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Gold Rush of 1849, the massive movement of people to California following the discovery of gold there in 1848.
In January 1848 James W. Marshall, a carpenter building a sawmill in partnership with John A. Sutter in California's Sacramento Valley, discovered gold. Sutter made his workers promise to keep the discovery a secret. However, the news leaked out. Within a few months, a shrewd merchant, hoping to increase his business, set off the gold rush in earnest. Samuel Brannan, one of the early Mormon settlers in San Francisco, owned a store near Sutter's fort. In early May, he returned to San Francisco from a visit to the diggings and spread the word of gold. Within a few days, boats filled with townspeople were heading up the Sacramento River to look for gold. Brannan, of course, had stocked his store with mining supplies and was doing a thriving business. San Francisco soon was a ghost town, as almost everyone was off to the gold sites.
During the summer of 1848, the news spread up and down the West Coast, across the border to Mexico, and even to the Sandwich Islands (now Hawaii). Word also reached the Mississippi Valley and the Eastern states. Newspapers were filled with the accounts of men who claimed to have become rich overnight by picking gold out of California's wondrous earth. Then, in a message to the Congress of the United States in December, President James K. Polk confirmed the presence of gold in California. That winter, people from all walks of life set out for California. Many pawned their possessions to get there. The gold seekers, also known as Forty-Niners or Argonauts, joined the rush from as far off as Europe and Australia. Many Chinese also flocked to San Francisco to join in the gold rush.
There were three routes to the goldfields. A Forty-Niner could go by boat to Panama, cross to the city of Panama, and then catch a boat to San Francisco. An alternative was to make the longer sea voyage around Cape Horn, the southernmost point of South America. The demand for passage was so great that old and undersized ships were pressed into service. A number of them sank in the treacherous waters off Cape Horn.
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The cheapest route was using the various overland trails to California. By far the greatest number of Forty-Niners walked or rode across the American continent. Some used the Oregon and Mormon trails over the Great Plains. Others took the Santa Fe, Sonora, and other southern trails. The spring rains made some of the trails almost impassable. The rains were followed by an epidemic of cholera, which killed thousands of the travelers. Nevertheless, by 1852 more than 200,000 gold seekers had managed to reach California.
In the earliest days of the rush, claims yielding as much as $300 to $400 in a day were not uncommon. In 1849 about $10 million worth of gold was mined. As competition increased, fewer and fewer claims were to yield such profits; the people who found practically nothing far outnumbered those who struck it rich.
The source of the gold, the Mother Lode, a belt of gold-bearing quartz, ran in a wide swath stretching 160 km (100 mi) through the mountains of the Sierra Nevada range. Its northern boundary was La Porte on the Feather River. In the south the lode extended to Mariposa. Placer gold, consisting of nuggets and gold particles, was found in streams and rivers in the foothills of the Sierras.
In 1848 placer gold was plentiful. The miners could pick it up or scratch it out of ravines, dry streambeds, and gulches. By the end of the year, however, dry digging gave way to wet digging, or panning. Miners put gold-bearing dirt or gravel, which they called pay dirt, into a shallow washing pan. They then held it underwater for a few minutes. The current would wash away the dirt and gravel, leaving the heavier gold on the bottom of the pan.
By the end of 1849 there were so many miners that individual operations were replaced by larger ventures. Miners formed groups to dry up riverbeds by diverting the waters with dams. Even more rewarding was coyoteing. This method called for digging a shaft 6 to 13 m (20 to 40 ft) deep into the bedrock along the shore of a stream. Then tunnels were dug in all directions to get at the richest veins of pay dirt.
Gold rushes took place in the present-day states of Colorado, Nevada, Montana, Arizona, New Mexico, Idaho, Oregon, and Alaska. Wherever a gold strike was made, hundreds of miners would gather to stake their claims and build a camp. Few women or children accompanied the miners to these communities. With names like Whiskey Bar, Jackass Gulch, Poker Flat, or Flapjack Canyon, each camp had its own saloon and gambling house. The miners often lived in shanties constructed of old cloth tacked to wood frames. Many miners' free time was devoted to drinking and gambling. Prices soared in the boom economy. Boots sold for $20 a pair, eggs for 50 cents each, and potatoes fetched $1 a pound.
Some frontier mining settlements would rise quickly and then disappear when the gold ran out. Others became established communities. Eventually, in a desire to create a more stable way of life, newspapers and literary societies were founded in these mining cities, and schools were built, even though there were few children to attend them. There were also theater performances and concerts.
The miners followed the frontier tradition of organizing themselves into small self-governing bodies for protection. Each camp held a meeting to draw up a code for its mining district. The typical code set forth the size of the gold claim that an individual could possess and the way it should be registered. Sheriffs were appointed to administer the codes. Justice was often harsh and swift. However, claim jumping, or taking over another person's claim, continued.
There were few social, class, or economic distinctions among the miners. A man who put in an honest day's work was quickly accepted. Most of the miners, however, were white Americans and looked on the gold as their national right. They tried to keep the gold from others, such as Mexicans, Chinese, and Native Americans.
In 1851 industrial mining, usually run by businesses with more advanced technology, began to replace the improvised group efforts of the Forty-Niners. The profits from these operations went to organized companies, often financed in the East. Professional miners went to work in the mines of the large companies, following the mining business to different sites such as Alaska. Many of the Forty-Niners returned to the occupations they held before they went in search of gold.
The gold rushes in the United States had a profound effect on the nation, as did the men who worked them. The Forty-Niners pioneered new trails through unknown regions and helped to open them up for settlement. They also added billions of dollars to the national wealth. These billions helped finance the growth of industry during the 19th century and helped make the United States an industrial nation.
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"Gold Rush of 1849," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2001
http://encarta.msn.com © 1997-2000 Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
© 1993-2001 Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
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