California Gold Rush

California Gold Rush
By S.H, S.P., J.H., and M.L.

• Interestingly enough, California was considered to be of little value until the gold rush of 1849, not many people there
  
• Discovery: on January 24, 1848, James Marshall discovered flakes of gold at a mill race in Sutter's Mill, causing the famous California Gold Rush to ensue
• Who came?
• "Forty-niners" gave up homes, jobs, families, and previous lives to seek their fortune in California during the gold rush years of 1848-1855
  
• 80% Americans from every state in the union
• 20% from other countries, Europe, Asia, and Latin America
• By land or sea
• Caused a major population boom in California, especially in port cities of San Francisco and San Diego
• San Francisco's population jumped dramatically, 1848: 1,000 --> 1850: 35,000
  
• What was life like in California during the Gold Rush?
• Varying, but mostly unsatisfactory
• Many came to seek their fortunes, but only a handful became very successful
• Many returned home with little or nothing or worked for larger mining companies for little wages
  
• Ironically, more people profited from supplying the gold miners with food, shelter, clothing, entertainment, etc. were more successful than the gold miners themselves
• Mining camps' living conditions were bad
• Gold > adequate food, shelter, and community bonds (greed, greed, greed! :DDD)
  
• Much violence, mostly from racist attitudes, especially to Chinese, Mexicans, and African Americans
• Took away potential jobs, your culture is just...weird, and it's our--Americans'--gold, not yours, it's on our land and since you're not a native of this country, you don't deserve to be here
• "Jumped" them--aka mugging and/or killing--or took legal action as a means to get rid of them, immigration restriction laws (Chinese) and legal orders to take away their land
• Eventually abandoned after gold rush ended ("ghost towns")
  
• Effects:
• Short-term: new mining techniques and California became largely successful
• Became a state in 1850, only two years after the Gold Rush began
• Huge population and very profitable farming and mining industries
• Culturally-diverse and -sophisticated
  
• Long-term: environmental and social damage
• Californian NA's basically exterminated
• Californios, descendants of Spanish-Mexicans, kicked off their land
• Racism