The California Gold Rush started on January 24, 1848, with the discovery of gold on the American River at John Sutter’s mill near Coloma, California.^[1] John Sutter, a Swiss immigrant and affluent resident of California was in the process of building an agricultural enterprise. He commissioned a man by the name of James Marshall, along with some other men, to build a sawmill on the American River at Coloma. One day, James Marshall caught the glint of something shining in the water. It turned out to be gold. At first he wasn’t sure if it was gold so he tested a nugget by smashing it on a rock. A woman who cooked for the crew tested a second nugget in a pot of lye.^[2] When Sutter found out he had gold on his property, he wanted to keep it a secret. He knew that news of gold would bring gold-seekers to the region and threaten his dream of controlling his own agriculture enterprise. Marshall’s discovery of gold could not be concealed though. Once word got out, the first wave of local gold-seekers headed out to the gold fields by the spring and summer of 1848. There was so much gold, some fortunes were being acquired in a matter of weeks.^[3] Sutter’s fear of financial ruin upon news of the gold leaking out was affirmed. Miners would demolish his fort and crops and take his cattle. Ironically, Sutter and Marshall would never profit from the gold discovered at Sutter’s mill.

Contents 1 History 1.1 News of Gold Spreads 1.2 Sam Brannan 1.3 The Journey of the Argonauts 1.4 The Mining Life 1.5 Desperate Times, Desperate Measures 1.6 San Francisco: The Golden Gateway 2 References

[edit] History

[edit] News of Gold Spreads

The news of gold out west reached the Eastern states but was dismissed as a fantastical story based on rumors. In December of 1848 President Polk validated the claims of the wealth of gold in California in his State of the Union speech with the following statement:

“The accounts of the abundance of gold in the territory are of such extraordinary character as would scarcely command belief were it not corroborated by authentic reports of officers in the public service.”^[4]

His words brought credibility to the gold rush in California and resonated within the minds of many Americans. Newspapers also played a critical role in spreading the news. In August of 1848 the New York Herald became the first newspaper on the East Coast to publicly confirm the gold rush in California.^[5] Gold fever quickly became an epidemic, spurning Americans from the east and even immigrants from all over the world to come to California to seek their fortunes in gold. One reason for this was that the news of gold at Sutter’s mill was announced only a few days after California became part of the United States of America.^[6] At the time, no government had yet been set up in the state; it existed as a free market with gold aplenty, free for the taking.

[edit] Sam Brannan

One man by the name of Sam Brannan also had an instrumental role in bringing the gold rush in California to fruition. Brannan, a merchant, had a penchant for hyperbole and was an opportunist well-versed in the laws of supply and demand. When he heard about gold at Sutter’s mill his first move was to buy up all the picks, shovels, pans, and axes in the region. He took a vial of gold dust and ran through the streets of San Francisco yelling, “Gold, gold, gold from the American River.”^[7] He then turned around and sold his mining equipment at outlandish rates. A simple metal pan that cost a mere 20 cents to purchase days prior was sold for $15.00.^[8] This move was one he repeated many times during the Gold Rush and it made him a very wealthy man. By 1850 he had amassed a huge fortune and owned much of downtown San Francisco. He eventually became the richest man in California and even issued his own currency.^[9]

[edit] The Journey of the Argonauts

Between the years of 1848 and 1854, approximately 300,000 people came to California.^[10] The influx of people from all over the world during this period was driven by the Gold Rush. Many people started the journey to America in 1849 and were dubbed the “forty-niners.”^[11] The forty-niners, or Argonauts, as they were also called, came from within the U.S. and from Canada, but also comprised a good number of Chinese, Chilean, Mexican, Irish, German, French, and Turkish immigrants.^[12] There were only two ways the Argonauts could reach San Francisco on the California coast: by ship or on foot.

Americans on the Eastern seaboard favored the trek by ship around the tip of South America, and then up the Pacific coast to San Francisco. A later route to cut down the duration of the journey was mapped out through the Panama Canal. Both sea routes took six months or more and presented multiple hardships such as storms, rancid food or lack thereof, lack of water, disease, seasickness, overcrowding, and shipwrecks. Those coming through the Panama Canal also had the difficulty of traveling through the dense jungle forest and faced malaria and cholera. Sometimes Argonauts got held up in coastal towns waiting for ships to transport them up to San Francisco. The wait could be long since passage on ships was rare.^[13] From April 1849 to January 1850 close to 40,000 Argonauts made it to San Francisco by ship.^[14] Yet many more never reached their final destination, dying on route.

The other route was overland through the American outback along the California-Oregon trail. This was the more logical choice for those living in the central part of the U.S. Many immigrants also crossed the continent in large numbers with 32,000 making the trek in 1849 and another 44,000 in 1850.^[15] The journey was not any faster than passage on a ship. No railroads existed, so many people either walked or made the trip in covered wagons. Covered wagons moved slowly and arduously, stretching the journey by land over six months or more. There were also many hardships, including contact with Native Americans, and a lack of food and water. Some Californians picked up on the need for water and hauled buckets and barrels of water to sell to those in need. Those with no money for water were left to die. The law of supply and demand prevailed during the Gold Rush and was a hard lesson learned.

[edit] The Mining Life

The forty-niners who landed in San Francisco faced another set of hardships once they took to mining. The most accessible placer deposits to be mined for gold had already been picked clean. Though there was still gold to be found, it was getting harder and harder to recover. The influx of people coming to California wasn’t slowing down either and competition was growing rampant. Most early mining had been achieved with panning, but as gold became harder to extract, new methods were needed. The work was also labor-intensive. Miners spent an average of 10 hours a day bending down in the river to dig and wash gravel.^[16] Eventually, reserves yielded less and less, and by 1850 it was no longer effective for a single miner to work his claim.^[17] One of the outcomes of this was the banding of groups of miners into informal mining camps. The miners worked together to dam and reroute rivers to expose and dry up the bottom of the riverbed. Mining soon required more capital to execute and loose-knit groups of miners were disbanded and hired as employees by mining corporations. The mining corporations resumed control of most mining in California and had the capital to develop new mining techniques such as hydraulic mining and dredge mining, which were highly effective, but produced devastating environmental consequences. Despite this, both techniques were brought into wide-scale use later on in subsequent gold rushes such as the Klondike Gold Rush.

[edit] Desperate Times, Desperate Measures

Mass amounts of money flowed through California as a result of the Gold Rush. While money was plentiful, supplies were not, and the cost of food and materials was very inflated. A miner could yield enough gold in a day to equal a month's wages back home, but he could then easily use it up buying his supper. On the contrary, an abundance of money presented opportunities for others to make money, and not necessarily from gold. Certain skills or talents serving the needs of a miner could fetch a good price. For example, in the beginning of the Gold Rush, not many women were around and their domestic skills were in high demand. The Gold Rush gave women an opportunity to make money and step out of their conventional roles. One group who did not fair very well was America’s native population—they did not have an interest in gold. Many tribes were pushed off their hunting grounds and practically annihilated.

As gold was getting harder to recover, money too was drying up. Drastic times often called for drastic measures. To discourage immigrants from coming to the San Francisco Bay area, the state of California imposed the Foreign Miner’s Tax in 1850. The $20.00-a-month levy only served to create a greater cultural divide.^[18] Many foreigners just flat-out refused to pay the tax. While some did leave, many stayed, continuing to mine or taking jobs in the city. The more gold was exhausted, the more miners had to work harder to make a fortune. Mining became a burdensome activity and for some, a losing battle. This was very deflating for those who had traveled so far to make a fortune. Some had wanted to get in and get out—mine for a few years and then return home. The climate turned from one of camaraderie between miners to desperation and competition. Many miners whittled away their small fortunes on poker and gambling, trying to recoup their losses. When this failed, many turned to crime and the local jails filled up.
Accounts from letters written by a miner named Sheldon Shufelt, now part of the U.S. Library of Congress collection, paints a clear picture of the chaos and disorder that broke out during the Gold Rush era:

“There is a good deal of sin & wickedness going on here, Stealing, lying, Swearing, Drinking, Gambling & murdering. There is a great deal of gambling carried on here. Almost every public House is a place for Gambling, & this appears to be the greatest evil that prevails here. Men make & lose thousands in a night, & frequently small boys will go up & bet $5 or 10 [equal to $115 to $225 today]—& if they lose all, go the next day & dig more. We are trying to get laws here to regulate things but it will be very difficult to get them executed."^[19]

[edit] San Francisco: The Golden Gateway

When the Gold Rush started, San Francisco existed as a distant outpost with little more than 100 residents.^[20] By 1848, San Francisco's population had jumped to 800 residents; by 1853 the number had climbed to 50,000.^[21] By 1852 it is estimated that nearly 275,000 gold-seekers had passed through San Francisco on their way to the gold fields.^[22] From 1848 to 1859 they removed about 28.4 million troy ounces of gold, close to about $10 billion in today’s dollars.^[23] The Gold Rush had transformed San Francisco from a little hub, to a boomtown, to a thriving metropolis with a vast, ethnically diverse population. It also played a huge part in catapulting the development of California. The end of the California Gold Rush in 1858 was marked by the discovery of gold in Colorado.^[24]

[edit] References

1. ↑ Discovery. The Gold Rush. 2008-12-05.
2. ↑ Discovery. Gold Fever. Oakland Museum of California. 2008-12-05.
3. ↑ First Finds. Gold Fever. Oakland Museum of California. 2008-12-05.
4. ↑ Fever. The Gold Rush. 2008-12-05.
5. ↑ The California Gold Rush, 1849. Eyewitness to History. 2008-12-05.
6. ↑ Gold Country. The Gold Rush. 2008-12-05.
7. ↑ The California Gold Rush, 1849. EyeWitness to History. 2008-12-05.
8. ↑ Discovery. The Gold Rush. 2008-12-05.
9. ↑ San Francisco. The Gold Rush. 2008-12-05.
10. ↑ California Gold Rush, 1848 - 1864. Learn California. 2008-12-05.
11. ↑ Fever. The Gold Rush. 2008-12-05.
12. ↑ Despair. The Gold Rush. 2008-12-05.
13. ↑ Journey. The Gold Rush. 2008-12-05.
14. ↑ Coming by Sea. Gold Fever. Oakland Museum of California. 2008-12-05.
15. ↑ Across Land. Gold Fever. Oakland Museum of California. 2008-12-05.
16. ↑ Despair. The Gold Rush. 2008-12-05.
17. ↑ Changes.The Gold Rush. 2008-12-05.
18. ↑ Despair. The Gold Rush. 2008-12-05.
19. ↑ California Gold Rush, 1849. EyeWitness to History.2008-12-05.
20. ↑ Discovery. The Gold Rush. 2008-12-05.
21. ↑ San Francisco. Gold Fever. Oakland Museum of California. 2008-12-05.
22. ↑ Commerce. Gold Fever. Oakland Museum of California. 2008-12-05.
23. ↑ California Gold Rush, 1848-1864. Learn California. 2008-12-05.
24. ↑ The California Gold Rush, 1849. EyeWitness to History. 2008-12-05.