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People moved out and expanded to the west because more and more people kept on coming in and there just wasn't enough room.

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As people moved west they brought technology with them and built railroads so they could import and export goods. There was more room in the west for farms were as in the east everyone was cramped together.

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Manifest destiny impacted the U.S. it helped the western settlement it gave the people hope.

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The gold miners came from Latin America. Then people from Asia began arriving in search of gold.

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The California Gold Rush (1848-1855) was a gold rush that began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California from the rest of the United States and abroad. The sudden influx of gold into the money supply reinvigorated the American economy, and the sudden population increase allowed California to go rapidly to statehood, in the Compromise of 1850. The Gold Rush had severe effects on Native Californians and accelerated the Native American population's decline from disease, starvation and the California Genocide. By the time it ended, California had gone from a thinly populated ex-Mexican territory, to having one of its first two U.S. Senators, John C. Frémont, selected to be the first presidential nominee for the new Republican Party, in 1856.

The effects of the Gold Rush were substantial. Whole indigenous societies were attacked and pushed off their lands by the gold-seekers, called "forty-niners" (referring to 1849, the peak year for Gold Rush immigration). Outside of California, the first to arrive were from Oregon, the Sandwich Islands ( Hawaii), and Latin America in late 1848. Of the approximately 300,000 people who came to California during the Gold Rush, about half arrived by sea and half came overland on the California Trail and the Gila River trail; forty-niners often faced substantial hardships on the trip. While most of the newly arrived were Americans, the gold rush attracted thousands from Latin America, Europe, Australia, and China. Agriculture and ranching expanded throughout the state to meet the needs of the settlers. San Francisco grew from a small settlement of about 200 residents in 1846 to a boomtown of about 36,000 by 1852. Roads, churches, schools and other towns were built throughout California. In 1849 a state constitution was written. The new constitution was adopted by referendum vote, and the future state's interim first governor and legislature were chosen. In September 1850, California became a state.

At the beginning of the Gold Rush, there was no law regarding property rights in the goldfields and a system of "staking claims" was developed. Prospectors retrieved the gold from streams and riverbeds using simple techniques, such as panning. Although the mining caused environmental harm, more sophisticated methods of gold recovery were developed and later adopted around the world. New methods of transportation developed as steamships came into regular service. By 1869, railroads were built from California to the eastern United States. At its peak, technological advances reached a point where significant financing was required, increasing the proportion of gold companies to individual miners. Gold worth tens of billions of today's US dollars was recovered, which led to great wealth for a few, though many who participated in the California Gold Rush earned little more than they had started with.

The Mexican-American War ended on February 3, 1848, although California was a de facto American possession before that. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo provided for, among other things, the formal transfer of Upper California to the United States. The California Gold Rush began at Sutter's Mill, near Coloma. On January 24, 1848, James W. Marshall, a foreman working for Sacramento pioneer John Sutter, found shiny metal in the tailrace of a lumber mill Marshall was building for Sutter on the American River. Marshall brought what he found to John Sutter, and the two privately tested the metal. After the tests showed that it was gold, Sutter expressed dismay: he wanted to keep the news quiet because he feared what would happen to his plans for an agricultural empire if there were a mass search for gold.

Discovery announced

Rumors of the discovery of gold were confirmed in March 1848 by San Francisco newspaper publisher and merchant Samuel Brannan. Brannan hurriedly set up a store to sell gold prospecting supplies, and walked through the streets of San Francisco, holding aloft a vial of gold, shouting "Gold! Gold! Gold from the American River!"

On August 19, 1848, the New York Herald was the first major newspaper on the East Coast to report the discovery of gold. On December 5, 1848, US President James Polk confirmed the discovery of gold in an address to Congress. As a result, individuals seeking to benefit from the gold rush-later called the "forty-niners"-began moving to the Gold Country of California or "Mother Lode" from other countries and from other parts of the United States. As Sutter had feared, his business plans were ruined after his workers left in search of gold, and squatters took over his land and stole his crops and cattle.

San Francisco had been a tiny settlement before the rush began. When residents learned about the discovery, it at first became a ghost town of abandoned ships and businesses, but then boomed as merchants and new people arrived. The population of San Francisco increased quickly from about 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 full-time residents by 1850. Miners lived in tents, wood shanties, or deck cabins removed from abandoned ships.

Transportation to California

In what has been referred to as the "first world-class gold rush," there was no easy way to get to California; forty-niners faced hardship and often death on the way. At first, most Argonauts, as they were also known, traveled by sea. From the East Coast, a sailing voyage around the tip of South America would take four to five months, and cover approximately 18,000 nautical miles (21,000 mi; 33,000 km). An alternative was to sail to the Atlantic side of the Isthmus of Panama, take canoes and mules for a week through the jungle, and then on the Pacific side, wait for a ship sailing for San Francisco. There was also a route across Mexico starting at Veracruz. The companies providing such transportation created vast wealth among their owners and included the U.S. Mail Steamship Company, the federally subsidized Pacific Mail Steamship Company, and the Accessory Transit Company. Many gold-seekers took the overland route across the continental United States, particularly along the California Trail. Each of these routes had its own deadly hazards, from shipwreck to typhoid fever and cholera. In the early years of the rush, much of the population growth in the San Francisco area was due to steamship travel from New York City through overland portages in Nicaragua and Panama and then back up by steamship to San Francisco.

Supplies and goods needed

Supply ships arrived in San Francisco with goods to supply the needs of the growing population. When hundreds of ships were abandoned after their crews deserted to go into the goldfields, many ships were converted to warehouses, stores, taverns, hotels, and one into a jail. As the city expanded and new places were needed on which to build, many ships were destroyed and used as landfill.

Northern California strikes

Within a few years, there was an important but lesser-known surge of prospectors into far Northern California, specifically into present-day Siskiyou, Shasta and Trinity Counties. Discovery of gold nuggets at the site of present-day Yreka in 1851 brought thousands of gold-seekers up the Siskiyou Trail and throughout California's northern counties.

Settlements of the Gold Rush era, such as Portuguese Flat on the Sacramento River, sprang into existence and then faded. The Gold Rush town of Weaverville on the Trinity River today retains the oldest continuously used Taoist temple in California, a legacy of Chinese miners who came. While there are not many Gold Rush era ghost towns still in existence, the remains of the once-bustling town of Shasta have been preserved in a California State Historic Park in Northern California.

Gold was also discovered in Southern California but on a much smaller scale. The first discovery of gold, at Rancho San Francisco in the mountains north of present-day Los Angeles, had been in 1842, six years before Marshall's discovery, while California was still part of Mexico. However, these first deposits, and later discoveries in Southern California mountains, attracted little notice and were of limited consequence economically.

Indigenous peoples driven out

By 1850, most of the easily accessible gold had been collected, and attention turned to extracting gold from more difficult locations. Faced with gold increasingly difficult to retrieve, Americans began to drive out foreigners to get at the most accessible gold that remained. The new California State Legislature passed a foreign miners tax of twenty dollars per month ($610 per month as of 2020), and American prospectors began organized attacks on foreign miners, particularly Latin Americans and Chinese.

In addition, the huge numbers of newcomers were driving Native Americans out of their traditional hunting, fishing and food-gathering areas. To protect their homes and livelihood, some Native Americans responded by attacking the miners. This provoked counter-attacks on native villages. The Native Americans, out-gunned, were often slaughtered. Those who escaped massacres were many times unable to survive without access to their food-gathering areas, and they starved to death. Novelist and poet Joaquin Miller vividly captured one such attack in his semi-autobiographical work, Life Amongst the Modocs.

Earlier discoveries of gold

The first gold found in California was made on March 9, 1842. Francisco Lopez, a native California, was searching for stray horses. He stopped on the bank of a small creek in what later was known as Placerita Canyon, about 3 miles (4.8 km) east of the present-day Newhall, California, and about 35 miles (56 km) northwest of Los Angeles. While the horses grazed, Lopez dug up some wild onions and found a small gold nugget in the roots among the onion bulbs. He looked further and found more gold.

Lopez took the gold to authorities who confirmed its worth. Lopez and others began to search for other streambeds with gold deposits in the area. They found several in the northeastern section of the forest, within present-day Ventura County. In 1843 he found gold in San Feliciano Canyon near his first discovery. Mexican miners from Sonora worked the placer deposits until 1846, when the Californios began to agitate for independence from Mexico, and the Bear Flag Revolt caused many Mexicans to leave California.

Forty-niners

The first people to rush to the goldfields, beginning in the spring of 1848, were the residents of California themselves-primarily agriculturally oriented Americans and Europeans living in Northern California, along with Native Americans and some Californios ( Spanish-speaking Californians). These first miners tended to be families in which everyone helped in the effort. Women and children of all ethnicities were often found panning next to the men. Some enterprising families set up boarding houses to accommodate the influx of men; in such cases, the women often brought in steady income while their husbands searched for gold.

Word of the Gold Rush spread slowly at first. The earliest gold-seekers were people who lived near California or people who heard the news from ships on the fastest sailing routes from California. The first large group of Americans to arrive were several thousand Oregonians who came down the Siskiyou Trail. Next came people from the Sandwich Islands, and several thousand Latin Americans, including people from Mexico, from Peru and from as far away as Chile, both by ship and overland. By the end of 1848, some 6,000 Argonauts had come to California.

Only a small number (probably fewer than 500) traveled overland from the United States that year. Some of these "forty-eighters", as the earliest gold-seekers were sometimes called, were able to collect large amounts of easily accessible gold-in some cases, thousands of dollars worth each day. Even ordinary prospectors averaged daily gold finds worth 10 to 15 times the daily wage of a laborer on the East Coast. A person could work for six months in the goldfields and find the equivalent of six years' wages back home. Some hoped to get rich quick and return home, and others wished to start businesses in California.

By the beginning of 1849, word of the Gold Rush had spread around the world, and an overwhelming number of gold-seekers and merchants began to arrive from virtually every continent. The largest group of forty-niners in 1849 were Americans, arriving by the tens of thousands overland across the continent and along various sailing routes (the name "forty-niner" was derived from the year 1849). Many from the East Coast negotiated a crossing of the Appalachian Mountains, taking to riverboats in Pennsylvania, poling the keelboats to Missouri River wagon train assembly ports, and then travelling in a wagon train along the California Trail. Many others came by way of the Isthmus of Panama and the steamships of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company. Australians and New Zealanders picked up the news from ships carrying Hawaiian newspapers, and thousands, infected with "gold fever", boarded ships for California.

Forty-niners came from Latin America, particularly from the Mexican mining districts near Sonora and Chile. Gold-seekers and merchants from Asia, primarily from China, began arriving in 1849, at first in modest numbers to Gum San (" Gold Mountain"), the name given to California in Chinese. The first immigrants from Europe, reeling from the effects of the Revolutions of 1848 and with a longer distance to travel, began arriving in late 1849, mostly from France, with some Germans, Italians, and Britons.

It is estimated that approximately 90,000 people arrived in California in 1849-about half by land and half by sea. Of these, perhaps 50,000 to 60,000 were Americans, and the rest were from other countries. By 1855, it is estimated at least 300,000 gold-seekers, merchants, and other immigrants had arrived in California from around the world. The largest group continued to be Americans, but there were tens of thousands each of Mexicans, Chinese, Britons, Australians, French, and Latin Americans, together with many smaller groups of miners, such as African Americans, Filipinos, Basques and Turks.

People from small villages in the hills near Genova, Italy were among the first to settle permanently in the Sierra Nevada foothills; they brought with them traditional agricultural skills, developed to survive cold winters. A modest number of miners of African ancestry (probably less than 4,000) had come from the Southern States, the Caribbean and Brazil.

A number of immigrants were from China. Several hundred Chinese arrived in California in 1849 and 1850, and in 1852 more than 20,000 landed in San Francisco. Their distinctive dress and appearance was highly recognizable in the goldfields. Chinese miners suffered enormously, enduring violent racism from white miners who aimed their frustrations at foreigners. To this day, there has been no justice for known victims. Further animosity toward the Chinese led to legislation such as the Chinese Exclusion Act and Foreign Miners Tax.

There were also women in the Gold Rush. However, their numbers were small. Of the 40,000 people who arrived by ship in the San Francisco harbor in 1849, only 700 were women (including poor women, wealthy women, entrepreneurs, prostitutes, single women and married women). They were of various ethnicities including Anglo-American, African-American, Hispanic, Native, European, Chinese, and Jewish. The reasons they came varied: some came with their husbands, refusing to be left behind to fend for themselves, some came because their husbands sent for them, and others came (singles and widows) for the adventure and economic opportunities. On the trail many people died from accidents, cholera, fever, and myriad other causes, and many women became widows before even setting eyes on California. While in California, women became widows quite frequently due to mining accidents, disease, or mining disputes of their husbands. Life in the goldfields offered opportunities for women to break from their traditional work.

Legal rights

When the Gold Rush began, the California goldfields were peculiarly lawless places. When gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill, California was still technically part of Mexico, under American military occupation as the result of the Mexican-American War. With the signing of the treaty ending the war on February 2, 1848, California became a possession of the United States, but it was not a formal " territory" and did not become a state until September 9, 1850. California existed in the unusual condition of a region under military control. There was no civil legislature, executive or judicial body for the entire region. Local residents operated under a confusing and changing mixture of Mexican rules, American principles, and personal dictates. Lax enforcement of federal laws, such as the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, encouraged the arrival of free blacks and escaped slaves.

While the treaty ending the Mexican-American War obliged the United States to honor Mexican land grants, almost all the goldfields were outside those grants. Instead, the goldfields were primarily on " public land", meaning land formally owned by the United States government. However, there were no legal rules yet in place, and no practical enforcement mechanisms.

The benefit to the forty-niners was that the gold was simply "free for the taking" at first. In the goldfields at the beginning, there was no private property, no licensing fees, and no taxes. The miners informally adapted Mexican mining law that had existed in California. For example, the rules attempted to balance the rights of early arrivers at a site with later arrivers; a " claim" could be "staked" by a prospector, but that claim was valid only as long as it was being actively worked.

Miners worked at a claim only long enough to determine its potential. If a claim was deemed as low-value-as most were-miners would abandon the site in search for a better one. In the case where a claim was abandoned or not worked upon, other miners would "claim-jump" the land. "Claim-jumping" meant that a miner began work on a previously claimed site. Disputes were often handled personally and violently, and were sometimes addressed by groups of prospectors acting as arbitrators. This often led to heightened ethnic tensions. In some areas the influx of many prospectors could lead to a reduction of the existing claim size by simple pressure.

Development of gold-recovery techniques

Four hundred million years ago, California lay at the bottom of a large sea; underwater volcanoes deposited lava and minerals (including gold) onto the sea floor. By tectonic forces these minerals and rocks came to the surface of the Sierra Nevada, and eroded. Water carried the exposed gold downstream and deposited it in quiet gravel beds along the sides of old rivers and streams. The forty-niners first focused their efforts on these deposits of gold.

Because the gold in the California gravel beds was so richly concentrated, early forty-niners were able to retrieve loose gold flakes and nuggets with their hands, or simply " pan" for gold in rivers and streams. Panning cannot take place on a large scale, and industrious miners and groups of miners graduated to placer mining, using " cradles" and "rockers" or "long-toms" to process larger volumes of gravel. Miners would also engage in "coyoteing", a method that involved digging a shaft 6 to 13 meters (20 to 43 ft) deep into placer deposits along a stream. Tunnels were then dug in all directions to reach the richest veins of pay dirt.

In the most complex placer mining, groups of prospectors would divert the water from an entire river into a sluice alongside the river, and then dig for gold in the newly exposed river bottom. Modern estimates are that as much as 12 million ounces (370 t) of gold were removed in the first five years of the Gold Rush.

In the next stage, by 1853, hydraulic mining was used on ancient gold-bearing gravel beds on hillsides and bluffs in the goldfields. In a modern style of hydraulic mining first developed in California, and later used around the world, a high-pressure hose directed a powerful stream or jet of water at gold-bearing gravel beds. The loosened gravel and gold would then pass over sluices, with the gold settling to the bottom where it was collected. By the mid-1880s, it is estimated that 11 million ounces (340 t) of gold (worth approximately US$15 billion at December 2010 prices) had been recovered by hydraulic mining.

A byproduct of these extraction methods was that large amounts of gravel, silt, heavy metals, and other pollutants went into streams and rivers. As of 1999 many areas still bear the scars of hydraulic mining, since the resulting exposed earth and downstream gravel deposits do not support plant life.

After the Gold Rush had concluded, gold recovery operations continued. The final stage to recover loose gold was to prospect for gold that had slowly washed down into the flat river bottoms and sandbars of California's Central Valley and other gold-bearing areas of California (such as Scott Valley in Siskiyou County). By the late 1890s, dredging technology (also invented in California) had become economical, and it is estimated that more than 20 million ounces (620 t) were recovered by dredging.

Both during the Gold Rush and in the decades that followed, gold-seekers also engaged in "hard-rock" mining, extracting the gold directly from the rock that contained it (typically quartz), usually by digging and blasting to follow and remove veins of the gold-bearing quartz. Once the gold-bearing rocks were brought to surface, the rocks were crushed and the gold separated, either using separation in water, using its density difference from quartz sand, or by washing the sand over copper plates coated with mercury (with which gold forms an amalgam). Loss of mercury in the amalgamation process was a source of environmental contamination. Eventually, hard-rock mining became the single largest source of gold produced in the Gold Country. The total production of gold in California from then till now is estimated at 118 million ounces (3700 t).

Recent scholarship confirms that merchants made far more money than miners during the Gold Rush. The wealthiest man in California during the early years of the rush was Samuel Brannan, a tireless self-promoter, shopkeeper and newspaper publisher. Brannan opened the first supply stores in Sacramento, Coloma, and other spots in the goldfields. Just as the rush began he purchased all the prospecting supplies available in San Francisco and re-sold them at a substantial profit.

Some gold-seekers made a significant amount of money. On average, half the gold-seekers made a modest profit, after taking all expenses into account; economic historians have suggested that white miners were more successful than black, Indian, or Chinese miners. However, taxes such as the California foreign miners tax passed in 1851, targeted mainly Latino miners and kept them from making as much money as whites, who did not have any taxes imposed on them. In California most late arrivals made little or wound up losing money. Similarly, many unlucky merchants set up in settlements which disappeared, or which succumbed to one of the calamitous fires that swept the towns that sprang up. By contrast, a businessman who went on to great success was Levi Strauss, who first began selling denim overalls in San Francisco in 1853.

Other businessmen reaped great rewards in retail, shipping, entertainment, lodging, or transportation. Boardinghouses, food preparation, sewing, and laundry were highly profitable businesses often run by women (married, single, or widowed) who realized men would pay well for a service done by a woman. Brothels also brought in large profits, especially when combined with saloons and gaming houses.

By 1855, the economic climate had changed dramatically. Gold could be retrieved profitably from the goldfields only by medium to large groups of workers, either in partnerships or as employees. By the mid-1850s, it was the owners of these gold-mining companies who made the money. Also, the population and economy of California had become large and diverse enough that money could be made in a wide variety of conventional businesses.

Path of the gold

Once extracted, the gold itself took many paths. First, much of the gold was used locally to purchase food, supplies and lodging for the miners. It also went towards entertainment, which consisted of anything from a traveling theater to alcohol, gambling, and prostitutes. These transactions often took place using the recently recovered gold, carefully weighed out. These merchants and vendors in turn used the gold to purchase supplies from ship captains or packers bringing goods to California.

The gold then left California aboard ships or mules to go to the makers of the goods from around the world. A second path was the Argonauts themselves who, having personally acquired a sufficient amount, sent the gold home, or returned home taking with them their hard-earned "diggings". For example, one estimate is that some US$80 million worth of California gold (equivalent to US$2.2 billion today) was sent to France by French prospectors and merchants.

A majority of the gold went back to New York City brokerage houses.

As the Gold Rush progressed, local banks and gold dealers issued "banknotes" or "drafts"-locally accepted paper currency-in exchange for gold, and private mints created private gold coins. With the building of the San Francisco Mint in 1854, gold bullion was turned into official United States gold coins for circulation. The gold was also later sent by California banks to U.S. national banks in exchange for national paper currency to be used in the booming California economy.

Near-term effects

The arrival of hundreds of thousands of new people in California within a few years, compared to a population of some 15,000 Europeans and Californios beforehand, had many dramatic effects.

A 2017 study attributes the record-long economic expansion of the United States in the recession-free period of 1841-1856 primarily to "a boom in transportation-goods investment following the discovery of gold in California."

Development of government and commerce

The Gold Rush propelled California from a sleepy, little-known backwater to a center of the global imagination and the destination of hundreds of thousands of people. The new immigrants often showed remarkable inventiveness and civic-mindedness. For example, in the midst of the Gold Rush, towns and cities were chartered, a state constitutional convention was convened, a state constitution written, elections held, and representatives sent to Washington, D.C. to negotiate the admission of California as a state.

Large-scale agriculture (California's second "Gold Rush") began during this time. Roads, schools, churches, and civic organizations quickly came into existence. The vast majority of the immigrants were Americans. Pressure grew for better communications and political connections to the rest of the United States, leading to statehood for California on September 9, 1850, in the Compromise of 1850 as the 31st state of the United States.

Between 1847 and 1870, the population of San Francisco increased from 500 to 150,000. The Gold Rush wealth and population increase led to significantly improved transportation between California and the East Coast. The Panama Railway, spanning the Isthmus of Panama, was finished in 1855. Steamships, including those owned by the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, began regular service from San Francisco to Panama, where passengers, goods and mail would take the train across the Isthmus and board steamships headed to the East Coast. One ill-fated journey, that of the S.S. Central America, ended in disaster as the ship sank in a hurricane off the coast of the Carolinas in 1857, with approximately three tons of California gold aboard.

Impact on Native Americans

The human and environmental costs of the Gold Rush were substantial. Native Americans, dependent on traditional hunting, gathering and agriculture, became the victims of starvation and disease, as gravel, silt and toxic chemicals from prospecting operations killed fish and destroyed habitats. The surge in the mining population also resulted in the disappearance of game and food gathering locales as gold camps and other settlements were built amidst them. Later farming spread to supply the settlers' camps, taking more land away from the Native Americans.

In some areas, systematic attacks against tribespeople in or near mining districts occurred. Various conflicts were fought between natives and settlers. Miners often saw Native Americans as impediments to their mining activities. Ed Allen, interpretive lead for Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park, reported that there were times when miners would kill up to 50 or more Natives in one day. Retribution attacks on solitary miners could result in larger scale attacks against Native populations, at times tribes or villages not involved in the original act. During the 1852 Bridge Gulch Massacre, a group of settlers attacked a band of Wintu Indians in response to the killing of a citizen named J. R. Anderson. After his killing, the sheriff led a group of men to track down the Indians, whom the men then attacked. Only three children survived the massacre that was against a different band of Wintu than the one that had killed Anderson.

Historian Benjamin Madley recorded the numbers of killings of California Indians between 1846 and 1873 and estimated that during this period at least 9,400 to 16,000 California Indians were killed by non-Indians, mostly occurring in more than 370 massacres (defined as the "intentional killing of five or more disarmed combatants or largely unarmed noncombatants, including women, children, and prisoners, whether in the context of a battle or otherwise"). According to demographer Russell Thornton, between 1849 and 1890, the Indigenous population of California fell below 20,000 - primarily because of the killings. According to the government of California, some 4,500 Native Americans suffered violent deaths between 1849 and 1870. Furthermore, California stood in opposition of ratifying the eighteen treaties signed between tribal leaders and federal agents in 1851. The state government, in support of miner activities funded and supported death squads, appropriating over 1 million dollars towards the funding and operation of the paramilitary organizations. Peter Burnett, California's first governor declared that California was a battleground between the races and that there were only two options towards California Indians, extermination or removal. "That a war of extermination will continue to be waged between the two races until the Indian race becomes extinct, must be expected. While we cannot anticipate the result with but painful regret, the inevitable destiny of the race is beyond the power and wisdom of man to avert." For Burnett, like many of his contemporaries, the genocide was part of God's plan, and it was necessary for Burnett's constituency to move forward in California. The Act for the Government and Protection of Indians, passed on April 22, 1850 by the California Legislature, allowed settlers to capture and use Native people as bonded workers, prohibited Native peoples' testimony against settlers, and allowed the adoption of Native children by settlers, often for labor purposes.

After the initial boom had ended, explicitly anti-foreign and racist attacks, laws and confiscatory taxes sought to drive out foreigners-not just Native Americans-from the mines, especially the Chinese and Latin American immigrants mostly from Sonora, Mexico and Chile. The toll on the American immigrants was severe as well: one in twelve forty-niners perished, as the death and crime rates during the Gold Rush were extraordinarily high, and the resulting vigilantism also took its toll.

World-wide economic stimulation

The Gold Rush stimulated economies around the world as well. Farmers in Chile, Australia, and Hawaii found a huge new market for their food; British manufactured goods were in high demand; clothing and even prefabricated houses arrived from China. The return of large amounts of California gold to pay for these goods raised prices and stimulated investment and the creation of jobs around the world. Australian prospector Edward Hargraves, noting similarities between the geography of California and his home country, returned to Australia to discover gold and spark the Australian gold rushes. Preceding the Gold Rush, the United States was on a bi-metallic standard, but the sudden increase in physical gold supply increased the relative value of physical silver and drove silver money from circulation. The increase in gold supply also created a monetary supply shock.

Within a few years after the end of the Gold Rush, in 1863, the groundbreaking ceremony for the western leg of the First Transcontinental Railroad was held in Sacramento. The line's completion, some six years later, financed in part with Gold Rush money, united California with the central and eastern United States. Travel that had taken weeks or even months could now be accomplished in days.

Longer-term effects

California's name became indelibly connected with the Gold Rush, and fast success in a new world became known as the "California Dream." California was perceived as a place of new beginnings, where great wealth could reward hard work and good luck. Historian H. W. Brands noted that in the years after the Gold Rush, the California Dream spread across the nation:

The old American Dream ... was the dream of the Puritans, of Benjamin Franklin's "Poor Richard"... of men and women content to accumulate their modest fortunes a little at a time, year by year by year. The new dream was the dream of instant wealth, won in a twinkling by audacity and good luck. [This] golden dream ... became a prominent part of the American psyche only after Sutter's Mill.

Overnight California gained the international reputation as the "golden state". Generations of immigrants have been attracted by the California Dream. California farmers, oil drillers, movie makers, airplane builders, computer and microchip makers, and "dot-com" entrepreneurs have each had their boom times in the decades after the Gold Rush.

Included among the modern legacies of the California Gold Rush are the California state motto, " Eureka" ("I have found it"), Gold Rush images on the California State Seal, and the state nickname, "The Golden State", as well as place names, such as Placer County, Rough and Ready, Placerville (formerly named "Dry Diggings" and then "Hangtown" during rush time), Whiskeytown, Drytown, Angels Camp, Happy Camp, and Sawyers Bar. The San Francisco 49ers National Football League team, and the similarly named athletic teams of California State University, Long Beach, are named for the prospectors of the California Gold Rush.

In addition, the standard route shield of state highways in California is in the shape of a miner's spade to honor the California Gold Rush. Today, the aptly named State Route 49 travels through the Sierra Nevada foothills, connecting many Gold Rush-era towns such as Placerville, Auburn, Grass Valley, Nevada City, Coloma, Jackson, and Sonora. This state highway also passes very near Columbia State Historic Park, a protected area encompassing the historic business district of the town of Columbia; the park has preserved many Gold Rush-era buildings, which are presently occupied by tourist-oriented businesses.

Cultural references

References

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Paul, Rodman W. (1969) [1947]. California Gold: The Beginning of Mining in the Far West. Bison: University of Nebraska Press.

Starr, Kevin (1973). Americans and the California Dream: 1850-1915. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-504233-7.

Thornton, Russell (1987). American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History Since 1492. Norman : University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 978-0-8061-2074-4.

Watson, Matthew A. (2005). "The Argonauts of '49: Class, Gender, and Partnership in Bret Harte's West". Western American Literature. 40 (1): 33-53. doi:10.1353/wal.2005.0076.

Wells, Harry L. (1881). History of Siskiyou County, California. Oakland, California: D.J. Stewart & Co.

Further reading

Burchell, Robert A. (Summer 1974). "The Loss of a Reputation; or, The Image of California in Britain before 1875". California Historical Quarterly. 53 (3): 115-130. doi:10.2307/25157500. ISSN 0097-6059. JSTOR 25157500.

Durham, Walter T. (1997). Volunteer Forty-Niners: Tennesseans and the California Gold Rush. Nashville, Tennessee: Vanderbilt University Press. ISBN 9780585170930. OCLC 44959444.

Dwyer, Richard A.; Richard E. Lingenfelter; David Cohen (1964). The Songs of the Gold Rush. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Helper, Hinton Rowan (1855). The Land of Gold: Reality Versus Fiction. Baltimore: H. Taylor.

Holliday, J. S.; Swain, William (2002) [1981]. The World Rushed in: The California Gold Rush Experience. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 978-0-8061-3464-2.

Lienhard, Heinrich. "Wenn Du absolut nach Amerika willst, so gehe in Gottesnamen!", Erinnerungen an den California Trail, John A. Sutter und den Goldrausch 1846-1849. Herausgegeben von [edited by] Christa Landert, mit einem Vorwort von [foreword by] Leo Schelbert. Zürich: Limmat Verlag, 2010, 2011. ISBN 978-3-85791-504-8

"Haun Collection Archive". Archived from the original on May 20, 2017.

online edition

Watson, Matthew A. (2005). "The Argonauts of '49: Class, Gender, and Partnership in Bret Harte's West". Western American Literature. 40 (1): 33-53. ISSN 0043-3462.

Witschi, N. S. (2004). "Bret Harte." Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature. Ed. Jay Parini. New York: Oxford University Press. 154-157.

Witschi, N.S. (2002). Traces of Gold: California's Natural Resources and the Claim to Realism in Western American Literature. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. ISBN 978-0-8173-1117-9.

External links

California Gold Rush at Curlie

California Gold Rush chronology at The Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco

Gold at the website of United States Geological Survey

Gold Country Museum in Placer County, California

"California as I Saw It:" First-Person Narratives of California's Early Years, 1849-1900 Library of Congress American Memory Project

University of California, Berkeley, Bancroft Library

The University of California, Calisphere, 1848-1865: The Gold Rush Era

California State Library, "California As We Saw It": Exploring the California Gold Rush, online exhibit

Map of North America during the California Gold Rush at omniatlas.com

Lewis B. Rush diary, diary of a gold rush miner, MSS SC 161 at L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University

Gold Rush Collection. Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

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The California Gold Rush (1848-1855) was a gold rush that began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California from the rest of the United States and abroad.

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People that moved west in search for gold were treated well. Those people were given free land but under certain conditions. If they took the land they must build a house 12ft by 14ft, they must be 21 years or older and be a male. Lastly they must develop the land for 5 years.

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People that took advantage of this land ran into lots of issues. There was drought, locust, and high cost for transporting goods. Most people could not afford these high cost.

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The gold rush greatly impacted industrial and agricultural development. It also helped develop Californians economy.

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The California Gold Rush of 1849-1855 radically transformed California, the United States and the world. It prompted one of the largest migrations in U.S. history, with hundreds of thousands of migrants across the United States and the globe coming to California to find gold in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. This led to the establishment of boomtowns, rapid economic growth and prosperity, as well as the building of railroads, churches and banks to accommodate the newcomers. The significant increase in population and infrastructure allowed California to qualify for statehood in 1850, only a few years after it was ceded by Mexico, and facilitated U.S. expansion to the American West.

The California Gold Rush took place against the backdrop of the Industrial Revolution and served as an accelerant for U.S. economic development in the 19th Century. The influx of gold resulted in the expansion of manufacturing and the service industries, as many entrepreneurial newcomers took advantage of the demand for mining materials, lumber, clothing and transportation. Agriculture and retail also experienced exponential growth during the Gold Rush and led to California becoming an economic powerhouse by the end of the century. Some of today's most recognizable brands, businesses, and icons got their start during the Gold Rush. Henry Wells and William Fargo saw an opportunity to provide financial services to gold seekers and started a bank, Wells Fargo & Co.; Levi Strauss, a German immigrant, identified miners' need for sturdy clothing and created canvas pants that would withstand the punishing hours involved in gold mining; and American humorist, Mark Twain, got his start in San Francisco, where he initially joined his brother is prospecting for gold but ended up finding greater success as a reporter for The San Francisco Call. For historians and students alike, learning more about the California Gold Rush can help explain the development of the American West and how California came to be.

Historical Context of the Gold Rush

In February 1848, Mexico ceded California to the United States through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which effectively ended the Mexican-American War. The treaty granted over one million square miles of land to the United States, which included present-day Nevada, Wyoming, and New Mexico. At the time, the United States was influenced by significant expansionist sentiment, with President James Polk having won the presidency in 1845 running on a strong expansionist platform. Many Americans believed in what was called "Manifest Destiny," or, the idea that the United States' Westward expansion and acquisition of lands on the North American continent were both inevitable and justifiable.

California's Gold Rush and the fledgling territory's rapid increase in wealth and population necessitated a civilian government to maintain the public order and prompted its speedy entry into the United States in 1850. By contrast, territories such as New Mexico and Arizona didn't become states until 1912. California also boasted a community armed with a strong sense of ambition and civic duty; within a year, California sent representatives to Washington with a draft constitution to request statehood.

Brief History of the Gold Rush

For all its significance, the onset of the Gold Rush originated from a seemingly innocuous event. In January 1848, James Marshall, a carpenter, was building a sawmill for Swiss immigrant and pioneer John Sutter at Sutter's Fort, a trade and agricultural colony, when he spotted something shiny in the American River. Not sure of what he had found, he collected the apparent gold flecks and ran some rudimentary tests on them-including biting them and hitting them with a hammer. When their appearance did not change, Marshall confirmed they were genuine gold and quickly notified John Sutter. Sensing that the discovery would negatively impact the building of his sawmill and bring a large number of squatters to his land, Sutter swore all his employees to secrecy. However, news of the discovery quickly got out and spread across the region, including nearby San Francisco (known as Yerba Buena at the time). Soon, gold seekers from across the region swarmed Sutter's Fort, and just as Sutter had feared, his employees all left to look for gold. By many accounts, once news of the discovery reached San Francisco, the city quickly emptied, with workers deserting their workplaces, stores and ships to look for gold.

Within a few months, news of the gold discovery expanded beyond the region, with the Baltimore Sun becoming the first American newspaper to report on it in late summer. In the fall, the New York Herald ran a subsequent story on the gold discovery and by December, President Polk announced to Congress that significant amounts of gold were being discovered in California. The year 1849 prompted a massive migration to California from many parts of the country as well as places as far as China, Chile and France. The migrants, dubbed the "forty-niners" for the year of their trip, flocked to cities such as San Francisco and present-day Sacramento, which were experiencing unprecedented development. The population of San Francisco, for example, exploded from 500 in 1847 to more than 150,000 in 1852.

Effects of the Gold Rush

With the massive influx of migrants, California underwent a radical transformation in a very short amount of time. It changed from a sparsely populated region to a territory with enough people to constitute a state. At the time, the population of California was still predominantly Mexican; however, the arrival of many U.S. migrants quickly reshaped the local demographics. The newcomers often wanted to keep in touch with family around the United States and pushed for the development of new communication and transportation tools that would help them bridge the distance.

The famed Pony Express was created to send mail and parcels from California to the Midwest within a two-week period using ponies. Businessman and founder of the California Star newspaper, Samuel Brannan, created a delivery mail service called the California Star Express that connected California and Missouri. While the Gold Rush allowed some of the earlier prospectors to become rich, it was the ensuing economic development that sprang up around the industry that would prove most profitable; new businesses designed to satisfy the needs of gold prospectors and the mining industry would ultimately result in prosperity for merchants. The increased investment in the emerging California economy would have a lasting impact on both California and the United States.

Effects on Manufacturing and Industry

The Gold Rush led to an explosion in manufacturing for mining machinery and equipment for hydraulic operations, which were often used in the mining process and had previously been supplied by the East before the Gold Rush prompted newer, more immediate demand. The Gold Rush also led to increased production of lumber and the creation of new flour mills. The need for clothing increased dramatically, and the leather industry experienced significant growth. Wholesale and retail developed at this time and were instrumental in helping meet the growing demands of consumers.

Effects on the Development of Agriculture

The rapid development of agriculture-thanks to heightened demand and the availability of more sophisticated tools-was another major outcome of the Gold Rush. In fact, many who did not succeed in mining turned to California's "green gold"- taking full advantage of the state's favorable climate to produce massive amounts of fruits, vegetables and grains in order to feed denizens of the mining communities. Enterprising newcomers from Europe also saw an opportunity to satisfy demands for wine. They planted the first orchards and vineyards, and soon they were not only supplying locally but also exporting to other countries; California varietals remain some of the most sought-after and highly regarded wines to this day.

International Effects of the Gold Rush

California-based businesses weren't the only ones benefiting from the Gold Rush, as foreign producers and manufacturers found new markets for their products in the United States. Agricultural producers in Chile suddenly had new consumers for their fruit; China started exporting significant amounts of sugar, and Norway eyed California for opportunities to expand its naval shipping industry. All this economic expansion necessitated new financial services, and several banks would also grow out of the Gold Rush and its aftermath.

Effects on Transportation

The fervor surrounding the Gold Rush led to a revolution in transportation. New roads, bridges, ferries, wagons and steamships were created to help prospectors reach California, which was fairly isolated at the time. The accelerated development of transportation culminated in the building of the isthmus across the Panama Canal, which significantly hastened travel time to California. San Francisco-which experienced the largest economic boom at the time-saw its rapid modernization and economic development rewarded, as it was chosen as the site for the western terminus for the first transatlantic railroad, which linked the East Coast with California through Omaha and revolutionized transport and commerce.

Suddenly, California became the hub of a new Pacific market, and as Friedrich Engels wrote to his collaborator, Karl Marx, the new economy and markets arising from the Gold Rush seemed to "come out of nothing."

Negative Outcomes of the Gold Rush

The Gold Rush was not beneficial to all, however. It led to increased violence against Native Americans, tens of thousands of whom are estimated to have lost their lives in clashes with settlers. Later in the Gold Rush, immigrants from China often experienced intense discrimination. During the 19th century, China struggled economically, and thousands of young Chinese men immigrated to California in the hopes of earning enough money to support their families back home. Some Americans-unfairly convinced that these Chinese immigrants were taking revenue and employment opportunities away from other Americans-pushed to place restrictions on Chinese immigration and to create a tax on all foreign miners working in California.

The Gold Rush also had a severe environmental impact. Rivers became clogged with sediment; forests were ravaged to produce timber; biodiversity was compromised and soil was polluted with chemicals from the mining process. Additionally, the Gold Rush created a severe lack of labor in the non-gold mining industries of not just California, but areas such as Great Britain, China and Hawaii-all of which experienced mass emigration in the wake of Gold Fever. Finally, while the Gold Rush helped boost the international economy as businesses in other countries sought to meet the demands of gold prospectors, the increasing amount of gold in circulation resulted in higher prices for commodities as well as inflationary shock, as the monetary standard of the time was backed by precious metals.

The Gold Rush significantly influenced the history of California and the United States. It created a lasting impact by propelling significant industrial and agricultural development and helped shape the course of California's development by spurring its economic growth and facilitating its transition to statehood. The Gold Rush also led foreign businesses to flourish as they expanded the export of their goods and services to the booming new consumer markets in California. Today, the effects of the Gold Rush can still be observed in California. The state's slogan, "Eureka!" ("I found it!") is a nod to Gold Rush prospectors. The Gold Rush also attracted dreamers, adventurers and vagabonds from all over the world and epitomized much of what came to be known as the American Dream. Many scholars and theorists have drawn parallels between the spirit of the Gold Rush and the ongoing technological and entrepreneurial boom experienced in Silicon Valley. It is therefore vital for students of history to form an understanding of the geopolitical, economic and social effects of such movements in the United States.

Learn More

Norwich University is an important part of American history. Established in 1819, Norwich is a nationally recognized institution of higher education, the birthplace of the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) and the first private military college in the United States.

With Norwich University's online Master of Arts in history, you can enhance your awareness of differing historical viewpoints while developing and refining your research, writing, analysis and presentation skills. The program offers two tracks-American history and world history-allowing you to tailor your studies to your interests and goals.
Recommended Readings: Sources:
7 Major Emperors During the Rise of the Roman Empire
8 Famous Historical Figures of Twentieth Century America
The American West: A New Interpretive History, Google Books

Gold Nugget, The National Museum of American History

California Gold: An Authentic History of the First Find With the Names of Those Interested in the Discovery, The Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco

California Admission Day September 9, 1850, California Department of Parks and Recreation

The Golden Skein: California's Gold-Rush Transportation Network, JSTOR

Samuel Brannan, PBS

The California Gold Rush, National Park Service

After the Gold Rush: Migration of gold-seekers helped shape California's future, National Geographic

California Gold Rush, Encyclopedia Britannica

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Historical Impact of the California Gold Rush

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The California Gold Rush of 1849-1855 radically transformed California, the United States and the world. It prompted one of the largest migrations in U.S. history, with hundreds of thousands of migrants across the United States and the globe coming to California to find gold in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains.

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while settlers were moving out westward Native Americans were forced to flee their home land because the settlers were industrializing the west and pushing the natives out.

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the process of adopting the language and culture of a dominant social group or nation, or the state of being socially integrated into the culture of the dominant group in a society: assimilation of immigrants into American life.

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the act or process of assimilating, or of absorbing information, experiences, etc.: the need for quick assimilation of the facts.

the state or condition of being assimilated, or of being absorbed into something.

the process of adopting the language and culture of a dominant social group or nation, or the state of being socially integrated into the culture of the dominant group in a society: assimilation of immigrants into American life.

Physiology. the conversion of absorbed food into the substance of the body.

the total process of plant nutrition, including photosynthesis and the absorption of raw materials.

the merging of cultural traits from previously distinct cultural groups, not involving biological amalgamation.

the act or process by which a sound becomes identical with or similar to a neighboring sound in one or more defining characteristics, as place of articulation, voice or voicelessness, or manner of articulation, as in for grandpa. Compare dissimilation (def. 2).

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Words nearby assimilation

assignee, assignment, assignor, assimilable, assimilate, assimilation, assimilationism, assimilative, ass in a sling, have one's, Assiniboin, Assiniboine

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2020

Medical definitions for assimilation

The incorporation of digested substances from food into the tissues of an organism.

The amalgamation and modification of newly perceived information and experiences into the existing cognitive structure.

The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.

Scientific definitions for assimilation

The American Heritage® Science Dictionary Copyright © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Cultural definitions for assimilation

The process by which a person or persons acquire the social and psychological characteristics of a group: "Waves of immigrants have been assimilated into the American culture."

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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Definition of assimilation | Dictionary.com

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the act or process of assimilating, or of absorbing information, experiences, etc.: the need for quick assimilation of the facts. the state or condition of being assimilated, or of being absorbed into something.

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To encourage assimilation, the government passed a law called the Dawes Act in 1887. It offered free farm land and help for Indian families that chose to leave their tribe and become settled, independent farmers.

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The U.S. government wanted Indians to assimilate into
American culture
Many American leaders in the 1870s and 1880s thought that Indians should be encouraged or even forced to assimilate. That means they wanted Indians to leave their tribes and ways of life, and instead adopt American ways of life.

(Assimilation means to blend into a different culture.)

To encourage assimilation, the government passed a law called the Dawes Act in 1887. It offered free farm land and help for Indian families that chose to leave their tribe and become settled, independent farmers. Some Indians accepted the offer. Most Indians, however, did not want to leave their tribes or become farmers.

The photo below shows a group of the Indians who did adopt the American way of life, and became farmers on the Great Plains.

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The U.S. government wanted Indians to assimilate into American culture Many American leaders in the 1870s and 1880s thought that Indians should be encouraged or even forced to assimilate. That means they wanted Indians to leave their tribes and ways of life, and instead adopt American ways of life.

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The U.S. government and the Indians  didn't not get along well. The Indians just kept getting pushed out of their homes and the government would not share any resources with them. When ever something valuable was found on the land given the the Indians the Indians were pushed out again and again. Until the started to put up a fight and the Indians actually won the fight but the U.S. come back with the military and slaughtered so many Indians.

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many people moved out to the great plains because there were large amounts of property for little money. Also the government helped them by enforcing the homestead act of 1862.

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The land in the great plains was easier to farm but there was a lot of droughts making it hard to grow crops.

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New technology was invented to help out farmers in the great plains.
-dry farming- allowed farmers to farm with little water
-wheat farming
-steal plow
-sod houses
-barbed wire

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while some farmers fled from their farms because of all the issues they were having in the great plains some farmers chose to stay because they either were doing fine or they weren't and they had no where else to go so they had to try their best to make it work.