The California Gold Rush

SECTION 4 The California Gold Rush What You Will Learn… If YOU were there... Main Ideas You are a low-paid bank clerk in New England in early 1849. Local 1. The discovery of gold newspaper headlines are shouting exciting news: “Gold Is Discovered brought settlers to California. 2. The gold rush had a lasting in California! Thousands Are on Their Way West.” You enjoy hav- impact on California’s popula- ing a steady job. However, some of your friends are planning to tion and economy. go West, and you are being infl uenced by their excitement. Your friends are even buying pickaxes and other mining equipment. The Big Idea They urge you to go West with them. The California gold rush changed the future of the West. Would you go west to seek your fortune in California? Why? Key Terms and People John Sutter, p. 327 Donner party, p. 327 BUILDING BACKGROUND At the end of the Mexican-American forty-niners, p. 327 War, the United States gained control of Mexican territories in the West, prospect, p. 328 including all of the present-day state of California. American settle- placer miners, p. 328 ments in California increased slowly at first. Then, the discovery of gold brought quick population growth and an economic boom. Discovery of Gold Brings Settlers In the 1830s and 1840s, Americans who wanted to move to Califor- nia started up the Oregon Trail. At the Snake River in present-day Idaho, the trail split. People bound for California took the southern HSS 8.8.3 Describe the role of pio- route, which became known as the California Trail. This path ran neer women and the new status that western women achieved (e.g., Laura through the Sierra Nevada mountain range. American emigrants Ingalls Wilder, Annie Bidwell; slave and traders on the California Trail tried to cross these mountains women gaining freedom in the West; before the season’s fi rst snows. Wyoming granting suffrage to women in 1869). Although many Americans traveled along the California Trail, few actually settled in California. American merchants were usually 8.8.5 Discuss Mexican settlements and their locations, cultural traditions, more interested in trading goods made in factories than in estab- attitudes toward slavery, land-grant lishing settlements. They traded for gold and silver coins, hides, system, and economics. and tallow (animal fat used to make soap and candles) from Mex- 8.9.4 Discuss the importance of the ico. California became a meeting ground for traders from Mexico slavery issue as raised by the annexa- and the United States. tion of Texas and California’s admis- sion to the union as a free state under Before the Mexican-American War, California’s population the Compromise of 1850. consisted mostly of Mexicans and Native Americans. When Mexico 326 CHAPTER 10 controlled California, Mexican offi cials did not Gold in California want many Americans to settle there. Howev- In January 1848, Sutter sent a carpenter er, in 1839 they did give Swiss immigrant John named James Marshall to build a sawmill Sutter permission to start a colony. Sutter’s beside a nearby river. While working near Fort, located near the Sacramento River, Sutter’s Mill, Marshall glanced at the ground. soon became a popular rest stop for many “I reached my hand down and picked it up; American emigrants. These new arrivals it made my heart thump, for I was certain it praised Sutter’s hospitality and helpfulness. was gold.” By the mid-1840s some Anglo Californians Sutter and Marshall agreed to keep the were publishing newspaper advertisements discovery a secret. However, when they exam- and guidebooks encouraging other settlers ined the work site the next day, they met to move West. a Spanish-speaking Native American worker The Donner party was a group of west- holding a nugget and shouting, “Oro [gold]! ern travelers who went to California but were Oro! Oro!” stranded in the Sierra Nevada Mountains dur- Sutter’s workers soon quit to search ing winter. The party began its journey West for gold. Stories of the discovery rapidly in the spring of 1846. Trying to fi nd a short- spread across the country. President Polk cut, the group left the main trail and got lost. added to the national excitement by con- When the Donner party reached the Sierra fi rming the California gold strike in his fare- Nevada Mountains, they became trapped by well message to Congress in December 1848. heavy snows. They were stuck and had almost In 1849 about 80,000 gold-seekers came to no food. California, hoping to strike it rich. These A rescue party found the starving and gold-seeking migrants to California were freezing group in February 1847. Of the origi- called forty-niners. As one Iowa woman who nal 87 travelers, 42 had died. “Gold Fever” “Gold fever” brought 80,000 people, like this miner, to California in 1849 alone. One Califor- nia newspaper captured the excitement: “The whole country, from San Francisco to Los Ange- les, and from the sea shore to the base of the Sierra Nevadas, resounds with the cry of ‘gold, GOLD, GOLD!’ while the field is left half planted, the house half built, and everything neglected but the manufacture of shovels and pickaxes.” Below is a piece of jewelry made from nuggets found in California. Why was everything neglected except for “the manufacture of shovels and pickaxes”? EXPANDING WEST 327 Staking a Claim California State Library left to fi nd gold recalled, “At that time the mines. The early forty-niners worked an area ‘gold fever’ was contagious, and few, old or that ran for 70 miles along rivers in northern young, escaped the malady [sickness].” Nearly California. 80 percent of the forty-niners were Americans, The fi rst person to arrive at a site would while the rest came from all over the world. “stake a claim.” Early miners frequently Most forty-niners braved long and often banded together to prospect for gold. The dangerous journeys to reach California. Many miners agreed that each would keep a share easterners, Europeans, and Asians arrived via of whatever gold was discovered. When one sea routes. Midwestern gold-seekers usually group abandoned a claim, more recent arriv- traveled west in wagon trains. Most forty- als often took it over, hoping for success. niners fi rst arrived in San Francisco. This port Sometimes, two or more groups arrived in town became a convenient trade center and an area at the same time. In the early gold- stopping point for travelers. As a result, its rush days, before courts were established, population grew from around 800 in March this competition often led to confl ict. Occa- 1848 to more than 25,000 by 1850. sionally, violent disputes arose over compet- ing claims. Staking a Claim Mining methods varied according to the Few of the forty-niners had any previous location. The most popular method, placer gold-mining experience. The work was dif- (PLA-suhr) mining, was done along rivers and fi cult and time-consuming. The forty-niners streams. Placer miners used pans or other would prospect, or search for goldgold, along devices to wash gold nuggets out of loose rock the banks of streams or in shallow surface and gravel. To reach gold deposits buried in 328 CHAPTER 10 Miners in the camps came from many cultures and backgrounds. Most miners were young, unmarried men in search of adven- ture. Only around 5 percent of gold-rush immigrants were women or children. The hardworking women generally made good money by cooking meals, washing clothes, and operating boardinghouses. One such woman, Catherine Haun, recalled her fi rst home in California. “We were glad to settle down and go house- keeping in a shed that was built in a day of lum- Miners came to California from around the world ber purchased with the fi rst fee . For neighbors, to make their fortune. In the photo on the left, we had a real live saloon. I never have received Anglo and Chinese miners work together in more respectful attention than I did from these Auburn Ravine in 1852. Above, a woman joins neighbors. men to look for gold. Fewer women than men ” moved west to search for gold, but the ones that —Catherine Haun, quoted in Ordinary Americans, edited by Linda R. Monk did often found greater social and economic opportunity than they had in the east. Haun’s husband was a lawyer. He con- Why might people leave their homes and travel cluded that he could make more money long distances in search of gold? practicing law than he could panning for gold. He was one of many people who made a good living supplying miners with food, clothing, equipment, and other services. the hills, miners had to dig shafts and tunnels. Miners paid high prices for basic necessities These tasks were usually pursued by mining because the large amounts of gold in circula- companies, rather than by individuals. tion caused severe infl ation in California. A In 1853 California’s yearly gold produc- loaf of bread, for example, might cost 5 cents tion peaked at more than $60 million. Indi- in the East, but it would sell for 50 to 75 cents vidual success stories inspired many miners. in San Francisco. Eggs sometimes sold for $1 One lucky man found two and a half pounds a piece. of gold after only 15 minutes of work. Two Some settlers took full advantage of these African American miners found a rich gold conditions for free enterprise. Biddy Mason deposit that became known as Negro Hill and her family, for instance, had arrived in in honor of their discovery.

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