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After the discovery of gold in California, prospectors by the thousands headed West to explore every promising region (the Black Hills, the Rockies, and many other strike sites like Comstock Lode and Pike’s peak). While individual miners did not strike it rich, wealthy mining corporations moved in with expensive machinery. Miners went to work for these mining companies. Many more people came West to set up stores and businesses in these mining towns, including gambling houses, saloons, and theaters. This led to the growth of mining camps/towns, and crime increased too. It was an era marked by lawlessness: duels, murders in broad daylight, pickpockets, etc. The law and police were often non-existent, and honest miners enforced their own laws to curb the crime in the mining towns. Their justice system came to be known as “ vigilante justice,” or frontier justice,” with the vigilantes taking justice and moral codes into their own hands and meting out harsh punishments, including death by hanging to the guilty. The absence of established institutions of law and order led the vigilantes to literally take the law into their own hands and dispense “vigilante justice.”  Thus the American West was settled primarily by prospectors and miners as the mining industry created a resource demand that increased settlement, and law and order were dispensed through the “vigilante justice system.”

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Mining, particularly for gold and silver, was responsible for one of the largest transfers of population from the eastern to the western parts of the United States. The promise of finding gold and silver and striking it rich brought scores of miners to the Black Hills (South Dakota), the Rockies (Pikes Peak), and other strike sites like Six Mile Canyon and Comstock Lode. With the news of strikes spreading, large mining companies moved in with expensive machinery into these areas. Lone prospectors did not become rich and often went to work for the mining companies. With more and more people arriving to seek fortunes, mining camps sprang up on every hillside. Some people set up businesses and stores to service the mining camps. These stores and businesses did better than the miners, and the mining camps grew into mining towns with banks, hotels, gambling houses, newspaper offices, and even theaters. These towns drew more people. In the mining camps and towns, there were pickpockets, robbers, and swindlers mixed with men with honest intentions. Daring thefts and cold-blooded murders were common in these places, and there were no laws or police to deal with the outlaws. So honest miners enforced their own system of justice called “ vigilante justice,” or “frontier justice,” which were harsh laws to punish the outlaws. The guilty were punished severely and sometimes hanged without a trial. Thus the mining industry of the American West not only created fortunes and disappointment for the individual miners but also played an important part in the development of the West.

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You can do anything and there is no penalty.

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How did mining affect the development of the American West? And specifically the 'vigilant justice' that reigned there?

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How did mining affect the development of the American West? And specifically the 'vigilant justice' that reigned there?

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Mining affected development because the people want GOLD or they want money so they sell supplies. After the gold rush, people will just stay there because they don't want to go back. Villians and thieves won't be punished because there is NO police and there are NO laws. Thieves will take advantage of this because they might steal gold or supplies. Killers and bad guys will kill people or steal something and they will get ZERO punishment.

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There were no rules or laws in the West at this time. In other words "controlled" chaos. You know, "The Wild West!" - These towns were not safe but they were dangerous and unorganized. Common folk can create the rules or what to do with a person if they steal something. If a person os caught in the act, anybody could choose their punishment and if they are guilty. There were no government mandated rules in place. This all was immensely different from the East. The East immediately had governments and laws. Nobody from the other areas in America even wanted to live in the West because of how chaotic and dangerous it was! Until, GOLD WAS FOUND IN THE WEST! This made people rush in with hopes to find gold and get rich. Without the gold rush, the wets never would have grown to be what it is today!

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How did mining affect the development of the American West? - Siddarth

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How did mining affect the development of the American West? - Siddarth

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Mining affected the development of the West because there were no rules and no government. This caused a lot of chaos and danger among people. For example, there were unfair things like people randomly being accused of crime. This shows that the laws in the West were extremely unfair. Everyone just did whatever they wanted and there was absolutely no control.

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"In that way, mining helped settle the present-day states of Colorado, Nevada, Montana, Idaho, Washington, and South Dakota."
So in a way, without the mining and the miners, those states might not have been developed the way that they were.
However, in the mining cities, there were no rules. There were "...wide open gambling places,...streetfights, murders,...riots, a whiskey mill every fifteen steps."
If someone had done something like steal someone else's gold, they were killed.
Also, with "vivilante justice", anyone could make their own laws. Anyone!

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Mining affected the development because there were no rules. Everyone were rogue and no one followed the rules, simply because they weren't even there. They gave unfair punishments for simple things. The east had a civilized place, which was the complete opposite of the west. Mining made the Adults of the West not able to follow all the rules, and all they had there eyes on were the money and riches they good get. They didnt care and just wanted to strike it rich.

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Mining affected the development of the American West because because there were no laws. Imagine being an adult who tries to mind your own business mining gold but out of nowhere a bad person steals all the gold you mined. There also wasn't a good way of deciding punishment. Some people were accused guilty without even having a trial. Additionally, with 'vigilante justice' anyone could make laws. This also wasn't fair because the laws could be totally unfair and unconstitutional.

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How did mining affect the development of the American West?

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How did mining affect the development of the American West?

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Mining affected the development of the American West by allowing adults to live in a world with no laws where they could strike it rich. This caused average people to make the laws called vigilant justice and this would change who they would become. This was technically controlled mayhem and this is where the saying the wild wild west came. Since more people wanted to strike it rich in the west, more and more people came to the western states in the US and more and more people were living a different life. More and more people coming to these towns would help the development of the west of the US.

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There are no rules in these sort of cities. Western cities at the time period didn't have a lot of rules. The people in this town are not safe, dangerous, and chaotic! Random people just make up rules as they go along! Its making the people either power hungry and it changes people completely. Comparing it to the East, they had organized governments. It is very chaotic and wild! Like the Wild West! No government, no rules. Everything is okay, nobody takes ownership for what they are doing. If they are caught in the act, some random person gets to choose if they are guilty or not! This is not the right way to decide if someone deserves punishment or not.  If there wasn't a gold rush then the West would be dead! Nobody would visit or even want to go there for fun.

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Big Question: How did mining affect the development of the American West? And specifically the 'vigilant justice' that reigned there.

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Big Question: How did mining affect the development of the American West? And specifically the 'vigilant justice' that reigned there.