The California Gold Rush

 

“Under the protection of the US Army, beginning in 1848, gold seekers from all over the world brought death, torture, rape, starvation, and disease to the Indigenous peoples whose ancestral territories included the sought-after goldfields north and east of San Francisco. As Alejandro Murguia describes it, unlike the Native peoples for whom gold was irrelevant, the forty-niners ‘hungered for gold with a sickness.’

            “They would do anything for it. They left families, homes, everything behind; they sailed for eight months aboard leaky, smelly ships to reach California. Captains and sailors jumped ship at San Francisco, leaving a fleet of abandoned brigs, barks, and schooners to rot by the piers. They slaughtered all the game they could find and so muddied the rivers and creeks with silt that the once plentiful salmon couldn’t survive. The herds of elk and deer, the food source for Native Americans, were practically wiped out in one summer. The miners cheated and killed each other in the goldfields.

            “In a true reign of terror, US occupation and settlement exterminated more than one hundred thousand California Native people in twenty-five years, reducing the population to thirty thousand by 1870 – quite possibly the most extreme demographic disaster of all time” (DunBar-Ortiz, 2014, pg. 129).

            The California Gold Rush made a long-lasting economic impact on much of the world and changed the mindset to full blown capitalism. People traveled from places as far as China to seek the precious metal in hopes of getting rich beyond their wildest dreams. They traveled on foot, on horses, covered wagons, boats and ships. Some of the prospectors lost their lives fighting over land claims, while traveling they faced disease and other maladies. When a valuable resource, such as land claims during the gold rush, were held as exclusive rights, these contracts implied no violence. However, the use of violence to punish any interloper who went against the rules and to maintain the rights of land ownership was expected. If an individual or group was not willing or able to use violence to protect their land rights, they were set up to lose their resources. Native Americans served as sitting ducks concerning the lethal attacks when they interfered with the greedy gold prospectors (Umbeck, 1981). California did not become a state until 1850 after the Americans took over the territory following the Mexican/American War. When the gold rush started it was uncharted territory under no form of govern-ment. The people who suffered the most were the indi genous. Many Native Americans met their demise as a result of murder, disease and starvation.

            The California gold rush can lend its beginnings to the entrepreneurial plans of John Sutter. Sutter traveled from Switzerland to the U.S., leaving behind his wife and children to escape the debt he incurred. He settled in different areas until he reached the San Francisco area. He worked out a deal with the Mexicans to be granted land and became a Mexican citizen. Nueva Helvertia, the community and fort John Sutter constructed and managed, was nestled between the streams of the Sacramento and the American. He convinced the Mexican government to grant him a large expanse of land in an effort to thwart settlement of possible encroaching Americans. After the Americans won the Mexican/ American War, Sutter did not know where he stood. California was not a part of Mexico and he was not an American citizen. He decided to continue business as usual. (Brands, 2002)

            James Marshall ended up at Sutter’s fort looking for work after a streak of bad luck. During his travels to California, he fell in love with a woman and settled in Platte City. He contracted malaria and after being sick for a while, the woman asked him to leave. His illness wore on her patience because he was not holding up his end of the bargain concerning earning an income. Marshall was forced to seek other accommodations. Sutter was happy to have Marshall at his fort. He proved handy with small tools. Sutter was impressed with Marshall so he gave him a plot of land and some cattle. After he settled at his own settlement, Marshall joined John Fremont’s regime to fight in the Mexican/American War for the Americans since that was his country of birth. Marshall returned to his plot of land to discover his cattle either ran off or were stolen during his absence. He ended up at Sutter’s fort and asked for work again.

            Sutter wanted to have a sawmill built and Marshall was hired to be the foreman overseeing the project. Sutter enslaved Indian people mostly from the Nisenan tribe, a non-warring tribe who did not like strange interlopers invading their territory. Militia were hired to oversee the slaves and protect the fort. Sutter felt the Indians required stern guidance and they were not treated with dignity and respect. They worked at digging irrigation ditches, and planting fields, vineyards and orchards (Brands, 2002).

            Some of the Indian men converted their loyalties and became part of the militia. He outfitted them with uniforms and weapons and taught them how to defend his land. Under the guidelines set forth by the land grant, he was supposed to treat the Native Americans with respect. He ignored those sanctions and took things to a new level. Sutter began interfering in their traditional customs such as their marriage customs. Sutter created “harem” situations. Observers reported that Sutter had a room situated next to his office in which Indian women were waiting for men who sought their services. Sutter was also accused of molesting Native American girls.

            Sexual coercion and military force were ways Sutter exerted control over the Native Americans and they were eventually enslaved under complete domination of Sutter. The Indians who did not want to work for Sutter were considered enemies. Their lives usually ended in a gruesome manner. Fear instilled a desire to flee or submit to Sutter’s ultimate domination. 600 to 800 Indians were enslaved. The Native Americans under his command, treated like animals, ate offal and wheat bran from wooden troughs without utensils and bowls while he ate off china plates. The slaves slept in locked rooms without beds or any other furniture and were beaten, whipped and sometimes murdered when they did not comply to his wishes (history.com, 2018).

            Native Americans joined Marshall in his search of the land perfect for the building of the sawmill that Sutter ordered to be built. They discovered an area with enough of a gradient that water ran fast and the area contained lots of pine and oak trees. The indigenous people told him the land was called Coloma.   A Mormon group of soldiers provided assistance with the construction of the sawmill. They only committed to helping with the construction until the following spring when they planned on returning to their home. Indian men also worked for Marshall concerning the mill project. The work was tedious and back breaking.

            On January 24, 1848, early in the morning, Marshall walked through the channel to see what the flow of water did overnight. The gate was left open so the water could flow through the night and closed during the day when the men were working. A few sparkling rocks caught his attention. He decided to inspect a little further. He picked up two pieces and looked at them closely. It resembled gold. He squeezed one of the rocks between two other rocks and discovered it was malleable.

            Wimmer, the camp’s cook, threw one of the gold pieces in a soap solution. She was making soap for the camp. It came out of the solution shinier, which meant it was probably gold.

            Marshall traveled to Sutter’s fort to show him the pieces of gold. Before leaving he told the workers they could dig for gold after hours and on their day off.

            Sutter was surprised to see Marshall. Sutter and Marshall seemed more concerned about the completion of the sawmill than the prospects of gold so they decided to keep it a secret.  However, too many knew about the discovery. Word traveled fast to all parts of the world. The east coast of the U.S. appeared to be the last to find out (Brands, 2002).

            On August 19, 1848, the New York Herald front page news covered the discovery of gold in California. It didn’t take long for gold fever to set in. “Two California gold miners made $17,000. in seven days. That’s a fortune!” (Lassieur, 2016, pg. 7).

            The gold rush drastically changed California’s demographics. Before gold was discovered, the population was approximately 160,000, mostly Native Americans. Soon after word got out, 4,000 prospectors were in the area where the gold was discovered. In approximately a year 80,000 miners referred to as “forty-niners” arrived at the California gold fields. By 1853, the population grew to 250,000. About $2 billion in gold was mined, but only a few prospectors struck it rich. Mining gold was hard, living expenses were high and living conditions were crude (Brand, 2002).

            By 1852, John Sutter lost everything, his property ransacked, his livestock and goods stolen or destroyed (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2020). Karma seen in action.

            Miners traveled from Mexico, Peru, Chili, Argentina, Oregon, Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand, China, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Greece, Russia, American North and American South. At first, they came in hundreds and thousands and later they traveled by the tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands. They trekked over mountains, plains, desserts, and oceans. Some journeyed by horse, mule or ox and wagon while others voyaged to California by sailing ships and steamships. The prospectors came alone and in large groups with money or no money, knowing what to expect to being completely ignorant. They left comfortable homes and made promises to return. A multitude of vocations from farmers, sailors, soldiers, slaves, abolitionists and merchants to ladies of the night headed to California. Some served as honorable men and women, while others were dregs of the communities they left behind (Brands, 2002).

            Prospecting for gold involved moving rock, digging dirt, and wading in cold water. Many suffered from malnu-trition, accidents and illness and lots of them ended up dying while fighting over goldfield claims. The life of a prospector was usually laced with hardship.

            Gold fever and the large quantity of immigrants in the area led to the complete takeover of the land in which Native Americans previously resided, some of the land was granted to them through prior treaties with the U.S. government and land reservations. The prospectors continue to push the indigenous from their land. Thousands were killed in the process (Brands, 2002).

            The various races did not recognize the Native Americans as being human and referred to them as “worthless diggers.” Because they knew the land very well, they were used to locate gold and serve as slaves for the prospectors, fully taken advantage of by the miners. Many white miners despised the indigenous and formed vigilante groups to get rid of them. Miners drove the Native Americans from their homes where their families lived for generations. Their villages were burned, they were harassed and killed by the miners. The malicious efforts for handling the Native Americans have proven successful by many races such as the Spanish, English, French, Russian, and other European invaders (Umbeck, 1977). A group of misunderstood people who lived a life of self-reliance relying on hunting, gathering and agriculture became individuals who fought for their lives against unwelcomed cruel intruders.

            Gold prospecting camp sites and other establish-ments constructed to meet the demands of the prospectors and merchants caused a great loss of animals and land for agriculture for the Native Americans. The use of hydraulic mining developed in 1853 permanently altered the landscape of California. This type of mining devastated the land, and plugged the rivers with sediment. Farmlands were flooded as a result of the sediment, destroying crops (PBS, N.D.)

            The Indian people had no interest in the gold they were forced to mine even though they knew the gold existed. Many of these unfortunate people joined in the craze of extracting gold as a method of their survival. As time went on during the gold rush insanity, they lost more and more: their land, their people, and their livelihood. Their population diminished exponentially as a result of murder, disease and starvation. Approximately, 100,000 lost their lives. People like Sutter enslaved many Native Americans. The gold rush proved difficult for most involved in the gold fever but the Native Americans suffered the most devastating impact.

 

Daily -  Alta California: January 15, 1851

“…The wild game, which gave them food we have driven from the valleys, the very graves of their sires have been dug down for the glittering gold which lay beneath. The reckless of our people have not stopped at the inevitable results. They have abused and outraged the confidence and friendship of the trusting Indians, robbed and murdered them without compunction, and, in short, perpetrated all those outrages against humanity; and decency and justice, which have entailed upon the American public nearly every war which has turned red with Indian blood the green vallies [sic] from the Pequod and Narragansett nations, all the way through the continent, which we have taken from them, to the sand-bordered homes of the Yumas, and the oaten hills of the Clear Lake tribes” (Encyclopeida.com, 1999, para. 13).

 

California Gold Rush Trivia

1. The California Gold Rush was the most famous gold rush. The first gold rush in North America occurred in 1799 in North Carolina. Many traveled to northern Canada for the Yukon Gold Rush from 1896 to 1899.
2. Death Valley got its name in 1849 when 13 gold prospectors traveled across eastern California to reach the gold fields and died.
3. In 1850, the government charged a monthly fee of $20. to non-citizens which would be equivalent to $500. today. The law was repealed and a tax was charged to Chinese miners of $2. per month which was equivalent to $80. Today.
4. In 1852, 92% of the prospectors were men. Only a few women ventured to California to work in saloons, restaurants and hotels.
5. The high ratio of men to women in the boomtowns during the gold rush era led many men  to try homosexuality and caused a gay culture to flourish. San Francisco was referred to as a “City of Bachelors” where men would pay for sex with men as well as “female impersonators.”
6. Levi Strauss patented blue jeans as durable work pants during the gold rush. Stauss, a Bavarian-born tailor, discovered the prospectors needed sturdy work pants so he made them from canvas. He soon began making the jeans out of twilled cotton. He opened a supply shop during the gold rush.
7. In 1851, California’s first psychiatric hospital opened to serve clients who suffered from health and emotional conditions because of the gold rush.
8. California’s government, bankrupt because of inflated costs of goods and wages during the gold rush, ordered a militia of 142 men to attack the Quechan Native American tribe because they were operating a ferry service for prospectors who crossed the Colorado River to and from California. The government took their business from them.
9. Merchants such as Samuel Brannan usually made more money than the prospectors.
10. Many of the prospectors traveled by boat around the southernmost tip of South America. Some of the ships’ owners did not want to waste money on the way back. They filled the ship’s holds with thousands of pounds of quano which was bird poop extracted from the islands scattered on the Pacific Ocean. They sold the quano as fertilizer to Eastern United States farmers and made a large profit.
11. The term “kangaroo court” made its first appearance during the California gold rush when courts had to deal with claim- jumping miners. Miners who staked claims that were already owned by other prospectors.
12. Price-gouging merchants charged $25. for an egg, $100. for a pound of coffee and up to $2,500. for a pair of work boots.
13. The discovery of gold in California occurred in 1848, but many of the migrants from the east coast did not hear about the discovery for a few months. It took a long time to travel west via land or sea. That’s why they were referred to as the “forty-niners.”
14. James Marshall discovered the gold while constructing the saw mill for John Sutter in 1848 which started the gold rush, he never profited from it.
15. During the gold rush, women had the opportunity to make more money than the men. One woman was paid $18,000. to bake pies.
16. The subway in San Francisco runs through a hull of a huge ship that was abandoned,  sunk, buried in a landfill and then built over. The ship, discovered when the subway was being constructed, had to remain where it was because it was too difficult to excavate the entire ship.
17. The California gold rush led to the largest mass migration in the U.S. history. California was primarily populated by Native Americans before the gold rush.
18. The term “to pan out” came about during the gold rush. A prospector spun a metal pan filled with river sediment to find possible gold that sunk to the bottom of the pan. If gold was discovered, then the prospector said it “panned out.”
19. Miners, who went to seek their fortune in California, were often called “Argonauts” after the Greek mythological hero, Jason. He captained the ship Argo and its crew, the Argonauts in search of the golden fleece.
20. People involved in the gold rush had a need for materials such as fuel and wood. California’s vast forests went through a deforestation. They came up with solution to go to Australia and bring back eucalyptus seeds and plant forests of these fast-growing large trees which still pepper the landscape of California.
21. The Golden Gate Bridge was not named after the gold rush. It was named as the “golden gate to trade with the Orient.”
22. The largest gold rock discovered by Carson Hill in 1854 weighed 195 pounds.
23. Wells Fargo first dipped their toes in the banking business in 1852 because they were attracted to the possibility of significant profits by financing mining operations and other endeavors associated with the gold rush.
24. John Studebaker began his career of product development by manufacturing wheelbarrows for miners during the gold rush. Considered popular he was knick named “Wheelbarrow Johnny.” He ended up using the money he earned during the rush with his brothers to begin producing gasoline powered cars during the early part of the 20^th century.
25. Karl Marx, after his observations of the gold rush, referred to the major event as major part of global capitalism. He felt forced to re-examine his views on political economy which led him to publish in 1867 his magnum opus, Das Kapital.
26. The gold was discovered in 1848. California was occupied by the United States as a result of the Mexican/American War, but it did not have formal territory status until it became a state in 1850. No governance existed so gold and land was free for the taking in the beginning of the gold rush. There was no system of property rights, land grants, or taxation. It was referred to as the “wild, wild west.”
27. John and Daniel Murphy managed to mine $1.5 million worth of gold ($40 milllion today) shortly after they arrived in California. The town of Murphys, California was named after them.
28. A ship carrying 30,000 pounds of gold mined in California sunk after a hurricane off the coast of the Carolinas in 1857. This unfortunate act added vastly to the world’s first international economic crisis. The gold was worth $2 million ($300 million today) which led to assurance of the world economy which was referred to as the “Panic of 1857” (Bianco, N.D.).