Geography 417
California for Educators

 

Early American California and the Gold Rush

 

Objectives

      Students will identify and explain the events that led to the advent of the Gold Rush.

      Students will describe the life conditions in the diggings and compare the reality of mining camps against the mythology surrounding them.

      Students will identify key events and explain the impact of the Gold Rush on California’s subsequent development.

California Standards

       4.3 Students explain the economic, social, and political life in California from the establishment of the Bear Flag Republic through the Mexican-American War, the Gold Rush, and the granting of statehood.

       Compare how and why people traveled to California and the routes they traveled (e.g., James Beckwourth, John Bidwell, John C. Fremont, Pio Pico).

       Analyze the effects of the Gold Rush on settlements, daily life, politics, and the physical environment (e.g., using biographies of John Sutter, Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, Louise Clapp).

       Study the lives of women who helped build early California (e.g., Biddy Mason).

       Discuss how California became a state and how its new government differed from those during the Spanish and Mexican periods.

      http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/hstgrade4.asp

CSET

      They describe the discovery of gold and its cultural, social, political and economic effects in California, including its impact on American Indians and Mexican nationals.

Web Link

      California History On-Line

      http://www.californiahistory.net/goldFrame-2.htm

The Gold Rush: California Transformed

      Huge event in the history of California.

      Transformed the economy, demographics and government of California

John Sutter and the Gold Rush

       1834 Sutter, faced with debt, leaves wife and 3 children and sails for America.

       1838 Oregon Trail - no ships to S.F. ; sails to Hawaii, then Sitka, AK

       1839 Secures 50,000 acres along Sacramento River by promising to protect against American intrusions. Builds massive fort at intersection with tributary, which he ironically  names “American” River.

       1841 Buys Fort Ross from Russians for $30,000 (today: $2,000,000); he never honored note. Dismantles the fort and moves it to Sacramento.

       Sutter keeps priest handy for converting settler’s into Mexicans, thus fulfilling his role of keeping out Americans.

John Sutter and the Gold Rush

       1846 U.S. seizes control of Alta California. Sutter’s relations with settlers becomes protection.

       January, 1848 - John Marshall, building saw mill for Sutter, discovers gold, destroying Sutter’s plans as all his workers desert. Secret gets out.

       1850  California joins the Union. Sutter’s wife, daughter, and two sons arrive after sixteen years of separation.

       1851  Land Act passed by Congress requires documentation of prior land grants.

       1852  New Helvetia is devasted and Sutter is bankrupt.

       1871  Settles in Lititz, PA. Seeks restitution.

       1880 Sutter dies disappointed in Washington seeking restitution for lost land (50,000 acres; his papers burned in fire).

Sutter’s Mill

John Marshall discovered gold on the American River while building a lumber mill for Sutter in Jan, 1848. The mill has been recreated and the original site is marked with a monument.

Forty-Eighters

      Reaction to the news of gold was rather muted at first.

      Only after Sam Brannan’s plan to
whip up Gold Fever was executed,
did the rush begin.

      Primarily Californians to begin with, but soon the World.

      Not to be confused with German ’48ers who fled Germany, Austria the same year, mostly to the U.S. 

      http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist2/gold.html

Forty-Eighter

      Can you recognize any of the materials carried by this man?

Gold Fever

      I started on the 12th of June last to make a tour through the northern part of California. We reached San Francisco on the 20th, and found that all, or nearly all, its male inhabitants had gone to the mines. The town, which a few months before was so busy and thriving, was then almost deserted. On the evening of the 24th the horses of the escort were crossed to Saucelito in a launch, and on the following day we resumed the journey, by way of Bodega and Sonoma, to Sutter’s Fort, where we arrived on the morning of July 2. Along the whole route mills were lying idle, fields of wheat were open to cattle and horses, houses vacant, and farms going to waste.

       1848, R. B. MASON, Colonel 1st Dragoons, commanding.

Getting to California

      Three Routes

   Panama Route

   Cape Horn Route

   Overland Route

      What are the advantages and disadvantages of each route?

Jim Beckwourth

      Beckwourth was an black ’49er from
Virginia who was also a scout, guide
and mountain man.

      Discovered a pass through the Sierras
that offered an alternative to existing routes into California.

      Marysville residents paid him to establish a road through the pass, so they could charge tolls.

Boom Towns

      Once news got out that gold was to be found in California, riverside locations that may have had no Europeans erupted with populations in weeks.

      They could disappear nearly as quickly if the Gold was not plentiful.

      Colorful names like Murder’s Bar and Miner’s Hell.

      Sacramento among many that began as boom towns.

Handbill

      What modern day equivalents do we have?

San Francisco Bay 1846 (fig)

San Francisco

             Only a few hundred people lived there in the 1840s, but the discovery of gold brought unimaginable growth. The city soon averaged 30 new houses and two murders each day. A plot of San Francisco real estate that cost $16 in 1847, sold for $45,000 just 18 months later. In less than two years the city burned to the ground six times. Merchants, such as Levi Straus, profited most.

             Population in 1847: 459

             Population in 1848: 800

             Population in 1849: 30,000

S.F. Bay, 1850

      So many ships were abandoned, that their wreckage forms part of San Francisco’s waterfront district today. 

Mining the Miners

      Very few made any money from the Gold Rush…by finding gold.

      Best daily income made in the first two years and by those who came first.

      Most of the fortunes made during the boom years was from selling to those hoping to cash in on Gold.

      Levi Strauss, Hopkins and Huntington, Studebaker and the Amour Family got their start

Dame Shirley

      Pen name for Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe, an Eastern “lady” that came with her husband and wrote a series of entertaining letters about life in the camps to her sister.

      Letters were eventually published and have become an great record of daily life in a camp, and reveal a good bit about the way people thought back then.

Photograph of Miners

Frontier Democracy, Justice and Injustice

      Miners organized themselves into small “democratic” governments that dealt with multiple issues, but principally with questions of law and order, claims and compensation.

      Frequently turned to mob violence and true justice was inconsistently meted out.

      “minority” miners were singled out for extra punishment.

Indians fight back

      Indian claims to land were largely ignored.

Mining Methods

      Gravity and water were present in all forms of mining.

      Not much tunneling.

      Panning to start, then rockers, then long boxes and sluices.

      Eventually entire river courses were diverted.

Panning for Gold

Sluice Diversion at Murder’s Bar

See Other slide show

      goldrush.ppt

Rocker (fig)

Hydraulic Mining

      To get the most gold out of the gravel, miners figured out they could blast out old gravel pits that no longer were near a river and seek gold from these deposits as well.

      Incredibly destructive both at a local and regional scale.

      Scars exist today.

Hydraulic Mining (fig)

Gold Rush Nostalgia

      Though the experience was a bad one for most involved, the Gold Rush has been remembered mostly in fond terms.

      The glory of the ’49ers is a little more faded today.

“Foreign” Miners

      California’s cosmopolitan demographics began before it was a state.

      Gold Rush boom towns may have been the first place in the world to experience cultural diversity on this scale.

      Political implications today?

Native American Miners

      Many of the early miners were Native Americans.

      Were quickly singled out for harsh treatment and removed from many mines, even if they were working for white claim holders.

      Especially vicious treatment, including genocidal raids, etc.  Government support.

      As little as 30,000 Indians remained by 1870.

Latino Miners

      Largest immigrant mining group.

      Another group of miners that faced harsh treatment were Spanish speaking miners, who eventually all were lumped together as “Spaniards”,  although very few were actually from Spain.

      Many had mining experience from Mexico or Chile and were responsible for several innovations, and probably for their success were forced out.

Other “Foreign” Miners

      Keskydees - French

      Kanakas  - Hawaiians

      Chinese –Gam Saan “Gold Mountain

   Simulation Game:

    http://www.museumca.org/goldrush/curriculum/gamsaan/

 

      African Americans – 1% and victimized by the fugitive slave laws.

Foreign Miners Tax -1850

      Passed to soothe Anglo-American miners who wished to force out ‘foreigners’ and native Californians.

      $20 month

      2/3rds of the Mexican miners left.

      Later applied most vigorously to Chinese miners.

Chinese Miner

      Figure

      Note the caption

Californios and the Gold Rush

      Perhaps the most important consequence of the Gold Rush was the changes it wrought upon the political, economic and demographic order of the state.

      The Californios lost much of their power, land and privilege.

      The economy changed from a cattle/land economy to a more diversified base within a few years.

Map of Gold Mines

       http://www.consrv.ca.gov/CGS/minerals/images/Big_AUMap.pdf

Figure :See the Elephant

      “Seeing the Elephant” became an useful all purpose expression to communicate the amazing things (both good and bad) that was witnessed and experienced by 49ers.

Biddy Mason

      Slave woman brought from
Georgia to the mines in 1851.

      Set free by California courts
upon her ‘owner’s’ attempt
to return her to the South.

      Becomes a prominent person
in Los Angeles

      Landowner, nurse and philanthropist.

      Colorful biography.

Statehood

      Slavery a major roadblock to California’s admission.

      Admitted in 1850, no doubt sped along by the infusion of Gold Rush money and settlers.

      Skipped the “territory” stage.

      Much of the California Constitution written in 1849, in anticipation of statehood.

      Capital moved about for some years before a ‘compromise’ location was chosen in Sacramento.

Delegation and Early Issues

      The constitutional convention was made up of a mixed group of old and new Californians, Spanish speakers and Anglos.

      The delegates also voted to include in the constitution a provision for the separate ownership of property by a married woman – unique in the US.  Why include this?

      Stringent new fugitive slave law. Southern senators, thus mollified, agreed to the admission of California as a free state.

      President Millard Fillmore signed the bill for the admission of California on September 9, 1850.

      News of the momentous event did not reach California for about five weeks.

      Big Parades, etc.

Capital

      Opened to the best bidder the privilege of becoming the capital.

      Vallejo, San Jose, Sacramento and Benicia all took turns hosting the legislature.

      At last, in 1854, the legislators settled on Sacramento as their permanent headquarters.