the city of San Francisco itself. When news of the discovery of gold was first publicized, the city had less than 1,000 full-time residents. It immediately became a virtual ghost town as people left to seek gold. Then, in late 1848 and early 1849, the population of the city began to grow exponentially. Vast suburbs of tent towns surrounded the city. New stores, gambling houses, saloons, and brothels sprang up to provide for the needs of prospectors. Before the end of 1849, up to 25,000 people lived in the city, with accommodation being so scarce that many were forced to camp outside or to live in shanty houses made from discarded timber.

"Not all the forty-niners intended to search for gold. Many saw the commercial possibilities in the vast influx of people coming to California. Some made money by selling steamship tickets to bring new people to the goldfields; others established stores selling equipment and supplies to prospectors.

................................................................................................

"One of the first men to become a millionaire through the gold rush was not a prospector but a merchant: Samuel Brennan, the man who had first walked through the streets of San Francisco with his jar of gold dust, quickly moved on from selling picks and shovels to speculating in property. He purchased much of present-day Sacramento when it was little more than a muddy riverbank, and he created one of the first private banks in California.

"Other merchants did equally well. One store selling equipment and supplies was said to have done business worth more than $30,000 in a single month in 1849. One farmer made over $150,000 in the same year simply by selling onions to prospectors. Some deliverymen were in such demand that they were said to have earned salaries worth more than six figures. Financiers who put up the money to build a railroad connecting Panama’s east and west coast made vast sums. New businesses in San Francisco also made their founders huge sums; the demand for timber and iron, in particular, seemed never-ending.

"For those bold enough to take a risk, there was money to be made in California. However, for the vast majority of people who came to California in 1849, life was tough and frequently short."

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

"“The rush to California and the attitude, not merely of merchants, but of philosophers and prophets, so called, in relation to it, reflect the greatest disgrace on mankind.” 

"—Henry David Thoreau"

................................................................................................

"Just as more and more people arrived in California in search of gold, it became harder to find. The first prospectors had taken the easy-to-find deposits in river and stream beds. In 1849, there were far fewer stories of people simply digging a hole in the ground and finding a valuable gold nugget. Instead, more advanced, complex, and dangerous techniques were used to find the increasingly inaccessible precious metal.

"The long tom was simply an enlarged version of the rocker, but it needed a continual supply of water so it could be built only beside rivers and streams. Sluice boxes took this approach even further, with lines of long toms connected together to allow the processing of large quantities of gravel and debris. The use of these more efficient techniques denuded gold supplies in rivers and creeks even more quickly, and it was obvious that new methods were needed to extract gold from hillsides that were not adjacent to water.

................................................................................................

"The solution was hydraulic mining. This involved directing a powerful jet of water at a hillside, eroding it quickly with the run-off being collected in a series of sluice boxes. Within a few years, specialist equipment allowed the rapid erosion of whole areas, and water monitors became so powerful that they were capable of killing a man at a distance of 200 yards (180 meters).

"The increasing scarcity of gold also prompted the beginning of true gold mining. In addition to gold dust and nuggets in river gravel, there were known to be large gold seams embedded in quartz deep underground. In the beginning, these were dug out manually using picks and shovels, but as the mines got deeper and more dangerous, miners from Europe—particularly from tin-mining communities in Cornwall, England—brought new expertise and new approaches that allowed the creation of deeper mines.

................................................................................................

"These new approaches also had significant environmental and social impacts. Millions of cubic feet of gravel were washed into rivers, changing their course and character and leaving valleys prone to floods. Farmland was destroyed by the debris washing down the rivers. The new techniques were also well beyond the capacity of individuals. The men who came to California in 1848 equipped with nothing more than a shovel and a pan began to be replaced by much larger enterprises, often run by large corporations employing hundreds or even thousands of people. While people arriving in California in 1849 found almost unlimited employment opportunities, far fewer became individually wealthy through prospecting.

"In addition to those who spent their time in remote gold camps, large numbers of new arrivals settled in San Francisco and other new cities. With the influx of newcomers came businesses created to cater to them. By the end of 1849, San Francisco had more than 500 registered saloons and a large number of unregistered brothels and “fandangos,” which provided alcohol, gambling, and sex workers.

................................................................................................

"When John Sutter discovered gold, he had plans for a new town called Sutterville to be built on the banks of the Sacramento River. However, when the land was swamped with new arrivals, they formed a town they called Sacramento. It became the trading nexus for mines and excavations and grew so rapidly that when California became a state in 1850, Sacramento was chosen to be its capital. By late 1849, paddle-streamers were transporting large numbers of people from San Francisco to Sacramento.

"In the south, meanwhile, a ranch at the confluence of the San Joaquin and Calaveras Rivers became the site for a new settlement. Initially called Tuleburg, it too rapidly grew to become the town of Stockton. Few of the new towns paid much attention to sanitation or sewage. Epidemics of cholera and yellow fever killed thousands of people. Many of the new homes were simply tents, and fire was an ever-present hazard. In fact, San Francisco suffered the first of a series of “great fires” in 1849.

................................................................................................

"Fire and disease weren’t the only risks in the growing new towns. Most had little in the way of governance or law to protect those who settled there. In the gold fields, “staking a claim” was a largely notional and ephemeral process. It was generally accepted that while a particular area was being worked by one or more prospectors, they had a right to the gold found in this place. However, if those prospectors moved on to a new area, their former claim could be taken over by anyone who came along, a process that became known as “claim-jumping.”

"Unsurprisingly, disputes were common and frequently settled with violence, as almost all men working in the gold fields carried guns, and the mining camps and towns were growing far faster than the ability of the state to enforce laws. There were thought to have been at least 500 murders in California in 1849, but only five men were tried, convicted, and executed for these crimes. In response, many gold mining communities formed their own ad-hoc courts.

................................................................................................

"These courts investigated claims and punished offenders with banishment, flogging, or even hanging. The vigilante courts often led to the appointment of law enforcement officials, though these people often had little knowledge of or interest in the law or the justice system. For example, the San Francisco Vigilance Committee (founded by Samuel Brannan) hanged several men suspected of murder in public at the docks. There was some protest, but the truth was that the local sheriff lacked the manpower or resources to intervene, and many prominent local businessmen and politicians were members of the Vigilance Committee. In many parts of California during the early years of the gold rush, the only justice available was vigilante justice.

"Nevertheless, while life during the gold rush may have been extremely hazardous for the Americans and people from other nations who flocked to California in 1849, there was one group of people for whom it was much, much worse: the Native Americans."

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

"“‘Genocide’ is a word I hesitate to use, but what happens in California is very close to genocide.” 

"—Richard White"

That's fraudulent at best. If it was genocide, why not say so?

................................................................................................

"Before the first contact with Europeans, it was believed that more than 300,000 Native American people lived in present-day California. By 1848, this had declined to around 150,000 Native American people living in the same area. From the very beginning of the gold rush, these people were enslaved and killed on an unprecedented scale. Almost as soon as California became American property in 1848, the “Indian Problem” was regarded as a pressing issue and something that would have to be addressed if this area could hope to become a state.

"In the very first meeting of the Californian legislature, laws were passed that made Native Americans second-class citizens. These laws made it legal for white settlers to abduct Native American children (an estimated 4,000 Native American children were taken from their parents and sold during the gold rush) and to convict Native Americans for a range of offenses, including loitering and the possession of alcohol. Fines could be imposed, and if those convicted could not pay (which they generally couldn’t), they could be forced to work to pay them off. This led to thousands of Native Americans becoming little more than slaves, forced to work in the gold fields and elsewhere.

................................................................................................

"In some cases, incomers used even more direct methods to eradicate the Indian Problem. In 1849, the Daily Alta California newspaper reported that “Whites are becoming impressed with the belief that it will be absolutely necessary to exterminate the savages before they can labor much longer in the mines with security.”"

Nazis merely applied those identical principles, thinking and actions in Europe instead. 

"The casual killing of Native Americans by white settlers began on an ad-hoc basis, but soon, it became official policy. In 1850, California became a state, partly as a result of the influx of gold into the U.S. economy, and one of the first acts passed by the new legislature was the Act for the Government and Protection of Indians. This innocuous-sounding act actually meant that Native Americans had no right to testify in court and that white settlers could legally keep Native Americans as indentured slaves. The first governor of the state of California, Peter Hardeman Burnett, said in a speech in 1851, “That a war of extermination will continue to be waged between the races until the Indian race becomes extinct must be expected. While we cannot anticipate this result but with painful regret, the inevitable destiny of the race is beyond the power or wisdom of man to avert.”"

What else can one expect after church persecution of Jews for two millennia, continuing Roman persecution of Jews which included daily crucifixions, for centuries? 

................................................................................................

"By this point, the state had begun to amass weapons and to issue these to local militias. U.S. Army and militia units were encouraged to attack Native American settlements and, in some cases, were paid a bounty for every Native American person they killed and for every horse they took from the people they murdered. In 1855, in Shasta County, each Native American head presented to local government was worth $5. Although no one is certain of the precise numbers, it is estimated that anything up to 30,000 Native American people were killed in 1849 and 1850."

Exactly how and why is that not genocide? 

................................................................................................

"If large numbers of Native Americans were found to be living in areas close to gold-mining activities, they were frequently killed even if they had displayed no aggression toward the settlers. For example, a group of around 400 peaceful Pomo people was living close to Clear Lake, north of San Francisco. Even though there was no evidence that these people posed any threat to white settlers, a force of U.S. cavalry assisted by local volunteers attacked the settlement in 1850. Virtually every man, woman, and child living there was brutally slaughtered. Many of the volunteers took scalps as souvenirs."

Precisely what Hitler ordered his forces to perpetrate through East Europe, especially Belarus and Russia, which they did, massacring over two million civilians by burning whole villages alive. 

"In the earliest days of the gold rush, some Native Americans chose to take part in the search for gold. By the end of 1849, however, this had virtually ended, with only indentured Native Americans being forced to work in the gold fields. Yellow fever and cholera, which were endemic in the new towns and work camps, took an even greater toll on Native Americans. Traditional hunting lands were meanwhile deforested to provide timber for the miners, and Native Americans were simply forced from any land where they were perceived as presenting a potential threat to white settlers."

Replace "white settlers" with Germans and "Native Americans" with everybody else, and there's Europe under nazis. 

................................................................................................

"The inherent racism of the period meant that relatively few people questioned or objected to what amounted to a genocide of Native Americans in California. By the early 1850s, the Native American population of the area had declined by the tens of thousands, many confined to reservations far from gold-mining areas. The U.S. Congress reacted not with condemnation but by providing additional funds to help army units and local militias to kill and drive Native Americans from their homes.

"Native Americans weren’t the only race to be the target of discrimination and violence during the gold rush. Attracted by the news of the discovery of gold, Chinese immigrants began to arrive in San Francisco in 1848. Many of these immigrants came from southern China, where the Taiping Rebellion had led to widespread poverty and starvation. At first, when gold was plentiful and easy to find, Chinese immigrants were tolerated. When it became harder to find gold, discrimination against these Chinese people increased.

"Attacks against Chinese prospectors became commonplace, and these people had little legal redress, particularly given that many lived within their own communities and spoke little or no English. In 1850, the Californian legislature passed the Foreign Miners License Law, which required all gold miners and prospectors who were not U.S. citizens to pay a tax of $20 per month. Given that many Chinese workers were making less than $20 per month, this caused a mass exodus of Chinese people from the gold fields. Many returned to San Francisco, leading to the creation of the largest Chinatown in the world outside Asia.

................................................................................................

"However, the mass exodus of hard-working miners caused immediate problems, and the law was quickly repealed. Chinese immigration continued unabated, and it was estimated that in 1852, over 20,000 Chinese people arrived in California. By this point, there were anti-Chinese riots in San Francisco, and violent attacks on Chinese groups in the gold fields increased. In the same year, the Californian legislature introduced another new and discriminatory law that required all Chinese immigrants working in the gold fields to pay a tax of $4 per month.

"Much of the discrimination against Native American people and Chinese immigrants occurred as a direct result of a change in the nature of the gold rush after 1848. As gold became more scarce and much larger, industrialized approaches became necessary, the free-for-all of 1848 ended, and large corporations moved in. These businesses exploited where they could and attacked anything that seemed to undermine their ability to make a profit. No longer could individuals come to California and hope to make enough money to set themselves up for life. Instead, smaller number of people became extremely rich while the majority were forced into back-breaking work for very little return.

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

"After a brief period in 1848, few individual prospectors became wealthy in the California gold fields. While there were still a few lucky individuals that hit a rich seam of undiscovered gold, these became increasingly rare. The simple truth was that most of the easily accessible gold had already been found and removed. As mentioned before, from 1850 on, the extraction of gold required increasingly complex operations that favored large businesses over individuals. The search for gold would last until 1855 and beyond, but even by the end of 1848, the nature of that search and those who profited from it began to change.

"Samuel Brannan typified the new breed of entrepreneur who emerged during the gold rush to make money from the people who came to California in search of gold. Other than his initial visit to Coloma in 1848 to gather enough gold dust to fill a small glass jar, Brannan never bothered with looking for gold. Instead, he opened a second general store and then a third. The turnover at these stores was breathtaking. At their peak, each store was making more than $5,000 every day (worth almost $200,000 in current value) through selling tools, equipment, and supplies to prospectors. Brannan invested the profits in property, buying buildings in San Francisco and Sacramento. By the mid-1850s, he was generally recognized as the wealthiest man in California.

................................................................................................

"However, like many business owners who made money during the brief period of the gold rush, he proved less adept when California became just another state in the United States. Toward the end of the 1850s, Brannan built an expensive resort in Calistoga in the Napa Valley, north of San Francisco. He hoped to cater to the city’s new rich elite, but building a railroad to the resort proved ruinously expensive, and by the time it was completed, the wealth generated by the gold rush was beginning to falter. The resort proved a costly failure, and during one acrimonious exchange with employees there, Brannan was shot eight times, though somehow, he survived. Through a series of other failed schemes, Brannan lost the fortune he had acquired during the gold rush. By 1887, he was living in Arizona and was reduced to selling pencils door-to-door. When he died in 1889, he had only a few dollars left.

"Other businesses founded during the gold rush proved to have more enduring appeal. Two businessmen, Henry Wells and William Fargo, started a new business in 1852 specifically intended to provide secure transportation and storage of gold from California to the east coast of America. Wells Fargo & Company operated stagecoaches and steamships as well as providing secure banking and storage facilities. The company expanded steadily until, by 1870, the company controlled almost all western stagecoach lines and operated the largest fleet of stagecoaches in the world. Today, Wells Fargo Bank has thousands of branches across America and affiliates around the world. The whole empire can be traced back directly to an operation started to make a profit from the California gold rush.

................................................................................................

"In 1849, a young man from Pennsylvania moved to Placerville in California in the hope of starting a business selling implements to miners. Here, John Studebaker began to manufacture sturdy, durable wheelbarrows, which proved very popular with prospectors and miners. He became so famous that he was universally known as “Wheelbarrow Johnny.” He used the money he made from the sale of wheelbarrows to finance his brother’s company, the Studebaker Wagon Corporation. By 1909, Studebaker was one of America’s largest manufacturers of automobiles.

"Another young man, 24-year-old Levi Strauss from Bavaria (in modern-day Germany), also moved to California during the gold rush. He opened a store on the waterfront in San Francisco selling clothing, tents, and other supplies to miners and prospectors. In 1871, he developed the product that would make his name world-famous: hard-wearing denim pants strengthened with the use of rivets in areas of particular wear. These became so popular that they sold all over America, and in the twentieth century, Levi’s blue jeans became one of the most popular types of apparel for young people across the world. When he died in 1902, Strauss’ personal fortune was worth more than $6 million, a great deal of which came directly from the durable pants he first sold to miners during the gold rush.

................................................................................................

"Samuel Langhorne Clemens also came to California in search of gold. Like so many others, he found back-breaking work but no wealth. One of his most famous quotes about the gold rush sums up his experience neatly, “A mine is a hole in the ground with a liar standing next to it.”

"After drifting from job to job, he found a position as a writer with a Virginia City newspaper, the Territorial Enterprise. In 1863, that newspaper published a short humorous piece of travel writing by Clemens titled “Letter From Carson.” To distinguish this piece from the straight reportage that Clemens also wrote, he signed it with a pen name: Mark Twain. Two years later, he published his first piece of fiction, “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” based partly on his experiences as a gold miner. He retained the same pen name, and as Mark Twain, Clemens would go on to become one of the most celebrated and best-loved of all early American fiction writers.

................................................................................................

"Many others made a great deal of money out of the gold rush. Faxon Atherton started an import-export and shipping business and became one of the largest landowners in San Francisco. Philip Danforth Armour traveled to California in 1852 as a penniless 19-year-old. He started a small business making sluices. By 1856, he had made sufficient money that he was able to move to Milwaukee and start a meat-packing business that would make him a millionaire. Thomas Oliver Larkin was already a successful businessman in San Francisco when the gold rush began. He was able to make a great deal of money through several stores and was responsible for building the very first brick house in the city in 1850. 

"A relatively small number of people who had insight, self-belief, and boldness were able to see the commercial possibilities in the gold rush and to turn those into considerable wealth. However, for the vast majority, life during the gold rush was very different."

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

"Nothing typifies the impact of the gold rush on California more than the changes it brought to the city of San Francisco. When California came under U.S. control in 1846, San Francisco (then still known as Yerba Buena) was a provincial port with fewer than 1,000 inhabitants, mainly fishermen, trappers, and sailors. There were just two permanent buildings in the city: the Presidio and Mission Delores; all the other structures were wooden shacks or tents. Few people could have guessed what would happen to the town in 1848. 

"When the news of the gold discoveries first arrived, the city became a virtual ghost town overnight as its population headed for the hills to look for gold. Then, as news of the discoveries spread and an influx of hopeful arrivals began to flood into the port, it began to change and grow. By early 1849, the city provided make-shift homes for 25,000 people. Most lived in tents or shanty houses, and the only permanent wooden structures were those built to house stores, saloons, gambling houses, and brothels. New businesses seemed to spring up every day. For a short time, only the city of London had more newspapers than the rapidly growing city of San Francisco.

................................................................................................

"However, new arrivals faced a number of hazards. An almost complete lack of sanitation in the largely temporary housing led to the rapid spread of diseases, including smallpox, yellow fever, and cholera. At the height of the first influx of people during the gold rush, some estimates suggested that as many as one in five of all new arrivals died within less than one year of disease or accidents in the gold fields.

"Crime became a significant problem, with districts such as the notorious Barbary Coast—a major location for saloons, gambling houses, and prostitution—becoming some of the most dangerous places in America. A largely transient population who stayed in the city only as long as it took to purchase the tools and equipment needed in the gold fields made the situation even worse. In 1849, it was estimated that thirty new houses were built and two murders were committed every single day in San Francisco. It was some time before the city authorities were able to create even a rudimentary police force using funds from alcohol and gambling licenses. Fire was also a major hazard, and between 1848 and 1851, no less than five large fires swept through the shanty housing, killing hundreds of people and leaving thousands without homes.

................................................................................................

"From around 1850, San Francisco changed rapidly. Permanent buildings, many built of brick for the first time, began to appear. Theaters, music halls, large private homes, and permanent roads were built. In the space of little more than five years, the city was transformed from something resembling a giant mining camp into one of the most beautiful cities in America. In 1856, a San Francisco newspaper reported, “That a city of the respectability of our San Francisco, could be raised in the short space of five or six years, appears incredible. Possessing the appearance of an old city of a century, it conveys to the mind the idea of being but within a day’s journey to the Emporium of the Union.”

"The transformation of San Francisco from a sleepy fishing town into one of the most important trading cities in America can be traced directly to the gold rush. By 1855, the impact of the gold rush had lessened, but then, in 1859, the silver rush created by the discovery of Nevada’s Comstock Lode once again made San Francisco a vital port for the import of supplies and equipment and the export of silver to the east coast.

"When construction began in 1863 on the first transcontinental railroad, linking the east and west coasts, there was a great deal of discussion of just where the western terminus of this railroad should be. As the state capital, Sacramento would certainly be included, but it was also important that the railroad ended in a port. Really, there was no alternative. By 1860, San Francisco had a population of close to 60,000 people, making it the largest and most used port on the west coast of America. When it was finally completed in 1869, the Pacific Railroad connected the eastern rail network directly with Oakland Long Wharf on San Francisco Bay. Thus, in less than 20 years, the gold rush had transformed San Francisco into one of the most important of all American cities."

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

"Although the term “American dream” wasn’t first used until the 1930s, the ethos behind it was embedded in the U.S. Constitution from its beginning. In most other nations, wealth and social standing were defined by birth. The aristocracy, those born to noble families, were the only people who could enter politics, own large estates, and govern the nation. For anyone born outside that social class, the possibilities for advancement were strictly limited.

"The American Constitution was truly revolutionary in 1776, enshrining in the Declaration of Independence the notion that “all men are created equal” and that all had equal rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” For many Americans, attaining this dream was directly linked to personal wealth. The most successful and respected people were not those from a particular class or noble family but those who had managed to accrue wealth. However, the ability to become rich was curtailed by three economic downturns that impacted the U.S. economy in the first half of the nineteenth century.

................................................................................................

"The Napoleonic Wars brought restrictions on shipping and international trade. A depression that began in 1819 saw the prices of agricultural goods decline sharply, leaving many farmers unable to pay their debts. A financial crisis in 1837 caused the money supply in America to contract by over 30% and prices to fall once again. By 1843, the economy was showing signs of recovery, but a shortage of gold reserves undermined confidence in the U.S. dollar and slowed industrial expansion.

"Then came the discovery of massive gold reserves in California. This had two effects: first, the attainment of the American dream suddenly seemed possible in California at a time when it was proving increasingly elusive in other parts of the U.S. The gold rush brought a rebirth in belief in the American dream and the emergence of new hope after almost thirty years of economic problems. 

................................................................................................

"Second, the discovery of gold allowed a sudden influx of gold into the U.S. reserves, helping to underwrite and stabilize the dollar. Somewhere in the region of $600 million (worth over $22 billion in current value) found its way into the U.S. treasury as a direct result of the gold rush in California. New businesses were created, not just in California but in many parts of the U.S., and the industrial revolution began to take hold in America only after the gold rush. Shipping business also increased dramatically, and the infusion of new wealth began to find its way into every part of the U.S. economy.

"The significance of California to the U.S. was reflected in the speed with which the territory was adopted as a state. While many states had to wait decades for formal recognition, California became the 31st state in the Union in 1850, just two years after first becoming an American territory. In comparison, New Mexico and Arizona, which became American territories at the same time as California, did not become states until 1912.

"The gold rush also attracted an influx of new immigrants to the U.S., many attracted by the notion that this was a country where ability and boldness counted for more than social class. The dream may have been American, but it appealed to the poor and dispossessed around the world. California became known to many people as the “Golden State,” not just because of the gold found there but for the seemingly limitless opportunities that this new land seemed to offer. This appeal led to thousands of people, not just Americans but immigrants from Europe and elsewhere, moving to the west of America to settle new lands and to find a new life. Although the American dream existed long before the gold rush, this event propelled it into international consciousness and helped to create a belief that America was a place where anyone could succeed."

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

"The gold rush had a profound impact on the environment of California. Thousands of mines and the use of increasingly powerful hydraulic mining equipment that could remove whole hillsides left parts of the state looking like it had been dug up by giant moles. Run-off from mining operations silted up rivers and covered once fertile agricultural land with gravel. Many mining operations used mercury to help separate gold from debris, and this too was washed down rivers to pollute agricultural areas. A fierce conflict began between farmers who felt that their land was being destroyed and miners who found ever more destructive ways to extract gold.

"While the gold continued to flow, there seems to have been little concern about the environmental impact of mining. However, as gold became harder to find, the state authorities became more concerned. Agriculture was something that would last indefinitely while gold was a limited resource that was becoming increasingly scarce. From the 1870s, new laws were passed that increasingly favored agriculture. Hydraulic mining was banned, and the release of mercury into rivers was severely restricted. Now, agriculture is California’s main source of wealth. More than one-third of all vegetables and two-thirds of all fruits and nuts grown in America come from California. The agriculture business in California generates more than $50 billion every year.

................................................................................................

"It wasn’t just gold extraction that changed the Californian landscape. During the gold rush, new towns and cities appeared all over what had formerly been an area of unspoiled wilderness. Sacramento had not existed at all in 1848, but by 1850, it had a population of over 10,000 people. Many other new towns expanded at a similar rate, and new roads, river crossings, and paddle-steamer lines were created to connect them. Between 1850 and 1860, the population of California grew from 90,000 to almost 400,000. This population growth was directly attributable to the gold rush. 

"Meanwhile, the Native American population plunged. In 1848, it was believed that there were around 150,000 Native Americans in California. By 1870, it was estimated that there were no more than 30,000 Native Americans living in the area, and by 1900, there were fewer than 15,000. The impact of the gold rush may have been highly beneficial for the U.S. economy, for settlers, and for those who believed in Manifest Destiny, but for the indigenous people of California, it was a catastrophe."

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

"The California Gold Rush was a pivotal moment in American history. Before 1848, America was clearly divided into two quite separate parts: the civilized east had cities, towns, infrastructure, and industry, while much of the west was still wilderness, unexplored, unknown, and hazardous. The tidal wave of new settlers that the gold rush brought to the west changed everything. 

"Areas that had formerly been ignored by settlers saw the first settlements and towns created. This activity was not confined to California; Kansas, for example, had virtually no white settlements at all prior to 1855. Most maps of the period identified this territory simply as “Indian country.” By 1860, Kansas had a white population of over 100,000 people. The building of railroad lines and the spread of new and secure means of transportation, such as the Wells Fargo stagecoach lines, allowed the new settlements to grow rapidly.

................................................................................................

"By the end of the nineteenth century, virtually every part of the continental United States had its towns and cities connected by roads, railroads, and telegraph lines. Native American peoples had been forcibly removed to reservations and denied access to their traditional lands. The west had been conquered, and America had become a single, unified nation for the first time. This accelerated expansion into the west was directly linked to the gold rush.

"In terms of the U.S. economy, the gold rush also brought significant change and growth. Prior to 1850, America remained a primarily agrarian nation, though there were pockets of industrial growth in parts of the east. From 1870, the U.S. entered what became known as the Second Industrial Revolution. This period was characterized by the use of steam and electric power to enable the construction of manufacturing plants that used machinery rather than manual labor to create goods. These changes also brought a redefinition of American society with the emergence of wealthy industrialists, a prosperous middle class, and a much larger group of blue-collar workers. These changes are directly related to the widespread settlement of the west and the sudden injection into the U.S. economy of gold from California.

................................................................................................

"The gold rush also emphasized the American dream. It helped to create the idealization of America as the land of opportunity, a place where riches were available to anyone willing to work hard and seize opportunities. In 1820, America received approximately 60,000 foreign immigrants. In 1850, as news of the gold rush became widely known, 1.7 million new arrivals came to the U.S. By the end of the nineteenth century, over 12 million more immigrants had come, many drawn by a dream of prosperity founded during the gold rush.

"However, there was a dark side to the American dream. The exploitation of the west that began with the gold rush led inevitably to conflict between white settlers and Native Americans. By the end of the nineteenth century, it was estimated that fewer than one-quarter of a million Native Americans were still alive in the whole United States, most living in reservations where they were barely able to survive. Even for white migrants, life in America often proved to be less enticing than the dream suggested. Industrialization brought dangerous and exhausting working conditions, and hundreds of thousands of people found themselves living in abject poverty.

................................................................................................

"For America, the California Gold Rush of 1848-1855 marked the beginning of a period of rapid change in every sphere of life. Industry changed, the social structure of the nation changed, and even the volume of territory under the direct control of the government changed. After the gold rush, America became a different country, and those changes continue to influence American life and culture today.".

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Table of Contents 

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Introduction 

John Sutter 

Gold! 

The World Comes to California 

The Forty-Niners 

Changing Life in California During the Gold Rush 

California Genocide: The Indian Problem 

Winners and Losers 

The City of San Francisco 

A New American Dream 

Aftermath 

Conclusion 

Bibliography 

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REVIEW 

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Introduction 

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"The United States of America was created in 1776. Seventy years later, the new nation was struggling to build a stable economy. Large areas of the continental United States remained unexplored wilderness, and increasing numbers of people came to believe in Manifest Destiny, a phrase first used in 1845 to describe what many saw as the inevitable expansion of the U.S. westward into lands that were still largely unknown.

"The president elected in 1845, James Polk, was strongly expansionist and a firm believer in Manifest Destiny. Though there were American towns in the west at that time, they were few and relatively small. Travel between east and west was hazardous and lengthy. There were few safe overland routes, and the journey on horseback or in a wagon could take nine months or more. Even an expensive steamship voyage from the east coast to the west could take three months. ... "

Is author,  of this volume of the Hourly History series, unthinking or not quite literate? What "expensive steamship voyage from the east coast to the west", when, during the century and decades before Panama Canal, the only routes were either navigating Drake's Passage, something professional sailors dreaded, or via Cape Town and thence across the Pacific Ocean? 

Presumably author means latter, which may have existed, but were they merely expensive, not perilous, even if lacking hazards of Drake's Passage?

" ... When people reached the west coast, there was little existing infrastructure. There were few good roads, almost no river crossings of any kind, and travel inland was painfully slow. Most people who moved to the west were fishermen, hunters, trappers, or farmers, and they were few in number.

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"The perceived hazards of moving inland were exacerbated by the presence of Native Americans, “Indians,” who were generally believed to be both savage and implacably hostile. ... "

To begin with, they were not "Indian" in any sense except the racist redefining of the term "Indian", to indicate anyone not African or Mongoloid - but India (and indian) are nomenclature for the land (and people thereof) that is enclosed by Himaalaya in north, oceans in south and, in Northwest, Sindhu river valley, the name deformed by Europe from Sindhu to Indus - hence the name India for the land that people Northwest of the valley could only access by crossing the river, and few from Europe could access any other way until someone did do sailing around Africa. 

But Columbus who never did reach India was wrong in claiming that he'd done so, whether he knew it or not. And continuation of that lie is as incorrect as China calling all US residents Japanese. In fact the latter would be far less racist - and geographically justifiable. 

" ... While many people might have believed in the concept of expansion to the west, few were willing to face the hardships that such a move entailed. If Americans were to be persuaded to move west, they need a concrete reason to do so.

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"This reason manifested itself in January of 1848. A carpenter working on the construction of a new lumber mill on the American River, around 100 miles (160 kilometers) inland from the then-small town of San Francisco, noticed something glittering in the gravel run-off from a sluice. He showed it to the mill owner, and the two men agreed that the tiny flakes did look rather like gold. Although they didn’t realize it at the time, these men had just found something that would bring thousands of new settlers to America’s west coast and begin a transformation that would change the nation. What would become known as the California Gold Rush was about to begin."

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December 18, 2022 - December 18, 2022. 

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Chapter 1. John Sutter 

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"“The public can see how inhuman were the operations of Sutter.” 

"—Juan Bautista Alvarado"

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"What would become the California Gold Rush began with one man: John Augustus Sutter. Many histories of the early American settlement of the west portray Sutter as a typical pioneer: bold, resourceful, and courageous. The truth is a little less positive."

That's more true of most early migrants from Europe, who necessarily flourished by not only pushing natives of the land out, but causing their deaths, by diseases as much as by warring, and often deliberately so. 

"Sutter was born in Baden (modern-day Germany) in 1803 as Johann August Suter. By his early twenties, he had become a fast-talking entrepreneur running a small store. However, his ability to secure credit proved in advance of his abilities as a businessman, and by 1834, he was facing charges of obtaining credit by making false statements. Rather than face the prospect of spending time in prison, Sutter decided to leave Europe for America, leaving behind his wife and five children."

Baden was a province or state in Germany, now integrated with Wuerttemberg to form the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg; one of the towns in Baden is Baden-Baden. 

It's unclear whether the author is not aware of the distinction, or whether the actual birthplace and early residential locations of Sutter are not known more precisely than general region of Baden. 

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"He was able to obtain a French passport that identified him as Captain John Augustus Sutter, an officer from the Swiss Guard displaced by the revolution in France. After years of travel across America, in 1839, Sutter arrived in the small port of Yerba Buena (later renamed San Francisco) on the west coast of the Mexican province of Alta California. Somehow, Sutter was able to persuade the Mexican governor of this territory, Juan Bautista Alvarado, to grant him an area of land covering more than 45,000 acres on the Sacramento River. Sutter agreed to become a Mexican citizen and to build a fortified settlement on the land to protect it from Native Americans as well as “adventurers from the United States.”

"Sutter called the fort Nueva Helvetia (New Switzerland, present-day Sacramento). It quickly became clear that Sutter had no intention of honoring his promise to the governor. He began to issue passports to American settlers and to establish businesses through which he could make money from incomers. For his workforce, he attacked, captured, and enslaved large numbers of Native American people. Even by the standards of the time, his treatment of indigenous people provoked outrage and horror among settlers. One wrote, “Villages were attacked usually before daybreak when everybody was asleep. Neither old nor young was spared and often the Sacramento River was colored red by the blood of the innocent Indians.”"

Read that "innocent natives" of the land, who had right to the land, unlike migrants from Europe - and their descendants. 

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"By the mid-1840s, Sutter had established Sutter’s Fort on the Sacramento River with an enslaved workforce of more than 800 Native Americans, kept in appalling conditions, barely fed, and subject to continual abuse. The manager that Sutter appointed to run the fort on his behalf noted with satisfaction in 1844 that “The Indians of California make as obedient and humble slaves as the N---o in the South.”

"Meanwhile, things were changing in Alta California. A new Mexican governor, Brigadier General Manuel Micheltorena, was appointed. Concerned about the growing numbers of American settlers in the territory, Micheltorena brought an army with him in an attempt to keep the region under Mexican control. As commandante militar (military commander), Micheltorena appointed John Sutter, apparently believing Sutter’s claims to have served in the Swiss Guard. The truth was that Sutter had no military experience at all.

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"In 1845, Sutter led Mexican forces against a coalition of settlers from America and other countries known as the Californios in the Battle of Providencia in the San Fernando Valley. The battle consisted of little more than a desultory exchange of artillery fire (total casualties on both sides amounted to one horse and one mule killed). Many men in Sutter’s army were persuaded to defect to the Californios, and the remainder fled back to Mexico. A few months later, a native Californian, Pio de Jesus Pico, was elected as the first governor of the autonomous state of California.

"Sutter remained in California and was determined to expand Sutter’s Fort to become a true city, with housing and a wharf on the Sacramento River. For this, he needed timber, and he had a water-driven timber mill built on the American River, 25 miles (40 kilometers) from Sutter’s Fort in present-day Coloma, California. Sutter also moved to Coloma; he had amassed a considerable debt, and in this remote area, he believed that he would be safe from his creditors. To oversee the construction and operation of the new mill, he appointed one of his most trusted workers, carpenter James W. Marshall. On January 24, 1848, Marshall was removing debris from the tailrace of the mill when he noticed several objects glittering among the gravel. They looked like gold.

"Marshall told Sutter, and the two men referred to an encyclopedia and decided that the glittering nuggets really were gold. They agreed to become partners and to keep their discovery secret. Sutter immediately began to purchase the rights to as much land as possible in the vicinity of Coloma. Nevertheless, the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill would not remain a secret for long."

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December 18, 2022 - December 18, 2022. 

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Chapter 2. Gold! 

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"Samuel Brannan arrived in California in 1846 with a party of Mormon missionaries intent on creating a new settlement there. He was favorably impressed with the climate and the fertile land, and in 1847, he made the arduous journey over the mountains to the valley of the Great Salt Lake, where charismatic leader Brigham Young had established the first and largest Mormon community. Brannan had hoped to persuade Young to relocate to California, but the church leader preferred the isolated seclusion of the wastes of the Great Basin. Brannan then returned to California and opened a general store in Sutter’s Fort.

"Within a few months, Brannan began to hear rumors that Marshall and Sutter had discovered gold at the mill on the American River. He made the journey to the mill and was able to fill a small glass jar with gold dust. As he returned to Sutter’s Fort, he considered what to do. He became the first (but not the last) person to realize that the discovery of gold offered two alternate routes to wealth. He could himself search for gold, but that was a hazardous and risky proposition that had no guarantee of success. Or, he could encourage others to search for gold and make money by selling them the provisions, supplies, equipment, and tools they would need. The latter course did not hold the promise of instant wealth, but it was also considerably less arduous and risky than becoming a gold prospector.

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"Brannan then traveled to Yerba Buena (which was becoming known as San Francisco amongst its 1,000 residents) and paraded through the streets, waving his hat and his jar of gold and shouting, “Gold! Gold! Gold from the American River!” Within days, there was an exodus from Yerba Buena (and from the towns of Monterey and Los Angeles) toward Coloma and the American River. A local newspaper ran a front-page article that noted, “The whole country from San Francisco to Los Angeles, and from the seashore to the base of the Sierra Nevada, resounds to the sordid cry of gold! GOLD!! GOLD!!!”

"While it might have decried the whole notion as “sordid,” a separate editorial noted that this would be the last issue for a while, as everyone who worked for the newspaper was heading to Coloma to look for gold. By late July, when officers of the U.S. Army traveled to the area around Coloma, they sent back a report noting that “Upward of four thousand men were working in the gold district, of whom more than half were Indians, and that from $30,000 to $50,000 worth of gold, if not more, was daily obtained.”

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"By that time, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo had been concluded with Mexico, and California had been formally annexed as a part of the United States. Thus, in theory, the gold discovered around Coloma belonged to the United States, but there was no simple way of controlling the prospecting or the extraction of gold. Instead, the government seemed to take the view that the gold would eventually find its way into the economy of the U.S. and left the prospectors in Coloma to continue.

"There had been rumors of gold discoveries in California before, but none had proved to be true. Because of that, when reports of the discoveries in California began to appear in newspapers, they were not initially believed. As reporters rightly pointed out, California had been occupied by Spain for over 200 years. Surely, if there was gold to be so easily found, they would have found it. However, when the military officers who visited Coloma in July sent back their report to the government, they also included a small box of gold dust. This was examined and found to be good-quality gold.

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"When President James K. Polk delivered his fourth annual report to Congress on December 5, 1848, he specifically mentioned the discovery of gold in California: “The accounts of the abundance of gold in that territory are of such an extraordinary character as would scarcely command belief were they not corroborated by the authentic reports of officers in the public service who have visited the mineral district and derived the facts which they detail from personal observation. The explorations already made warrant the belief that the supply is very large and that gold is found at various places in an extensive district of country.” "

It occurs at this point that perhaps this gold rush, with benefits all to US, may not have pleased some English men, And perhaps this was the reason why Ignatius Donnelly writes so vehemently against the two prized metals held superior throughout history, globally. 

"With President Polk’s announcement to Congress, it was official: there really was gold in California—and a great deal of gold at that. The rush of prospectors traveling to California was about to turn from a trickle to a torrent." 

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December 18, 2022 - December 18, 2022. 

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Chapter 3. The World Comes to California 

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"The first influx of outsiders seeking gold came from South America. As early as May 1848, the captain of a Chilean cargo ship trading tallow and hides between San Francisco and Valparaiso heard rumors of gold for sale. He offered to buy any gold available at a price of $12 per ounce. Local merchants were offering just $8-10 per ounce, so when the ship sailed from San Francisco, it carried plenty of gold dust and nuggets. The captain knew the gold would be worth at least $17 per ounce in Chile. When this ship docked in Valparaiso in August, news of the gold traveled quickly. Dozens of hopeful prospectors began to book passages to California. They would be the first of many, many thousands.

"Even before President Polk’s speech, large numbers of people from Oregon had already made to journey to California to look for gold. The only available route was the Siskiyou Trail, a system of rough tracks and high passes that linked the Willamette Valley in Oregon with the Central Valley in California. This trail, only used from the 1830s, involved up to three months of travel over rugged and inhospitable terrain. Nevertheless, rumors of gold for the taking drove several hundred people to make the journey in the autumn of 1848.

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"Others came from Mexico, Peru, and the Sandwich Islands (the present-day Hawaiian Islands). Before the end of 1848, it is estimated that up to 6,000 people from America and beyond had traveled to California. Many passed through San Francisco. The city had been briefly virtually abandoned as up to three-quarters of its residents went inland to seek gold, but now, it quickly became a hub for arriving gold-seekers. New businesses sprang up to deal with the growing demand for accommodation, provisions, supplies, and equipment.

"The early prospectors did well. They found many easily accessible deposits of gold in riverbeds in the American River, and it wasn’t long before eager prospectors began to spread out from the vicinity of Coloma to adjacent rivers. By the end of 1848, prospectors were working the Feather River, Yuba River, Clear Creek, Webber Creek, and many other small waterways in the Coloma Valley. It was estimated that every waterway for 30 miles (50 kilometers) in all directions from Coloma was being worked. Other rivers up to 200 miles (320 kilometers) to the north were also explored, and many of these were also found to hold deposits of gold.

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"The technique used by these early prospectors was extremely simple and was known as panning. This involved using a shallow metal bowl into which a mix of river gravel and water were added. The water was then carefully swirled around, and the lighter elements were washed back into the river. This process took time; most miners could effectively process only up to 50 pans per day. If it was done well, the process would leave gold nuggets or even gold dust at the bottom of the pan. The good thing about panning was that the equipment required was relatively inexpensive and easily portable.

"Soon, prospectors began to use more complex and sophisticated equipment to extract larger quantities of gold. The first was the rocker, a rectangular wooden box set at a sloping angle and mounted on a rocker. On the top level of the rocker was a sieve, and underneath were several riffles, where smaller, heavier particles were trapped. A shovelful of gravel would be dumped into the rocker, followed by water. The whole wooden box was then agitated by hand. Rocks and lighter debris were caught by the sieve and dumped out. Heavier items, including gold nuggets, were retained in the riffles. Yet although the use of the rocker allowed the processing of larger quantities of gravel, it wasn’t as thorough as panning; the rocker was a good way of finding nuggets, but fine gold dust (known to prospectors as “flour”) was often washed away.

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"Many of the earliest prospectors were able to find substantial gold deposits using these relatively simple techniques. Two prospectors working the Webber River were able to find gold worth more than $15,000 in just one week. Five prospectors who were amongst the first to investigate the Yuba River were able to extract gold worth $75,000 (worth almost $3 million in current value) in just three months. A more organized approach using a system of rockers on the Feather River manned by Native Americans was able to extract over 250 pounds (110 kilograms) of gold in just seven weeks. Even individual prospectors panning on tributaries and small waterways were able to make anything up to $100 per day, a considerable sum considering that the average wage for an unskilled worker at that time was in the region of $10 per month.

"Other finds were even more fortuitous: one newly-arrived prospector digging a hole in which to set the pole for his tent discovered a nugget weighing over three ounces. One little girl exploring a remote ravine brought back to her family an odd-looking stone—it turned out to be a gold nugget weighing almost three pounds (more than one kilogram). Three men digging out a tree stump in order to make a new road near Coloma took gold worth over $5,000 out of the hole they created. In all, it is estimated that gold worth something in the region of $10 million was found in California in 1848.

"As news of these discoveries spread across America and the world, more and more people were attracted by the dream of riches available for the taking in California. President Polk’s announcement in December 1848 seemed to confirm that there really was gold in California and that this was not just another case of newspaper hyperbole. In 1849, a torrent of people would arrive on America’s west coast hoping to find gold or to make money from those who were searching for it."

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December 18, 2022 - December 18, 2022. 

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Chapter 4. The Forty-Niners 

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"“The desire of gold is not for gold. It is for the means of freedom and benefit.” 

"—Ralph Waldo Emerson"

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"Many of the people who had heard about the gold rush in California lived in America’s eastern states. Large numbers decided to move to the west in search of gold, but however they decided to do that, they faced an arduous journey. The simplest (and cheapest) option was to travel west by land, on horseback, using wagons, or even on foot. In these days of high-speed, long-distance travel, it is difficult to imagine just how challenging this was. There were no hotels or inns on the few trails that existed and very few stores at which supplies could be replenished. Traveling overland from the eastern states to the west coast of America could take anything up to nine months. In California itself, there were very few roads, no ferries at most river crossings, and an almost complete lack of accurate maps.

"The alternative to crossing overland was to take a steamship, but even that was fraught with difficulty and danger. The route from the east to San Francisco involved sailing south, around Cape Horn, and then north, up the coast of South America to the west coast of America. The journey covered over 15,000 miles (25,000 kilometers) and could take anything up to five months even on a modern steamship. The ships that made this journey were often overcrowded and unsanitary; many people who made the long journey by sea died of disease en route."

Why isn't this author aware of dangers of sailing through the stormy and narrow Drake's Passage, not exactly friendly to a steamship either?

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"There was a shorter alternative, but that too provided its own hazards and challenges. Rather than sailing all the way around Cape Horn, some ships dropped their passengers on the east coast of Panama. These people could then make their way across the narrow isthmus of Panama to the Pacific Coast on horseback or on foot (the Panama Canal would not be completed until 1914). Once these travelers arrived on the Pacific Coast, they faced another problem. Until 1850, there was no regular ship service between Panama and California. People were forced to wait until a passing ship called in, and many found themselves stranded for weeks at a time.

"For many people, the only way to raise the price of a steamship ticket or a land journey was to mortgage their property or business or to invest their life savings. Coming to California in search of gold was risky, but the promise of great riches persuaded many people to make the attempt.

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"When they finally did arrive in California, this influx of prospectors found danger and hazards at every step. They found themselves in inhospitable territory and were often forced to take themselves to very remote areas in order to find rivers that weren’t already being worked. There was no healthcare, and accidents, illness, and snakebite accounted for large numbers of deaths. There was also virtually no law; anyone lucky enough to find gold had to make their way back to civilization before they could safely transform that gold into cash. Along the way, they faced the prospect of ambush and robbery. Some estimates suggest that as many as 20% of all prospectors who came to California’s gold fields in 1849 were dead within six months of their arrival.

"It wasn’t just Americans who came to California in search of gold. The news of the gold discoveries had spread across the world, and prospectors arrived from virtually every European country as well as Australia, New Zealand, and China. These travelers arrived by ship. Precise numbers are difficult to ascertain, but it is believed that up to 50,000 arrived in San Francisco in 1849 by ship, with unknown numbers also arriving by the overland route. This influx of new people became known as the forty-niners, though they gave themselves another name: Argonauts.

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"One of the first impacts of this influx of new arrivals was on the city of San Francisco itself. When news of the discovery of gold was first publicized, the city had less than 1,000 full-time residents. It immediately became a virtual ghost town as people left to seek gold. Then, in late 1848 and early 1849, the population of the city began to grow exponentially. Vast suburbs of tent towns surrounded the city. New stores, gambling houses, saloons, and brothels sprang up to provide for the needs of prospectors. Before the end of 1849, up to 25,000 people lived in the city, with accommodation being so scarce that many were forced to camp outside or to live in shanty houses made from discarded timber.

"Not all the forty-niners intended to search for gold. Many saw the commercial possibilities in the vast influx of people coming to California. Some made money by selling steamship tickets to bring new people to the goldfields; others established stores selling equipment and supplies to prospectors.

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"One of the first men to become a millionaire through the gold rush was not a prospector but a merchant: Samuel Brennan, the man who had first walked through the streets of San Francisco with his jar of gold dust, quickly moved on from selling picks and shovels to speculating in property. He purchased much of present-day Sacramento when it was little more than a muddy riverbank, and he created one of the first private banks in California.

"Other merchants did equally well. One store selling equipment and supplies was said to have done business worth more than $30,000 in a single month in 1849. One farmer made over $150,000 in the same year simply by selling onions to prospectors. Some deliverymen were in such demand that they were said to have earned salaries worth more than six figures. Financiers who put up the money to build a railroad connecting Panama’s east and west coast made vast sums. New businesses in San Francisco also made their founders huge sums; the demand for timber and iron, in particular, seemed never-ending.

"For those bold enough to take a risk, there was money to be made in California. However, for the vast majority of people who came to California in 1849, life was tough and frequently short."

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December 18, 2022 - December 18, 2022. 

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Chapter 5. Changing Life in California During the Gold Rush 

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"“The rush to California and the attitude, not merely of merchants, but of philosophers and prophets, so called, in relation to it, reflect the greatest disgrace on mankind.” 

"—Henry David Thoreau"

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"Just as more and more people arrived in California in search of gold, it became harder to find. The first prospectors had taken the easy-to-find deposits in river and stream beds. In 1849, there were far fewer stories of people simply digging a hole in the ground and finding a valuable gold nugget. Instead, more advanced, complex, and dangerous techniques were used to find the increasingly inaccessible precious metal.

"The long tom was simply an enlarged version of the rocker, but it needed a continual supply of water so it could be built only beside rivers and streams. Sluice boxes took this approach even further, with lines of long toms connected together to allow the processing of large quantities of gravel and debris. The use of these more efficient techniques denuded gold supplies in rivers and creeks even more quickly, and it was obvious that new methods were needed to extract gold from hillsides that were not adjacent to water.

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"The solution was hydraulic mining. This involved directing a powerful jet of water at a hillside, eroding it quickly with the run-off being collected in a series of sluice boxes. Within a few years, specialist equipment allowed the rapid erosion of whole areas, and water monitors became so powerful that they were capable of killing a man at a distance of 200 yards (180 meters).

"The increasing scarcity of gold also prompted the beginning of true gold mining. In addition to gold dust and nuggets in river gravel, there were known to be large gold seams embedded in quartz deep underground. In the beginning, these were dug out manually using picks and shovels, but as the mines got deeper and more dangerous, miners from Europe—particularly from tin-mining communities in Cornwall, England—brought new expertise and new approaches that allowed the creation of deeper mines.

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"These new approaches also had significant environmental and social impacts. Millions of cubic feet of gravel were washed into rivers, changing their course and character and leaving valleys prone to floods. Farmland was destroyed by the debris washing down the rivers. The new techniques were also well beyond the capacity of individuals. The men who came to California in 1848 equipped with nothing more than a shovel and a pan began to be replaced by much larger enterprises, often run by large corporations employing hundreds or even thousands of people. While people arriving in California in 1849 found almost unlimited employment opportunities, far fewer became individually wealthy through prospecting.

"In addition to those who spent their time in remote gold camps, large numbers of new arrivals settled in San Francisco and other new cities. With the influx of newcomers came businesses created to cater to them. By the end of 1849, San Francisco had more than 500 registered saloons and a large number of unregistered brothels and “fandangos,” which provided alcohol, gambling, and sex workers.

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"When John Sutter discovered gold, he had plans for a new town called Sutterville to be built on the banks of the Sacramento River. However, when the land was swamped with new arrivals, they formed a town they called Sacramento. It became the trading nexus for mines and excavations and grew so rapidly that when California became a state in 1850, Sacramento was chosen to be its capital. By late 1849, paddle-streamers were transporting large numbers of people from San Francisco to Sacramento.

"In the south, meanwhile, a ranch at the confluence of the San Joaquin and Calaveras Rivers became the site for a new settlement. Initially called Tuleburg, it too rapidly grew to become the town of Stockton. Few of the new towns paid much attention to sanitation or sewage. Epidemics of cholera and yellow fever killed thousands of people. Many of the new homes were simply tents, and fire was an ever-present hazard. In fact, San Francisco suffered the first of a series of “great fires” in 1849.

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"Fire and disease weren’t the only risks in the growing new towns. Most had little in the way of governance or law to protect those who settled there. In the gold fields, “staking a claim” was a largely notional and ephemeral process. It was generally accepted that while a particular area was being worked by one or more prospectors, they had a right to the gold found in this place. However, if those prospectors moved on to a new area, their former claim could be taken over by anyone who came along, a process that became known as “claim-jumping.”

"Unsurprisingly, disputes were common and frequently settled with violence, as almost all men working in the gold fields carried guns, and the mining camps and towns were growing far faster than the ability of the state to enforce laws. There were thought to have been at least 500 murders in California in 1849, but only five men were tried, convicted, and executed for these crimes. In response, many gold mining communities formed their own ad-hoc courts.

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"These courts investigated claims and punished offenders with banishment, flogging, or even hanging. The vigilante courts often led to the appointment of law enforcement officials, though these people often had little knowledge of or interest in the law or the justice system. For example, the San Francisco Vigilance Committee (founded by Samuel Brannan) hanged several men suspected of murder in public at the docks. There was some protest, but the truth was that the local sheriff lacked the manpower or resources to intervene, and many prominent local businessmen and politicians were members of the Vigilance Committee. In many parts of California during the early years of the gold rush, the only justice available was vigilante justice.

"Nevertheless, while life during the gold rush may have been extremely hazardous for the Americans and people from other nations who flocked to California in 1849, there was one group of people for whom it was much, much worse: the Native Americans."

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December 18, 2022 - December 18, 2022. 

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Chapter 6. California Genocide: The Indian Problem 

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"“‘Genocide’ is a word I hesitate to use, but what happens in California is very close to genocide.” 

"—Richard White"

That's fraudulent at best. If it was genocide, why not say so?

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"Before the first contact with Europeans, it was believed that more than 300,000 Native American people lived in present-day California. By 1848, this had declined to around 150,000 Native American people living in the same area. From the very beginning of the gold rush, these people were enslaved and killed on an unprecedented scale. Almost as soon as California became American property in 1848, the “Indian Problem” was regarded as a pressing issue and something that would have to be addressed if this area could hope to become a state.

"In the very first meeting of the Californian legislature, laws were passed that made Native Americans second-class citizens. These laws made it legal for white settlers to abduct Native American children (an estimated 4,000 Native American children were taken from their parents and sold during the gold rush) and to convict Native Americans for a range of offenses, including loitering and the possession of alcohol. Fines could be imposed, and if those convicted could not pay (which they generally couldn’t), they could be forced to work to pay them off. This led to thousands of Native Americans becoming little more than slaves, forced to work in the gold fields and elsewhere.

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"In some cases, incomers used even more direct methods to eradicate the Indian Problem. In 1849, the Daily Alta California newspaper reported that “Whites are becoming impressed with the belief that it will be absolutely necessary to exterminate the savages before they can labor much longer in the mines with security.”"

Nazis merely applied those identical principles, thinking and actions in Europe instead. 

"The casual killing of Native Americans by white settlers began on an ad-hoc basis, but soon, it became official policy. In 1850, California became a state, partly as a result of the influx of gold into the U.S. economy, and one of the first acts passed by the new legislature was the Act for the Government and Protection of Indians. This innocuous-sounding act actually meant that Native Americans had no right to testify in court and that white settlers could legally keep Native Americans as indentured slaves. The first governor of the state of California, Peter Hardeman Burnett, said in a speech in 1851, “That a war of extermination will continue to be waged between the races until the Indian race becomes extinct must be expected. While we cannot anticipate this result but with painful regret, the inevitable destiny of the race is beyond the power or wisdom of man to avert.”"

What else can one expect after church persecution of Jews for two millennia, continuing Roman persecution of Jews which included daily crucifixions, for centuries? 

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"By this point, the state had begun to amass weapons and to issue these to local militias. U.S. Army and militia units were encouraged to attack Native American settlements and, in some cases, were paid a bounty for every Native American person they killed and for every horse they took from the people they murdered. In 1855, in Shasta County, each Native American head presented to local government was worth $5. Although no one is certain of the precise numbers, it is estimated that anything up to 30,000 Native American people were killed in 1849 and 1850."

Exactly how and why is that not genocide? 

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"If large numbers of Native Americans were found to be living in areas close to gold-mining activities, they were frequently killed even if they had displayed no aggression toward the settlers. For example, a group of around 400 peaceful Pomo people was living close to Clear Lake, north of San Francisco. Even though there was no evidence that these people posed any threat to white settlers, a force of U.S. cavalry assisted by local volunteers attacked the settlement in 1850. Virtually every man, woman, and child living there was brutally slaughtered. Many of the volunteers took scalps as souvenirs."

Precisely what Hitler ordered his forces to perpetrate through East Europe, especially Belarus and Russia, which they did, massacring over two million civilians by burning whole villages alive. 

"In the earliest days of the gold rush, some Native Americans chose to take part in the search for gold. By the end of 1849, however, this had virtually ended, with only indentured Native Americans being forced to work in the gold fields. Yellow fever and cholera, which were endemic in the new towns and work camps, took an even greater toll on Native Americans. Traditional hunting lands were meanwhile deforested to provide timber for the miners, and Native Americans were simply forced from any land where they were perceived as presenting a potential threat to white settlers."

Replace "white settlers" with Germans and "Native Americans" with everybody else, and there's Europe under nazis. 

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"The inherent racism of the period meant that relatively few people questioned or objected to what amounted to a genocide of Native Americans in California. By the early 1850s, the Native American population of the area had declined by the tens of thousands, many confined to reservations far from gold-mining areas. The U.S. Congress reacted not with condemnation but by providing additional funds to help army units and local militias to kill and drive Native Americans from their homes.

"Native Americans weren’t the only race to be the target of discrimination and violence during the gold rush. Attracted by the news of the discovery of gold, Chinese immigrants began to arrive in San Francisco in 1848. Many of these immigrants came from southern China, where the Taiping Rebellion had led to widespread poverty and starvation. At first, when gold was plentiful and easy to find, Chinese immigrants were tolerated. When it became harder to find gold, discrimination against these Chinese people increased.

"Attacks against Chinese prospectors became commonplace, and these people had little legal redress, particularly given that many lived within their own communities and spoke little or no English. In 1850, the Californian legislature passed the Foreign Miners License Law, which required all gold miners and prospectors who were not U.S. citizens to pay a tax of $20 per month. Given that many Chinese workers were making less than $20 per month, this caused a mass exodus of Chinese people from the gold fields. Many returned to San Francisco, leading to the creation of the largest Chinatown in the world outside Asia.

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"However, the mass exodus of hard-working miners caused immediate problems, and the law was quickly repealed. Chinese immigration continued unabated, and it was estimated that in 1852, over 20,000 Chinese people arrived in California. By this point, there were anti-Chinese riots in San Francisco, and violent attacks on Chinese groups in the gold fields increased. In the same year, the Californian legislature introduced another new and discriminatory law that required all Chinese immigrants working in the gold fields to pay a tax of $4 per month.

"Much of the discrimination against Native American people and Chinese immigrants occurred as a direct result of a change in the nature of the gold rush after 1848. As gold became more scarce and much larger, industrialized approaches became necessary, the free-for-all of 1848 ended, and large corporations moved in. These businesses exploited where they could and attacked anything that seemed to undermine their ability to make a profit. No longer could individuals come to California and hope to make enough money to set themselves up for life. Instead, smaller number of people became extremely rich while the majority were forced into back-breaking work for very little return.

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December 18, 2022 - December 18, 2022. 

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Chapter 7. Winners and Losers 

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"After a brief period in 1848, few individual prospectors became wealthy in the California gold fields. While there were still a few lucky individuals that hit a rich seam of undiscovered gold, these became increasingly rare. The simple truth was that most of the easily accessible gold had already been found and removed. As mentioned before, from 1850 on, the extraction of gold required increasingly complex operations that favored large businesses over individuals. The search for gold would last until 1855 and beyond, but even by the end of 1848, the nature of that search and those who profited from it began to change.

"Samuel Brannan typified the new breed of entrepreneur who emerged during the gold rush to make money from the people who came to California in search of gold. Other than his initial visit to Coloma in 1848 to gather enough gold dust to fill a small glass jar, Brannan never bothered with looking for gold. Instead, he opened a second general store and then a third. The turnover at these stores was breathtaking. At their peak, each store was making more than $5,000 every day (worth almost $200,000 in current value) through selling tools, equipment, and supplies to prospectors. Brannan invested the profits in property, buying buildings in San Francisco and Sacramento. By the mid-1850s, he was generally recognized as the wealthiest man in California.

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"However, like many business owners who made money during the brief period of the gold rush, he proved less adept when California became just another state in the United States. Toward the end of the 1850s, Brannan built an expensive resort in Calistoga in the Napa Valley, north of San Francisco. He hoped to cater to the city’s new rich elite, but building a railroad to the resort proved ruinously expensive, and by the time it was completed, the wealth generated by the gold rush was beginning to falter. The resort proved a costly failure, and during one acrimonious exchange with employees there, Brannan was shot eight times, though somehow, he survived. Through a series of other failed schemes, Brannan lost the fortune he had acquired during the gold rush. By 1887, he was living in Arizona and was reduced to selling pencils door-to-door. When he died in 1889, he had only a few dollars left.

"Other businesses founded during the gold rush proved to have more enduring appeal. Two businessmen, Henry Wells and William Fargo, started a new business in 1852 specifically intended to provide secure transportation and storage of gold from California to the east coast of America. Wells Fargo & Company operated stagecoaches and steamships as well as providing secure banking and storage facilities. The company expanded steadily until, by 1870, the company controlled almost all western stagecoach lines and operated the largest fleet of stagecoaches in the world. Today, Wells Fargo Bank has thousands of branches across America and affiliates around the world. The whole empire can be traced back directly to an operation started to make a profit from the California gold rush.

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"In 1849, a young man from Pennsylvania moved to Placerville in California in the hope of starting a business selling implements to miners. Here, John Studebaker began to manufacture sturdy, durable wheelbarrows, which proved very popular with prospectors and miners. He became so famous that he was universally known as “Wheelbarrow Johnny.” He used the money he made from the sale of wheelbarrows to finance his brother’s company, the Studebaker Wagon Corporation. By 1909, Studebaker was one of America’s largest manufacturers of automobiles.

"Another young man, 24-year-old Levi Strauss from Bavaria (in modern-day Germany), also moved to California during the gold rush. He opened a store on the waterfront in San Francisco selling clothing, tents, and other supplies to miners and prospectors. In 1871, he developed the product that would make his name world-famous: hard-wearing denim pants strengthened with the use of rivets in areas of particular wear. These became so popular that they sold all over America, and in the twentieth century, Levi’s blue jeans became one of the most popular types of apparel for young people across the world. When he died in 1902, Strauss’ personal fortune was worth more than $6 million, a great deal of which came directly from the durable pants he first sold to miners during the gold rush.

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"Samuel Langhorne Clemens also came to California in search of gold. Like so many others, he found back-breaking work but no wealth. One of his most famous quotes about the gold rush sums up his experience neatly, “A mine is a hole in the ground with a liar standing next to it.”

"After drifting from job to job, he found a position as a writer with a Virginia City newspaper, the Territorial Enterprise. In 1863, that newspaper published a short humorous piece of travel writing by Clemens titled “Letter From Carson.” To distinguish this piece from the straight reportage that Clemens also wrote, he signed it with a pen name: Mark Twain. Two years later, he published his first piece of fiction, “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” based partly on his experiences as a gold miner. He retained the same pen name, and as Mark Twain, Clemens would go on to become one of the most celebrated and best-loved of all early American fiction writers.

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"Many others made a great deal of money out of the gold rush. Faxon Atherton started an import-export and shipping business and became one of the largest landowners in San Francisco. Philip Danforth Armour traveled to California in 1852 as a penniless 19-year-old. He started a small business making sluices. By 1856, he had made sufficient money that he was able to move to Milwaukee and start a meat-packing business that would make him a millionaire. Thomas Oliver Larkin was already a successful businessman in San Francisco when the gold rush began. He was able to make a great deal of money through several stores and was responsible for building the very first brick house in the city in 1850. 

"A relatively small number of people who had insight, self-belief, and boldness were able to see the commercial possibilities in the gold rush and to turn those into considerable wealth. However, for the vast majority, life during the gold rush was very different."

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December 18, 2022 - December 18, 2022. 

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Chapter 8. The City of San Francisco  

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"Nothing typifies the impact of the gold rush on California more than the changes it brought to the city of San Francisco. When California came under U.S. control in 1846, San Francisco (then still known as Yerba Buena) was a provincial port with fewer than 1,000 inhabitants, mainly fishermen, trappers, and sailors. There were just two permanent buildings in the city: the Presidio and Mission Delores; all the other structures were wooden shacks or tents. Few people could have guessed what would happen to the town in 1848. 

"When the news of the gold discoveries first arrived, the city became a virtual ghost town overnight as its population headed for the hills to look for gold. Then, as news of the discoveries spread and an influx of hopeful arrivals began to flood into the port, it began to change and grow. By early 1849, the city provided make-shift homes for 25,000 people. Most lived in tents or shanty houses, and the only permanent wooden structures were those built to house stores, saloons, gambling houses, and brothels. New businesses seemed to spring up every day. For a short time, only the city of London had more newspapers than the rapidly growing city of San Francisco.

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"However, new arrivals faced a number of hazards. An almost complete lack of sanitation in the largely temporary housing led to the rapid spread of diseases, including smallpox, yellow fever, and cholera. At the height of the first influx of people during the gold rush, some estimates suggested that as many as one in five of all new arrivals died within less than one year of disease or accidents in the gold fields.

"Crime became a significant problem, with districts such as the notorious Barbary Coast—a major location for saloons, gambling houses, and prostitution—becoming some of the most dangerous places in America. A largely transient population who stayed in the city only as long as it took to purchase the tools and equipment needed in the gold fields made the situation even worse. In 1849, it was estimated that thirty new houses were built and two murders were committed every single day in San Francisco. It was some time before the city authorities were able to create even a rudimentary police force using funds from alcohol and gambling licenses. Fire was also a major hazard, and between 1848 and 1851, no less than five large fires swept through the shanty housing, killing hundreds of people and leaving thousands without homes.

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"From around 1850, San Francisco changed rapidly. Permanent buildings, many built of brick for the first time, began to appear. Theaters, music halls, large private homes, and permanent roads were built. In the space of little more than five years, the city was transformed from something resembling a giant mining camp into one of the most beautiful cities in America. In 1856, a San Francisco newspaper reported, “That a city of the respectability of our San Francisco, could be raised in the short space of five or six years, appears incredible. Possessing the appearance of an old city of a century, it conveys to the mind the idea of being but within a day’s journey to the Emporium of the Union.”

"The transformation of San Francisco from a sleepy fishing town into one of the most important trading cities in America can be traced directly to the gold rush. By 1855, the impact of the gold rush had lessened, but then, in 1859, the silver rush created by the discovery of Nevada’s Comstock Lode once again made San Francisco a vital port for the import of supplies and equipment and the export of silver to the east coast.

"When construction began in 1863 on the first transcontinental railroad, linking the east and west coasts, there was a great deal of discussion of just where the western terminus of this railroad should be. As the state capital, Sacramento would certainly be included, but it was also important that the railroad ended in a port. Really, there was no alternative. By 1860, San Francisco had a population of close to 60,000 people, making it the largest and most used port on the west coast of America. When it was finally completed in 1869, the Pacific Railroad connected the eastern rail network directly with Oakland Long Wharf on San Francisco Bay. Thus, in less than 20 years, the gold rush had transformed San Francisco into one of the most important of all American cities."

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December 18, 2022 - December 18, 2022. 

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Chapter 9. A New American Dream 

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"Although the term “American dream” wasn’t first used until the 1930s, the ethos behind it was embedded in the U.S. Constitution from its beginning. In most other nations, wealth and social standing were defined by birth. The aristocracy, those born to noble families, were the only people who could enter politics, own large estates, and govern the nation. For anyone born outside that social class, the possibilities for advancement were strictly limited.

"The American Constitution was truly revolutionary in 1776, enshrining in the Declaration of Independence the notion that “all men are created equal” and that all had equal rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” For many Americans, attaining this dream was directly linked to personal wealth. The most successful and respected people were not those from a particular class or noble family but those who had managed to accrue wealth. However, the ability to become rich was curtailed by three economic downturns that impacted the U.S. economy in the first half of the nineteenth century.

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"The Napoleonic Wars brought restrictions on shipping and international trade. A depression that began in 1819 saw the prices of agricultural goods decline sharply, leaving many farmers unable to pay their debts. A financial crisis in 1837 caused the money supply in America to contract by over 30% and prices to fall once again. By 1843, the economy was showing signs of recovery, but a shortage of gold reserves undermined confidence in the U.S. dollar and slowed industrial expansion.

"Then came the discovery of massive gold reserves in California. This had two effects: first, the attainment of the American dream suddenly seemed possible in California at a time when it was proving increasingly elusive in other parts of the U.S. The gold rush brought a rebirth in belief in the American dream and the emergence of new hope after almost thirty years of economic problems. 

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"Second, the discovery of gold allowed a sudden influx of gold into the U.S. reserves, helping to underwrite and stabilize the dollar. Somewhere in the region of $600 million (worth over $22 billion in current value) found its way into the U.S. treasury as a direct result of the gold rush in California. New businesses were created, not just in California but in many parts of the U.S., and the industrial revolution began to take hold in America only after the gold rush. Shipping business also increased dramatically, and the infusion of new wealth began to find its way into every part of the U.S. economy.

"The significance of California to the U.S. was reflected in the speed with which the territory was adopted as a state. While many states had to wait decades for formal recognition, California became the 31st state in the Union in 1850, just two years after first becoming an American territory. In comparison, New Mexico and Arizona, which became American territories at the same time as California, did not become states until 1912.

"The gold rush also attracted an influx of new immigrants to the U.S., many attracted by the notion that this was a country where ability and boldness counted for more than social class. The dream may have been American, but it appealed to the poor and dispossessed around the world. California became known to many people as the “Golden State,” not just because of the gold found there but for the seemingly limitless opportunities that this new land seemed to offer. This appeal led to thousands of people, not just Americans but immigrants from Europe and elsewhere, moving to the west of America to settle new lands and to find a new life. Although the American dream existed long before the gold rush, this event propelled it into international consciousness and helped to create a belief that America was a place where anyone could succeed."

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December 18, 2022 - December 19, 2022. 

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Chapter 10. Aftermath 

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"The gold rush had a profound impact on the environment of California. Thousands of mines and the use of increasingly powerful hydraulic mining equipment that could remove whole hillsides left parts of the state looking like it had been dug up by giant moles. Run-off from mining operations silted up rivers and covered once fertile agricultural land with gravel. Many mining operations used mercury to help separate gold from debris, and this too was washed down rivers to pollute agricultural areas. A fierce conflict began between farmers who felt that their land was being destroyed and miners who found ever more destructive ways to extract gold.

"While the gold continued to flow, there seems to have been little concern about the environmental impact of mining. However, as gold became harder to find, the state authorities became more concerned. Agriculture was something that would last indefinitely while gold was a limited resource that was becoming increasingly scarce. From the 1870s, new laws were passed that increasingly favored agriculture. Hydraulic mining was banned, and the release of mercury into rivers was severely restricted. Now, agriculture is California’s main source of wealth. More than one-third of all vegetables and two-thirds of all fruits and nuts grown in America come from California. The agriculture business in California generates more than $50 billion every year.

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"It wasn’t just gold extraction that changed the Californian landscape. During the gold rush, new towns and cities appeared all over what had formerly been an area of unspoiled wilderness. Sacramento had not existed at all in 1848, but by 1850, it had a population of over 10,000 people. Many other new towns expanded at a similar rate, and new roads, river crossings, and paddle-steamer lines were created to connect them. Between 1850 and 1860, the population of California grew from 90,000 to almost 400,000. This population growth was directly attributable to the gold rush. 

"Meanwhile, the Native American population plunged. In 1848, it was believed that there were around 150,000 Native Americans in California. By 1870, it was estimated that there were no more than 30,000 Native Americans living in the area, and by 1900, there were fewer than 15,000. The impact of the gold rush may have been highly beneficial for the U.S. economy, for settlers, and for those who believed in Manifest Destiny, but for the indigenous people of California, it was a catastrophe."

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December 19, 2022 - December 19, 2022. 

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Conclusion 

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"The California Gold Rush was a pivotal moment in American history. Before 1848, America was clearly divided into two quite separate parts: the civilized east had cities, towns, infrastructure, and industry, while much of the west was still wilderness, unexplored, unknown, and hazardous. The tidal wave of new settlers that the gold rush brought to the west changed everything. 

"Areas that had formerly been ignored by settlers saw the first settlements and towns created. This activity was not confined to California; Kansas, for example, had virtually no white settlements at all prior to 1855. Most maps of the period identified this territory simply as “Indian country.” By 1860, Kansas had a white population of over 100,000 people. The building of railroad lines and the spread of new and secure means of transportation, such as the Wells Fargo stagecoach lines, allowed the new settlements to grow rapidly.

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"By the end of the nineteenth century, virtually every part of the continental United States had its towns and cities connected by roads, railroads, and telegraph lines. Native American peoples had been forcibly removed to reservations and denied access to their traditional lands. The west had been conquered, and America had become a single, unified nation for the first time. This accelerated expansion into the west was directly linked to the gold rush.

"In terms of the U.S. economy, the gold rush also brought significant change and growth. Prior to 1850, America remained a primarily agrarian nation, though there were pockets of industrial growth in parts of the east. From 1870, the U.S. entered what became known as the Second Industrial Revolution. This period was characterized by the use of steam and electric power to enable the construction of manufacturing plants that used machinery rather than manual labor to create goods. These changes also brought a redefinition of American society with the emergence of wealthy industrialists, a prosperous middle class, and a much larger group of blue-collar workers. These changes are directly related to the widespread settlement of the west and the sudden injection into the U.S. economy of gold from California.

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"The gold rush also emphasized the American dream. It helped to create the idealization of America as the land of opportunity, a place where riches were available to anyone willing to work hard and seize opportunities. In 1820, America received approximately 60,000 foreign immigrants. In 1850, as news of the gold rush became widely known, 1.7 million new arrivals came to the U.S. By the end of the nineteenth century, over 12 million more immigrants had come, many drawn by a dream of prosperity founded during the gold rush.

"However, there was a dark side to the American dream. The exploitation of the west that began with the gold rush led inevitably to conflict between white settlers and Native Americans. By the end of the nineteenth century, it was estimated that fewer than one-quarter of a million Native Americans were still alive in the whole United States, most living in reservations where they were barely able to survive. Even for white migrants, life in America often proved to be less enticing than the dream suggested. Industrialization brought dangerous and exhausting working conditions, and hundreds of thousands of people found themselves living in abject poverty.

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"For America, the California Gold Rush of 1848-1855 marked the beginning of a period of rapid change in every sphere of life. Industry changed, the social structure of the nation changed, and even the volume of territory under the direct control of the government changed. After the gold rush, America became a different country, and those changes continue to influence American life and culture today."

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December 19, 2022 - December 19, 2022. 

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Bibliography 

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"Brands, H. W. (2003). The Age of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the New American Dream. 

"Holliday, J. S. (1981). The World Rushed In: The California Gold Rush Experience.  

"Johnson, S. L. (2000). Roaring Camp: The Social World of the California Gold Rush. 

"Levy, J. (2014). They Saw the Elephant: Women in the California Gold Rush."

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December 19, 2022 - December 19, 2022. 

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CALIFORNIA GOLD RUSH: A HISTORY 

FROM BEGINNING TO END, 

by HOURLY HISTORY. 

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December 14, 2022 - 

December 18, 2022 - December 19, 2022. 

Purchased December 14, 2022.  

ASIN:- B0BNJ4WQJV

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https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5163648098

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