California Gold Rush

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

• Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo officially ended the war in 1848 and forced Mexico to give up its northern lands
• In the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Mexico gave the U.S. the territories of
• California
• Nevada
• Utah
• Arizona
• New Mexico
• and parts of Colorado and Wyoming
• The US also claimed Texas north of the Rio Grande

Gadsden Purchase

• Some Americans wanted to guarantee that any future southern transcontinental railroad line could be built completely on American soil.
• In the Gadsden Purchase of 1853, the United States paid $10 million for southern parts of present-day Arizona and New Mexico.

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California

• John Sutter was granted 50,000 acres by the Mexican government in 1839, to establish the settlement of Sutter’s Fort, the first American settlement in Spanish California
• California becomes part of the United States in 1848
• Later in 1848, Gold was found in Sutter’s Mill sparking the California Gold Rush

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Gold Rush

• The lure of gold attracted miners from around the world.
• In 1849 alone, about 20,000 immigrants arrived in California from China, Europe, Mexico, and South America
• About 300,000 gold seeking Americans, known as forty-niners, came to California hoping to strike it rich.

The Gold Myth

• Once you were in California, your cares were over….right?
• You could bend down and pick up gold in the streams!
• You’ll be rich in no time at all.
• Not exactly….
• By 1850 the gold had run dry

Forty-Niners – Miners who went to California after the discovery of gold in 1848.

• Miners first used cheap metal pans, picks and shovels to harvest the gold from the sand along the banks and bottoms of rivers and streams.
• This process was known as placer mining.

• Life was difficult for the 49ers:
• Few miners got rich.
• Crowded mining camps led to disease (Cholera & Dysentery).
• Lack of family life.
• No legal authority, they acted as judges juries, & executioners.

Forty-Niners – Miners who went to California after the discover of gold in 1848.

• Placer mining soon gave way to more efficient methods. One method was to dam and divert rivers to expose their beds.

• Hydraulic mining, employed jets of water to erode gravel hills into long lines of sluices to catch the gold.

California Gold Rush

• Mining camps sprung up whenever enough people gathered to look for gold.
• Panning for gold - A miner fills a pan with dirt. He then puts the pan under water and shakes it until any gold settles on the bottom.
• At the mining camps businesses catered to the miners - laundry, food, innkeepers, legal services, and supplies

Who Got Rich?

• Most people did not make is rich outside of the businesses
• The Storekeepers- The people who sold things to all those miners who poured into California
• Forty-Niners needed items:
• Tents
• shovels
• shirts
• Pants
• Richest man = Levi Strauss

Boomtown

• The arrival of 49ers created a population boom
• Immigration increased diversity of population
• Growth of new businesses and industry transformed California’s economy
• Gold mining was important, but farming and ranching became more important
• Population explosion quickly made California eligible for statehood and became 31st state in 1850

1. Native Americans were terrorized and killed by the thousands.
2. Mob violence drove most Mexican Americans (and Chinese) away.
3. Those who stayed had to pay the foreign miners’ tax.

Immigration in California

• Famine and economic hardship in China brought many Chinese to California.
• Chinese faced discrimination when they arrived in California
• Laws were passed to prevent “Foreigners” from getting rich
• Chinese must pay a $20/month “foreign miners” tax to discourage miners from other countries.
• Discouraged Chinese miners moved to San Francisco and formed Chinatown.

Effects of the Gold Rush

• American miners forced out Mexicans and Chinese miners to reduce competition
• Native Americans either died from European diseases or were hunted down by miners
• Their population declined from 150,000 in 1860 to 58,000 in 1870

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