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AP®︎/College US History
Course: AP®︎/College US History > Unit 6
Lesson 1: Contextualizing Period 6The Gold Rush
The 1848 discovery of gold in the territory of California prompted 300,000 hopeful prospectors to flood into the region, altering it forever.
Overview
- The 1848 discovery of gold in California set off a frenzied Gold Rush to the state the next year as hopeful prospectors, called “forty-niners,” poured into the state.
- This massive migration to California transformed the state’s landscape and population.
- The Gold Rush was characterized by violent clashes among settlers, miners, and Native Americans over access to the land and its natural resources.
The California Gold Rush
On January 8, 1848, James W. Marshall, overseeing the construction of a sawmill at Sutter’s Mill in the territory of California, literally struck gold. His discovery of trace flecks of the precious metal in the soil at the bottom of the American River sparked a massive migration of settlers and miners into California in search of gold. The Gold Rush, as it became known, transformed the landscape and population of California.start superscript, 1, end superscript
Arriving in covered wagons, clipper ships, and on horseback, some 300,000 migrants, known as “forty-niners” (named for the year they began to arrive in California, 1849), staked claims to spots of land around the river, where they used pans to extract gold from silt deposits.
Prospectors came not just from the eastern and southern United States, but from Asia, Latin America, Europe, and Australia as well. Improvements in steamship and railroad technology facilitated this migration, which dramatically reshaped the demographics of California. In 1849, California established a state constitution and government, and formally entered the union in 1850.squared
Life as a forty-niner
Though migration to California was fueled by gold-tinted visions of easy wealth and luxury, life as a forty-niner could be brutal. While a small number of prospectors did become rich, the reality was that gold panning rarely turned up anything of real value, and the work itself was back-breaking.
The lack of housing, sanitation, and law enforcement in the mining camps and surrounding areas created a dangerous mix. Crime rates in the goldfields were extremely high. Vigilante justice was frequently the only response to criminal activity left unchecked by the absence of effective law enforcement. As prospectors dreaming of gold poured into the region, formerly unsettled lands became populated, and previously small settlements, such as the one at San Francisco, exploded.
As competition flared over access to the goldfields, xenophobia and racial prejudice ran rampant. Chinese and Latin American immigrants were routinely subjected to violent attacks at the hands of white settlers and miners who adhered to an extremely narrow view of what it meant to be truly “American.”
As the state government of California expanded to oversee the booming population, widespread nativist (anti-immigrant) sentiment led to the establishment of taxes and laws that explicitly targeted immigrants, particularly Chinese immigrants.cubed
Violence across the land
As agriculture and ranching expanded to meet the needs of the hundreds of thousands of new settlers, white settlers' violence toward Native Americans intensified. Peter Hardeman Burnett, the first governor of California, openly declared his contempt for the native population and demanded its immediate removal or extinction. Under Burnett’s leadership, the state of California paid bounties to white settlers in exchange for Indian scalps. As a result, vigilante groups of miners, settlers, and loggers formed to track down and exterminate California’s native population, which by 1890 had been almost completely decimated.start superscript, 4, end superscript
Though the Gold Rush had a transformative effect on California’s landscape and population, it lasted for a surprisingly brief period, from 1848 to 1855. It did not take long for gold panning to turn up whatever gold remained in silt deposits, and as the extraction techniques required to mine for gold became increasingly complex, gold mining became big business. As the mining industry exploded, individual gold-diggers simply could not compete with the level of resources and technological sophistication of the major mining conglomerates.
What do you think?
How did the Gold Rush reshape the demographics of California?
If you had lived in this time period, would you have participated in the Gold Rush? Why or why not?
What were the long-term effects of the California Gold Rush?
Want to join the conversation?
Why were we so brutal to natives and others? Like really?(27 votes)
Its because in the beginning white men did not care about the feelings of the natives and others. They did not see the cons in the work they were doing. they were full of greed, stupidity and racisms.
But like I always say "that's just the way of life." [sadly] and again, people want always be the way you like them to be. there's more bad people than you think. [this is true, even for the present day] — Tyson C(12 votes)
What does gold panning involve?(7 votes)
A gold pan was used to scoop gravel and dirt from the bottom of a stream. The dirt and gravel were lighter weight than gold, and they would swish water around in the pan, washing away the lighter elements and leaving any gold in the bottom. It was backbreaking work for very little return.(17 votes)
- If the government made laws that affected only immigrants, wasn't that illegal due to the 14th amendment?(2 votes)
This was before the 14th amendment and before the civil war.(2 votes)
- Why were Rich people so gready and why didn't they help the ones in need?(3 votes)
- In the gold camps, it was pretty much everyone for himself. Most of the miners were poor, and they often sold their claims to rich people who could afford the costs of exploration and extraction.(6 votes)
- why did we have vigilantes(2 votes)
- Vigilantes were an illegal form of law enforcement. They would go after claim jumpers or Indians and Chinese to steal their claims. There was no government then with enough men to enforce the few laws that existed.(11 votes)
What did the Europeans do?(3 votes)- How come Peter Hardeman Burnett wanted to get rid of the Native Americans/California Indians?(2 votes)
Because they were violent against settlers, and also taking up land. This was bad for the economy in California, and bad because people would not want to come to hunt for gold. The only way to really gain profit was to have them driven from the land that they were trying to profit from.
If I missed anything, please add it in the comments(4 votes)
- what grade is this for?(3 votes)
My estimate is that this is for middle school level students. If you go to the "courses" tab at the upper left corner of the screen, and choose the Humanities menu inside that one, you can find easier history courses that might suit you better.(1 vote)
why did they kill the china people(2 votes)
It's mainly because of two things. One: they were often viewed as sub-human animals, and many considered them filthy, unhygienic, and diseased. And two, a lot of Americans saw them as job-robbers, because they would often work for much less pay, leaving the Americans, who were much more strict about their pay, jobless. These, combined with the fact that there was a lot of competition for the limited amounts of gold, led to Americans resorting to violence and murder, especially against immigrants, and particularly Chinese ones. (Sorry this was really long)(3 votes)
Who was the vigilante that brought justice and what did he look like(3 votes)- The vigilante would not be a person, but most likely a group of people.(1 vote)