California Gold

Rush

The California Gold Rush (1848–1855)

began on January 24, 1848, when gold
was found by James W. Marshall at
Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California.[1] The
news of gold brought some 300,000
people to California from the rest of the
United States and abroad.[2] The sudden
influx of immigration and gold into the
money supply reinvigorated the American
economy, and California became one of
the few American states to go directly to
statehood without first being a territory,
in the Compromise of 1850. The Gold
Rush had severe effects on Native
Californians and resulted in a precipitous
population decline from disease,
genocide and starvation. By the time it
ended, California had gone from a thinly
populated ex-Mexican territory, to the
home state of the first presidential
nominee for the new Republican Party, in
1856.
California Gold Rush

Prospectors working California gold placer

deposits in 1850

Date January 24, 1848–
1855

Location Sierra Nevada and

Northern California
goldfields

Coordinates 38°48′09″N
120°53′41″W

Participants 300,000 prospectors

Outcome California becomes a

U.S. state
California Genocide
Advertisement about sailing to California, circa 1850

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 first to hear
confirmed information of the gold rush
were the people in Oregon, the Sandwich
Islands (Hawaii), and Latin America, and
they were the first to start flocking to the
state in late 1848. Of the 300,000 people
who came to America during the Gold
Rush, approximately 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 tens
of 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 across the country 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 dollars
was recovered, which led to great wealth
for a few. However, many returned home
with little more than they had started
with.

History
California goldfields (red) in the Sierra Nevada and
northern California

The Mexican–American War ended on

February 3, 1848, although California was
firmly in American hands 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.[3] 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.[4] 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.[5]

Discovery announced
However, rumors soon started to spread
and were confirmed in March 1848 by
San Francisco newspaper publisher and
merchant Samuel Brannan. The most
famous quote of the California Gold Rush
was by Brannan; after he had hurriedly
set up a store to sell gold prospecting
supplies,[6] Brannan strode through the
streets of San Francisco, holding aloft a
vial of gold, shouting "Gold! Gold! Gold
from the American River!"[7]

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, President
James Polk confirmed the discovery of
gold in an address to Congress.[8] Soon,
waves of immigrants from around the
world, later called the "forty-niners,"
invaded the Gold Country of California or
"Mother Lode". As Sutter had feared, he
was ruined; his workers left in search of
gold, and squatters took over his land
and stole his crops and cattle.[9]

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,[10] but then
boomed as merchants and new people
arrived. The population of San Francisco
exploded from perhaps about 1,000[11] in
1848 to 25,000 full-time residents by
1850.[12] Miners lived in tents, wood
shanties, or deck cabins removed from
abandoned ships.[13]

Transportation to California

In what has been referred to as the "first

world-class gold rush,"[14] 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 five
to eight months,[15] and cover some
18,000 nautical miles (33,000
kilometres). 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.[16] There was also a route
across Mexico starting at Veracruz.
Many gold-seekers took the overland
route across the continental United
States, particularly along the California
Trail.[17] Each of these routes had its own
deadly hazards, from shipwreck to
typhoid fever and cholera.[18]

Supplies and goods needed

To meet the demands of the arrivals,
ships bearing goods from around the
world came to San Francisco as well.
Ships' captains found that their crews
deserted to go to the goldfields. The
wharves and docks of San Francisco
became a forest of masts, as hundreds
of ships were abandoned. Enterprising
San Franciscans turned the abandoned
ships into warehouses, stores, taverns,
hotels, and one into a jail.[19] Many of
these ships were later destroyed and
used for landfill to create more buildable
land in the boomtown.[19]

Northern California strikes

Merchant ships fill San Francisco harbor, 1850–51

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.[20] Discovery
of gold nuggets at the site of present-day
Yreka in 1851 brought thousands of gold-
seekers up the Siskiyou Trail[21] and
throughout California's northern
counties.[22]
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.[23]

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.[24] However, these first
deposits, and later discoveries in
Southern California mountains, attracted
little notice and were of limited
consequence economically.[24]

Indigenous 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 ($590 per
month as of 2018), and American
prospectors began organized attacks on
foreign miners, particularly Latin
Americans and Chinese.[25]

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.[26]
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.[27]

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.[28]

Lopez took the gold to authorities who

confirmed its worth. Lopez and others
began to search for other steambeds
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.[28]

Forty-niners

Panning for gold on the Mokelumne River

"Independent Gold Hunter on His Way to California",
circa 1850. The gold hunter is loaded down with
every conceivable appliance, much of which would
be useless in California. The prospector says: "I am
sorry I did not follow the advice of Granny and go
around the Horn, through the Straights, or by Chagres
[Panama]."

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).[29]
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.[30]

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.[31] 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,[32] both by ship and
overland.[33] By the end of 1848, some
6,000 Argonauts had come to
California.[33]

Only a small number (probably fewer

than 500) traveled overland from the
United States that year.[33] Some of these
"forty-eighters",[34] 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.[35][36] 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.[37] 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[38] (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[39] and
New Zealanders picked up the news from
ships carrying Hawaiian newspapers, and
thousands, infected with "gold fever",
boarded ships for California.[40]

Forty-niners came from Latin America,

particularly from the Mexican mining
districts near Sonora and Chile.[40][41]
Gold-seekers and merchants from Asia,
primarily from China,[42] began arriving in
1849, at first in modest numbers to Gum
San ("Gold Mountain"), the name given to
California in Chinese.[43] 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,[44] with some Germans, Italians,
and Britons.[38]

Chinese gold miners in California

It is estimated that approximately 90,000

people arrived in California in 1849—
about half by land and half by sea.[45] Of
these, perhaps 50,000 to 60,000 were
Americans, and the rest were from other
countries.[38] By 1855, it is estimated at
least 300,000 gold-seekers, merchants,
and other immigrants had arrived in
California from around the world.[46] The
largest group continued to be Americans,
but there were tens of thousands each of
Mexicans, Chinese, Britons,
Australians,[47] French, and Latin
Americans,[48] together with many
smaller groups of miners, such as
African Americans, Filipinos, Basques[49]
and Turks.[50][51]

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.[52] A modest
number of miners of African ancestry
(probably less than 4,000)[53] had come
from the Southern States,[54] the
Caribbean and Brazil.[55]

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.[56] 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.[57][56]

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.[58] They held various
roles including prostitutes, single
entrepreneurs, married women, poor and
wealthy women. They were of various
ethnicities including Anglo-American,
African-American,[59] 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.[60] 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.[61][62]

Homosexuality
The disproportionate number of men to
women in San Francisco created an
environment for homosexuality and gay
cultures to flourish.[63] The Barbary Coast
was a district where men went to gamble
and pay for sex from female
impersonators and women alike.[63]
Described as the "city of bachelors" [63]
men often went to the Barbary Coast
district to pay for prostitution and
pleasure with other men.[64]

Legal rights
When the Gold Rush began, the California
goldfields were peculiarly lawless
places.[65] 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.[66] 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.[67]

While the treaty ending the Mexican–

American War obliged the United States
to honor Mexican land grants,[68] 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.[69] However, there were no
legal rules yet in place,[65] and no
practical enforcement mechanisms.[70]

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.[71][72] The
miners informally adapted Mexican
mining law that had existed in
California.[73] 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.[65][74][75]

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.[74][75] Disputes were often
handled personally and violently, and
were sometimes addressed by groups of
prospectors acting as
arbitrators.[69][74][75] This often led to
heightened ethnic tensions.[76] In some
areas the influx of many prospectors
could lead to a reduction of the existing
claim size by simple pressure.[77]

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,[78] and eroded.
Water carried the exposed gold
downstream and deposited it in quiet
gravel beds along the sides of old rivers
and streams.[79][80] The forty-niners first
focused their efforts on these deposits
of gold.[81]

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.[82][83] However, 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"[84]
to process larger volumes of gravel.[85]
Miners would also engage in
"coyoteing",[86] 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.[87]
Modern estimates by the U.S. Geological
Survey are that some 12 million
ounces[88] (370 t) of gold were removed
in the first five years of the Gold Rush
(worth over US$16 billion at December
2010 prices).[89]

In the next stage, by 1853, hydraulic

mining was used on ancient gold-bearing
gravel beds on hillsides and bluffs in the
goldfields.[90] 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.[91] 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
"hydraulicking".[89]

A byproduct of these extraction methods

was that large amounts of gravel, silt,
heavy metals, and other pollutants went
into streams and rivers.[92] 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.[93]

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,[94]
and it is estimated that more than
20 million ounces (620 t) were recovered
by dredging (worth approximately
US$28 billion at December 2010
prices).[89]

Both during the Gold Rush and in the

decades that followed, gold-seekers also
engaged in "hard-rock" mining, that is,
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.[95] By 1851, quartz mining had
become the major industry of Coloma.[96]
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.[97]
Eventually, hard-rock mining wound up
becoming the single largest source of
gold produced in the Gold Country.[89][98]
The total production of gold in California
from then till now is estimated at 118
million ounces (3700 t).[99]
Forty-niner panning for gold

Sluice for separation of gold from dirt

with water
Excavating a river bed after the water
has been diverted

Crushing quartz ore prior to washing out

gold
 Excavating a gravel bed with jets, circa
1863

Profits
Recent scholarship confirms that
merchants made far more money than
miners during the Gold Rush.[100][101] The
wealthiest man in California during the
early years of the rush was Samuel
Brannan, a tireless self-promoter,
shopkeeper and newspaper
publisher.[102] 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.[102]

Some gold-seekers made a significant

amount of money.[103] 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.[104]
However, taxes such as the California
foreign miners tax passed in 1851,
targeted mainly Latino miners[105] and
kept them from making as much money
as whites, who didn't have any taxes
imposed on them. In California most late
arrivals made little or wound up losing
money.[106] 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.[107]

Other businessmen reaped great rewards

in retail, shipping, entertainment,
lodging,[108] or transportation.[109]
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.[110]

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.[111]

Path of the gold

Portsmouth Square, San Francisco, during the Gold

Rush, 1851

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.[112][113] These merchants
and vendors in turn used the gold to
purchase supplies from ship captains or
packers bringing goods to California.[114]

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 was sent to France by
French prospectors and merchants.[115]

As the Gold Rush progressed, local banks

and gold dealers issued "banknotes" or
"drafts"—locally accepted paper currency
—in exchange for gold,[116] and private
mints created private gold coins.[117]
With the building of the San Francisco
Mint in 1854, gold bullion was turned into
official United States gold coins for
circulation.[118] 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.[119]

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,[120] had many dramatic
effects.[121]

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."[122]

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.[123]

Large-scale agriculture (California's

second "Gold Rush"[124]) began during
this time.[125] Roads, schools,
churches,[126] and civic organizations
quickly came into existence.[123] The vast
majority of the immigrants were
Americans.[127] 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.[128] 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.[129]
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,[130] 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.[131][132]

Impact on Native Americans

Protecting The Settlers illustration by JR Browne for

his work The Indians Of California 1864
Photo caption, "The Heathen Chinee Prospecting"

indicates early prejudice against Chinese gold

miners. California, 1852

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.[92][93]
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.[133]

In some areas, systematic attacks

against tribespeople in or near mining
districts occurred. Various conflicts were
fought between natives and
settlers.[134]Miners often saw Native
Americans as impediments to their
mining activities.[135] 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.[136] 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.[137] 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.[138]

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").[139]
According to demographer Russell
Thornton, between 1849 and 1890, the
Indigenous population of California fell
below 20,000 – primarily because of the
killings.[140] According to the government
of California, some 4,500 Native
Americans suffered violent deaths
between 1849 and 1870.[141]
Furthermore, California stood in
opposition of ratifying the eighteen
treaties signed between tribal leaders
and federal agents in 1851.[142]

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.[143] 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.[144] 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.[145]

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.[56][146] 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.[147]

World-wide economic stimulation

Chilean wheat exports to California from

1848 to 1854 (in qqm)[148]
Year Grains Flour

1848 3000 n/a

1849 87,000 69,000

1850 277,000 221,000

1854 63,000 50,000

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.[149] 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.[150] 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.[151] 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.[152]

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,[153] united California with
the central and eastern United States.
Travel that had taken weeks or even
months could now be accomplished in
days.[154]
Longer-term effects

Legacy

(1) State motto, "Eureka" on the Seal of California. (2)

California state route shield, with the number 49 and
shaped like a miner's spade. (3) Commemorative
coin from 1925.

California's name became indelibly

connected with the Gold Rush, and fast
success in a new world became known
as the "California Dream."[155] 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.[156]

Overnight California gained the

international reputation as the "golden
state".[157] Generations of immigrants
have been attracted by the California
Dream. California farmers,[158] oil
drillers,[159] movie makers,[160] airplane
builders,[161] and "dot-com" entrepreneurs
have each had their boom times in the
decades after the Gold Rush.[162]

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,[163] 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.[164][165] Today, 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.[166]
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
The literary history of the Gold Rush is
reflected in the works of Mark Twain (The
Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras
County), Bret Harte (A Millionaire of
Rough-and-Ready), Joaquin Miller (Life
Amongst the Modocs), and many
others.[27][167]

See also
Barbary Coast
California Mining and Mineral Museum
Gold in California
Mercury contamination in California
waterways
 Women in the California Gold Rush

Notes
1. "[E]vents from January 1848 through
December 1855 [are] generally
acknowledged as the 'Gold Rush'. After
1855, California gold mining changed and
is outside the 'rush' era.""The Gold Rush of
California: A Bibliography of Periodical
Articles" . California State University,
Stanislaus. 2002. Archived from the
original on July 1, 2007. Retrieved
2008-01-23.
2. "California Gold Rush, 1848–1864" .
Learn California.org, a site designed for
the California Secretary of State. Archived
from the original on July 27, 2011.
Retrieved 2011-08-22.
3. For a detailed map, see California
Historic Gold Mines Archived December
14, 2006, at the Wayback Machine.,
published by the State of California.
Retrieved December 3, 2006.
4. Bancroft, Hubert Howe (1889). History
of California, Volume 23: 1848–1859 . San
Francisco: The History Company. pp. 32–
34.
5. Bancroft (1888). History of California,
1848–1859 . pp. 39 to 41.
6. Holliday, J. S. (1999). Rush for riches;
gold fever and the making of California.
Oakland, California, Berkeley and Los
Angeles: Oakland Museum of California
and University of California Press. p. 60.
7. Bancroft (1888). History of California,
1848–1859 . History Company. pp. 55 to
56.
8. Starr, Kevin (2005). California: a history.
New York: The Modern Library. p. 80.
9. Bancroft (1888). History of California.
1848–1859 . History Company. pp. 103 to
105.
10. Bancroft (1888). History of California,
1848–1859 . History Company. pp. 59 to
60.
11. Holliday, J. S. (1999), p. 51 ("800
residents")
12. Rawls, James J. and Orsi, Richard J.
(eds.) (1999). A golden state: mining and
economic development in Gold Rush
California (California History
Sesquicentennial Series, 2). Berkeley and
Los Angeles: University of California
Press. p. 187.
13. Holliday, J. S. (1999), p. 126.
14. Hill, Mary (1999). Gold: the California
story. Berkeley and Los Angeles:
University of California Press. p. 1.
15. Brands, H. W. (2003). The age of gold:
the California Gold Rush and the new
American dream. New York: Anchor
(reprint ed.). pp. 103–121.
16. Brands, H. W. (2003), pp. 75–85.
Another route across Nicaragua was
developed in 1851; it was not as popular
as the Panama option. Rawls, James J.
and Orsi, Richard (eds.) (1999), pp. 252–
253.
17. Rawls, James J. and Orsi, Richard
(eds.) (1999), p. 5.
18. Holliday, J. S. (1999), pp. 101, 107.
19. Starr, Kevin (2005), p. 80; "Shipping is
the Foundation of San Francisco—
Literally" . Oakland Museum of California.
1998. Retrieved February 26, 2013.
20. Bancroft (1888). History of California,
1848–1859 . History Company. pp. 363 to
366.
21. Dillon, Richard (1975). Siskiyou Trail.
New York: McGraw Hill.pp. 361–362.
22. Wells, Harry L. (1881). History of
Siskiyou County, California. Oakland,
California: D.J. Stewart & Co. pp. 60–64.
23. The buildings of Bodie, the best-known
ghost town in California, date from the
1870s and later, well after the end of the
Gold Rush.
24. Rawls, James J. and Orsi, Richard J.
(eds.) (1999), p. 3.
25. Rawls, James J. and Orsi, Richard
(eds.) (1999), p. 9.
26. Rawls, James J. and Orsi, Richard
(eds.) (1999), p. 8.
27. Miller, Joaquin (1873). Life amongst
the Modocs: unwritten history . Berkeley:
Heyday Books; reprint edition (January
1996).
28. Blakely, Jim; Barnette, Karen (July
1985). Historical Overview: Los Padres
National Forest (PDF).
29. Brands, H. W. (2003), pp. 43–46.
30. Moynihan, Ruth B., Armitage, Susan,
and Dichamp, Christiane Fischer (eds.)
(1990). So Much to Be Done. Lincoln: U
Nebraska, p. 3
31. Starr, Kevin and Orsi, Richard J. (eds.)
(2000). Rooted in barbarous soil: people,
culture, and community in Gold Rush
California. Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ.
of California Press. pp. 50–54.
32. Brands, H. W. (2003), pp. 48–53.
33. Starr, Kevin and Orsi, Richard J. (eds.)
(2000), pp. 50–54.
34. Caughey, John Walton (1975). The
California Gold Rush . University of
California Press. p. 17. ISBN 0-520-02763-
9. Retrieved May 12, 2010.
35. Brands, H. W. (2003), pp. 197–202.
36. Holliday, J. S. (1999) p. 63. Holliday
notes these luckiest prospectors were
recovering, in short amounts of time, gold
worth in excess of $1 million when valued
at the dollars of today.
37. Starr, Kevin and Orsi, Richard J. (eds.)
(2000), p. 28.
38. Starr, Kevin and Orsi, Richard J. (eds.)
(2000), pp. 57–61.
39. Brands, H. W. (2003), pp. 53–61.
40. Starr, Kevin and Orsi, Richard J. (eds.)
(2000), pp. 53–56.
41. Johnson, Susan Lee (2001). Roaring
camp : the social world of the California
Gold Rush (1st ed.). New York: W.W.
Norton. p. 59. ISBN 0-393-32099-5.
42. Brands, H. W. (2003), pp. 61–64.
43. Magagnini, Stephen (January 18,
1998)"Chinese transformed 'Gold
Mountain' ", The Sacramento Bee.
Retrieved October 22, 2009.
44. Brands, H. W. (2003), pp. 93–103.
45. Starr, Kevin and Orsi, Richard J. (eds.)
(2000), pp. 57–61. Other estimates range
from 70,000 to 90,000 arrivals during 1849
(ibid. p. 57).
46. Starr, Kevin and Orsi, Richard J. (eds.)
(2000), p. 25.
47. "Exploration and Settlement – John
Bull and Uncle Sam: Four Centuries of
British-American Relations – Exhibitions
(Library of Congress)" . loc.gov.
48. Brands, H. W. (2003), pp. 193–194.
49. Starr, Kevin and Orsi, Richard J. (eds.)
(2000), p. 62.
50. "The Oregon Trail" . isu.edu. Archived
from the original on May 13, 2008.
51. Neary, J., & Robbins, H. (2015). African
American Literature of the Gold Rush.
Mapping Region in Early American Writing,
226
52. Freguli, Carolyn. (eds.) (2008), pp.8–9.
53. Another estimate is 2,500 forty-niners
of African ancestry. Rawls, James, J. and
Orsi, Richard (eds.) (1999), p. 5.
54. African Americans who were slaves
and came to California during the Gold
Rush could gain their freedom . One of the
miners was African American Edmond
Edward Wysinger (1816–1891), see also
Moses Rodgers (1835–1900)
55. Starr, Kevin and Orsi, Richard J. (eds.)
(2000), pp. 67–69.
56. Out of Many, 5th Edition Volume 1,
Faragher 2006 (p.411)
57. The Gold Rush American Experience,
KQED 2006
58. "Men : Women in Early San
Francisco" . FoundSF. 2016-08-26.
Retrieved 2017-03-07.
59. "Key Points in Black History and the
Gold Rush – Instructional Materials (CA
Dept of Education)" . Cde.ca.gov.
Retrieved 2017-03-07.
60. Moynihan, Ruth B., Armitage, Susan,
and Dichamp, Christiane Fischer (eds.)
(1990), pp. 3–8
61. Levy, Joann (1992). They saw the
elephant: Women in the California Gold
Rush. Archon:N.p., pp. xxii, 92
62. By one account, in late 1850, the
population of California was over 110,000,
not including the Californios or the
California Indians. The surviving U.S.
census counts in California add up to
92,600, not including the lost censuses of
San Francisco (the largest city in
California at that time), Contra Costa
county and Santa Clara County. The
women who came to California in the early
years were a distinct minority, consisting
of less than 10% of the population.
63. Boyd, Nan Alamilla (2003). Wide-Open
Town. University of California Press. p. 27
– via Project MUSE. “As early gay cultures
developed inside San Francisco’s many
bars and taverns, they were bolstered by
the disproportionate number of men in the
city.”
64. Boyd, Nan Alamilla (2003). Wide-Open
Town. University of California Press. p. 26
– via Project MUSE. “Here, the rough-and-
tumble saloons of the Gold Rush
developed into dance halls, honky-tonks,
and bawdy houses that provided a space
for men to gamble, dance, and satisfy their
sexual desires.”
65. Young, Otis E. (1970). Western Mining.
Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
pp. 111–112. ISBN 0-8061-1352-9.
66. Holliday, J. S. (1999), pp. 115–123.
67. Neary, J., & Robbins, H. (2015). African
American Literature of the Gold Rush.
Mapping Region in Early American Writing,
226.
68. Rawls, James J. and Orsi, Richard
(eds.) (1999), p. 235.
69. Rawls, James J. and Orsi, Richard
(eds.) (1999), pp. 123–125.
70. Rawls, James J. and Orsi, Richard
(eds.) (1999), p.127. There were fewer
than 1,000 U.S. soldiers in California at the
beginning of the Gold Rush.
71. Rawls, James J. and Orsi, Richard
(eds.) (1999), p. 27.
72. The federal law in place at the time of
the California Gold Rush was the
Preemption Act of 1841, which allowed
"squatters" to improve federal land, then
buy it from the government after 14
months.
73. Paul, Rodman W. (1947) California
Gold, Lincoln: Univ. Nebraska Press,
p.211–213.
74. Clay, Karen and Wright, Gavin. (2005),
pp. 155–183.
75. Clappe, Louise Amelia Knapp Smith
(2001) [1922]. The Shirley Letters from the
California Mines, 1851–1852 . Heyday
Books, Berkeley, California. p. 109. ISBN 1-
890771-00-7. Retrieved July 31, 2010.
"Dame Shirley" was the name adopted by
Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe as she
wrote a series of letters to her family
describing in detail her life in the Feather
River goldfields. The letters were originally
published in 1854–1855 by The Pioneer
magazine.
76. The rules of mining claims adopted by
the forty-niners spread with each new
mining rush throughout the western
United States. The U.S. Congress finally
legalized the practice in the "Chaffee laws"
of 1866 and the "placer law" of 1870.
Lindley, Curtis H. (1914) A Treatise on the
American Law Relating to Mines and
Mineral Lands, San Francisco: Bancroft-
Whitney, p.89–92. Karen Clay and Gavin
Wright, "Order Without Law? Property
Rights During the California Gold Rush."
Explorations in Economic History 2005
42(2): 155–183. See also John F. Burns,
and Richard J. Orsi, eds; Taming the
Elephant: Politics, Government, and Law in
Pioneer California University of California
Press, 2003
77. Information Sharing During the
Klondike Gold Rush, p. 13–14. Douglas W.
Allen, Simon Fraser University
78. Hill, Mary (1999), pp. 169–173.
79. Hill, Mary (1999), pp. 94–100.
80. Young, Otis E. (1970). Western Mining.
Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
pp. 106–108. ISBN 0-8061-1352-9.
81. Hill, Mary (1999), pp. 105–110.
82. Young, Otis E. (1970). Western Mining.
Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
pp. 108–110. ISBN 0-8061-1352-9.
83. Brands, H. W. (2003), pp. 198–200.
84. "goldrushtrail.net" . goldrushtrail.net.
Archived from the original on May 14,
2006.
85. Bancroft (1888). History of California,
1848–1859 . History Company. pp. 87 to
88.
86. Young, Otis E. (1970). Western Mining.
Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
pp. 110–111. ISBN 0-8061-1352-9.
87. Rawls, James J. and Orsi, Richard
(eds.) (1999), p. 90.
88. The Troy weight system is traditionally
used to measure precious metals, not the
more familiar avoirdupois weight system.
The term "ounces" used in this article to
refer to gold typically refers to troy
ounces. There are some historical uses
where, because of the age of the use, the
intention is ambiguous.
89. Mining History and Geology of the
Mother Lode (accessed October 16,
2006). Archived June 17, 2006, at the
Wayback Machine.
90. Starr, Kevin (2005), p. 89.
91. Use of volumes of water in large-scale
gold-mining dates at least to the time of
the Roman Empire. (See Roman-era gold
mines in Spain. ) Roman engineers built
extensive aqueducts and reservoirs above
gold-bearing areas, and released the
stored water in a flood so as to remove
over-burden and expose gold-bearing
bedrock, a process known as hushing. The
bedrock was then attacked using fire and
mechanical means, and volumes of water
were used again to remove debris, and to
process the resulting ore. Examples of this
Roman mining technology may be found
at Las Médulas in Spain and Dolaucothi in
South Wales. The gold recovered using
these methods was used to finance the
expansion of the Roman Empire. Hushing
was also used in lead and tin mining in
Northern Britain and Cornwall. There is,
however, no evidence of the earlier use of
hoses, nozzles and continuous jets of
water in the manner developed in
California during the Gold Rush.
92. Rawls, James J. and Orsi, Richard
(eds.) (1999), pp. 32–36.
93. Rawls, James J. and Orsi, Richard
(eds.) (1999), pp. 116–121.
94. Rawls, James J. and Orsi, Richard
(eds.) (1999), p. 199.
95. Rawls, James J. and Orsi, Richard
(eds.) (1999), pp. 36–39.
96. "Amador City, California – Historic
Gold Mining Town. [full text] [book links]" .
readme-ebooks.org, The Pierian Press, 8
August 1999. Online. Internet. May 18,
1743. Retrieved September 6, 2010.
97. Rawls, James J. and Orsi, Richard
(eds.) (1999), pp. 39–43.
98. Charles N. Alpers; Michael P.
Hunerlach; Jason T. May; Roger L.
Hothem. "Mercury Contamination from
Historical Gold Mining in California" . U.S.
Geological Survey. Retrieved February 26,
2008.
99. Hausel, Dan. "California – Gold,
Geology & Prospecting" . Retrieved
February 19, 2013.
100. Karen Clay and Randall Jones,
"Migrating to Riches? Evidence from the
California Gold Rush," Journal of Economic
History, December 2008, Vol. 68 Issue 4,
pp 997–1027
101. Rohrbough, Malcolm J. (1998). Days
of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the
American Nation. Berkeley and Los
Angeles: University of California Press.
ISBN 0-520-21659-8.
102. Holliday, J. S. (1999) pp. 69–70.
103. Holliday, J. S. (1999), p. 63.
104. Zerbe, R. O., & Anderson, C. L. (2001).
Culture and fairness in the development of
institutions in the California gold fields.
The Journal of Economic History, 61(01),
114–143
105. Sears, Clare (2014). Arresting Dress:
Cross-Dressing, Law, and Fascination in
Nineteenth-Century San Francisco. Duke
University Press Books. p. 68. “In 1852 the
California state legislature targeted
Chinese residents for a "foreign miners"
tax[...]”
106. Clay and Jones, "Migrating to Riches?
Evidence from the California Gold Rush,"
Journal of Economic History, 2008.
107. Levi's jeans were not invented until
the 1870s. Lynn Downey, Levi Strauss &
Co. (2007)
108. James Lick made a fortune running a
hotel and engaging in land speculation in
San Francisco. Lick's fortune was used to
build Lick Observatory.
109. Four particularly successful Gold
Rush era merchants were Leland Stanford,
Collis P. Huntington, Mark Hopkins and
Charles Crocker, Sacramento area
businessmen (later known as the Big
Four) who financed the western leg of the
First Transcontinental Railroad, and
became very wealthy as a result.
110. Susan Lee Johnson, Roaring Camp:
The social world of the California Gold
Rush. (2000), pp. 164–168.
111. Rawls, James J. and Orsi, Richard
(eds.) (1999), pp. 52–68, 193–197.
112. Rawls, James J. and Orsi, Richard
(eds.) (1999), pp. 212–214.
113. Young, Otis E. (1970). Western
Mining. Norman: University of Oklahoma
Press. p. 109. ISBN 0-8061-1352-9.
114. Rawls, James J. and Orsi, Richard
(eds.) (1999), pp. 256–259.
115. Holliday, J. S. (1999) p. 90.
116. Rawls, James J. and Orsi, Richard
(eds.) (1999), pp. 193–197; 214–215.
117. Rawls, James J. and Orsi, Richard
(eds.) (1999), p. 214.
118. Rawls, James J. and Orsi, Richard
(eds.) (1999), p. 212.
119. Rawls, James J. and Orsi, Richard
(eds.) (1999), pp. 226–227.
120. Starr, Kevin and Orsi, Richard J. (eds.)
(2000), p. 50. Other estimates are that
there were 7,000–13,000 non-Native
Americans in California before January
1848. See Holliday, J. S. (1999), pp. 26, 51.
121. Historians have reflected on the Gold
Rush and its effect on California. Historian
Kevin Starr stated that for all its problems
and benefits, the Gold Rush established
the "founding patterns, the DNA code, of
American California", and quotes from The
Annals of San Francisco in 1855 that the
Gold Rush advanced California into a
"rapid, monstrous maturity". See Starr,
Kevin (2005), p. 80 and Starr, Kevin (1973),
p. 110.
122. Davis, Joseph; Weidenmier, Marc D.
(2017). "America's First Great
Moderation" . The Journal of Economic
History. 77 (4): 1116–1143.
doi:10.1017/S002205071700081X .
ISSN 0022-0507 .
123. Starr, Kevin (2005), pp. 91–93.
124. Rawls, James J. and Orsi, Richard
(eds.) (1999), pp. 243–248. By 1860,
California had over 200 flour mills, and
was exporting wheat and flour around the
world. Ibid. at 278–280.
125. Starr, Kevin (2005), pp. 110–111.
126. Starr, Kevin (1973). Americans and
the California dream: 1850–1915. New
York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.
pp. 69–75.
127. Caughey, 1975, p. 192
128. Population of the 100 Largest Urban
Places: 1870 , U.S. Bureau of the Census
129. Harper's New Monthly Magazine
March 1855, Volume 10, Issue 58, p. 543.
130. S.S. Central America information ;
Final voyage of the S.S. Central America .
Retrieved April 25, 2008.
131. Hill, Mary (1999), pp. 192–196.
132. Another notable ship wreck was the
steamship Winfield Scott, bound to
Panama from San Francisco, which
crashed into Anacapa Island off the
Southern California coast in December
1853. All hands and passengers were
saved, along with the cargo of gold, but
the ship was a total loss.
133. "Focus On the West" .
134. Castillo, Edward D. (1998). "California
Indian History" . Archived from the
original on March 12, 2010. Retrieved
February 26, 2010.
135. "Native History: California Gold Rush
Begins, Devastates Native Population" .
Indian Country Today Media Network.com.
January 24, 2014. Retrieved April 7, 2015.
136. "Native History: California Gold Rush
Begins, Devastates Native Population" .
Indian Country Today Media Network.com.
137. While the Bloody Island Massacre
occurred during this time period, it did not
occur in the Gold Rush era mining
districts.
138. "Trinity County California" .
visittrinity.com. Retrieved April 7, 2015.
139. Madley, Benjamin, An American
Genocide, The United States and the
California Catastrophe, 1846–1873, Yale
University Press, 2016, 692 pages,
ISBN 978-0-300-18136-4, p.11, p.351
140. Thornton 1987, pp. 107–109.
141. "Minorities During the Gold Rush" .
California Secretary of State. Archived
from the original on February 1, 2014.
Retrieved March 23, 2009.
142. Norton, Jack (1979). Genocide in
northwestern California: when our worlds
cried. San Francisco: Indian Historian
Press. ISBN 0-913436-26-7. pp. 70–73
143. "Indians of California – American
Period" . www.cabrillo.edu.
144. Lindsay, Brenden C (2012). "Murder
State: California's Native American
Genocide, 1846–1873." University of
Nebraska Press, Lincoln and London.
p.231
145. Lindsay, Brenden C (2012). "Murder
State: California's Native American
Genocide, 1846–1873." University of
Nebraska Press, Lincoln and London.
p.148
146. Starr, Kevin and Orsi, Richard J. (eds.)
(2000), pp. 56–79.
147. Starr, Kevin (2005), pp. 84–87.
Joaquin Murrieta was a famous Mexican
bandit during the Gold Rush of the
1850s.The Last of the California Rangers
(1928), “16. California Banditti,” by Jill L.
Cossley-Batt
148. (in Spanish) Villalobos, Sergio; Silva,
Osvaldo; Silva, Fernando and Estelle,
Patricio. 1974. Historia De Chile. Editorial
Universitaria, Chile. p 481-485.
149. Rawls, James J. and Orsi, Richard
(eds.) (1999), pp. 285–286.
150. Rawls, James J. and Orsi, Richard
(eds.) (1999), pp. 287–289.
151. Younger, R. M. 'Wondrous Gold' in
Australia and the Australians: A New
Concise History, Rigby, Sydney, 1970
152. Narron, James; Morgan, Don (7 Aug
2015). "Crisis Chronicles–The California
Gold Rush and the Gold Standard" . New
York Fed. Liberty Street Economics. New
York, NY: Federal Reserve Bank of New
York. Retrieved 8 Aug 2015. “The gold
rush constituted a positive monetary
supply shock because the United States
was on the gold standard at the time. The
nation had switched from a bimetallic
(gold and silver) standard to a de facto
gold standard in 1834. Under the latter, the
U.S. government stood ready to buy gold
for $20.67 per ounce, a parity that
prevailed until 1933. That commitment
anchored prices, but the large gold
discovery functioned like a monetary
easing by a central bank, with more gold
chasing the same amount of goods and
services. The increase in spending
ultimately led to higher prices because
nothing real had changed except the
availability of a shiny yellow metal.”
153. Rawls, James J. and Orsi, Richard
(eds.) (1999), pp. 278–279.
154. Historians James Rawls and Walton
Bean have postulated that were it not for
the discovery of gold, Oregon might have
been granted statehood ahead of
California, and therefore the first "Pacific
Railroad might have been built to that
state." See Rawls, James, J., and Walton
Bean (2003), p. 112.
155. Kevin Starr, Americans and the
California Dream, 1850–1915 (1986)
156. Brands, H. W. (2003), p. 442.
157. A perception of lawlessness also
was connected with California. See,
Robert A. Burchell, "The Loss of a
Reputation; or, The Image of California in
Britain before 1875," California Historical
Quarterly 53 (Summer I974): 115-30
(stories about Gold Rush lawlessness
deterred some immigration for two
decades).
158. "[A]griculture dominated the post-
Gold Rush sequence of development,
employing more people than mining by
1869 ... and surpassing mining in 1879 as
the leading element of the California
economy." Starr, Kevin (2005), p. 110.
159. See, e.g., Signal Hill, California,
Bakersfield, California; Los Angeles,
California
160. 20th Century-Fox, MGM, Paramount,
RKO, Warner Bros., Universal Pictures,
Columbia Pictures, and United Artists are
among the most recognized
entertainment industry names centered in
California; see also Film studio
161. Hughes Aircraft, Douglas Aircraft,
North American Aviation, Northrop,
Lockheed Aircraft were among the
complex of companies in the aerospace
industry which flourished in California
during and after World War II
162. Gaither, Chris; Chmielewski, Dawn C
(October 10, 2006). "Google Bets Big on
Videos" . Los Angeles Times. Archived
from the original on October 10, 2006.
Retrieved October 10, 2006.
163. Gold Rush images on the state seal
include a forty-niner digging with a pick
and shovel, a pan for panning gold, and a
"long-tom." In addition, the ships on the
water suggest the sailing ships filling the
Sacramento River and San Francisco Bay
during the Gold Rush era.
164. "Economic Development History of
State Route 99 in California" . Federal
Highway Administration. Retrieved
September 7, 2012. “In the 1960s, green
and white CA-99 signs that resemble
miners' spades replaced the black and
white U.S. 99 shields”
165. Papoulias, Alexander (January 4,
2008). "Car Sales Curbed Along El
Camino" . Palo Alto Weekly. Office of
California State Senator Leland Yee.
Archived from the original on October 19,
2012. Retrieved September 7, 2012. “State
routes can be identified by the green State
Highway Route shield, which is in the
shape of a spade in honor of the California
Gold Rush, and bears the route's number”
166. "Your guide to the Mother Lode:
Complete map of historic Hwy 49" .
historichwy49.com. Retrieved
December 30, 2008.
167. Watson (2005) looks at Bret Harte's
notion of Western partnership in such
California gold rush stories as "The Luck
of Roaring Camp' (1868), "Tennessee's
Partner" (1869), and "Miggles" (1869).
While critics have long recognized Harte's
interest in gender constructs, Harte's
depictions of Western partnerships also
explore changing dynamics of economic
relationships and gendered relationships
through terms of contract, mutual support,
and the bonds of labor. Matthew A.
Watson, "The Argonauts of '49: Class,
Gender, and Partnership in Bret Harte's
West." Western American Literature 2005
40(1): 33–53.
References
Bancroft, Hubert Howe (1888). History of
California: 1848–1859 . History
Company.
Brands, H. W. (2003). The age of gold: the
California Gold Rush and the new
American dream. New York: Anchor
Books. ISBN 978-0-385-72088-5.
Clappe, Louise Amelia Knapp Smith
(2001) [1922]. The Shirley Letters from
the California Mines, 1851–1852 .
Heyday Books, Berkeley, California.
p. 109. ISBN 1-890771-00-7.
Clay, Karen; Gavin Wright (April 2005).
"Order Without Law? Property Rights
During the California Gold Rush" (PDF).
Explorations in Economic History. 42
(2): 155–183.
doi:10.1016/j.eeh.2004.05.003 .
Dillon, Richard (1975). Siskiyou Trail: the
Hudson's Bay Company route to
California. New York: McGraw Hill.
ISBN 0-07-016980-2.
Gaither, Chris; Chmielewski, Dawn C.
(October 10, 2006). "Google Bets Big
on Videos" (PDF). Los Angeles Times.
Archived from the original (PDF) on
June 16, 2007. Retrieved October 10,
2006.
Harper's New Monthly Magazine March
1855, volume 10, issue 58, p. 543,
complete text online .
Heizer, Robert F. (1974). The destruction
of California Indians. Lincoln and
London: University of Nebraska Press.
ISBN 0-8032-7262-6.
Hill, Mary (1999). Gold: the California
story. Berkeley and Los Angeles:
University of California Press. ISBN 0-
520-21547-8.
Holliday, J. S. (1999). Rush for riches:
Gold fever and the making of California.
Oakland, California, Berkeley and Los
Angeles: Oakland Museum of
California and University of California
Press. ISBN 0-520-21401-3.
Johnson, Susan Lee (2001). Roaring
Camp: the social world of the California
Gold Rush. New York: W. W. Norton &
Company. ISBN 0-393-32099-5.
Levy, JoAnn (1992) [1990]. They saw the
elephant: women in the California Gold
Rush. Norman: University of Oklahoma
Press. ISBN 0-8061-2473-3.
Miller, Joaquin (1873). Life amongst the
Modocs: unwritten history. Berkeley:
Heyday Books; reprint edition (January
1996). ISBN 0-930588-79-7.
Moynihan, Ruth B.; Armitage, Susan;
Dichamp, Christiane Fischer, eds.
(1990). So much to be done: Women
settlers on the mining and ranching
frontier, 2d ed. (Women in the West).
 Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
ISBN 0-8032-8248-6.
Rawls, James, J.; Bean, Walton (2003).
California: An interpretive history. New
York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-07-255255-
7.
Rawls, James, J. and Richard J. Orsi
(eds.) (1999). A golden state: mining
and economic development in Gold
Rush California. California History
Sesquicentennial, 2. Berkeley and Los
Angeles: University of California Press.
ISBN 0-520-21771-3.
Starr, Kevin (1973). Americans and the
California dream: 1850–1915. New
York and Oxford: Oxford University
Press. ISBN 0-19-504233-6.
Starr, Kevin (2005). California: a history.
New York: Modern Library. ISBN 0-679-
64240-4.
Starr, Kevin and Richard J. Orsi (eds.)
(2000). Rooted in barbarous soil:
people, culture, and community in Gold
Rush California. Berkeley and Los
Angeles: University of California Press.
ISBN 0-520-22496-5.
Thornton, Russel (1987). American Indian
Holocaust and Survival: A Population
History Since 1492. Norman : University
of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 978-0-8061-
2074-4.
Wells, Harry L. (1971) [1881]. History of
Siskiyou County, California. Siskiyou
 Historical Society. OCLC 6150902 .
ASIN B0006YP8IE,.

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 .
Burns, John F. and Richard J. Orsi
(eds.) (2003). Taming the Elephant:
Politics, Government, and Law in
Pioneer California . Berkeley and Los
Angeles: University of California Press.
ISBN 0-520-23413-8. Retrieved
February 14, 2007.
Drager, K.; C. Fracchia (1997). The
Golden Dream: California from Gold
Rush to Statehood. Portland, Oregon:
Graphic Arts Center Publishing
Company. ISBN 1-55868-312-7.
Dwyer, Richard A.; Richard E.
Lingenfelter; David Cohen (1964). The
Songs of the Gold Rush. Berkeley and
Los Angeles: University of California
Press.
Eifler, Mark A. (2002). Gold Rush
Capitalists: Greed and Growth in
Sacramento. Albuquerque: University
of New Mexico Press. ISBN 0-8263-
2822-9.
Hart, Eugene (2003). A Guide to the
California Gold Rush. Merced:
Freewheel Publications. ISBN 0-
9634197-2-2.
Helper, Hinton Rowan (1855). The Land
of Gold: Reality Versus Fiction .
Baltimore: H. Taylor.
Holliday, J. S.; William Swain (2002)
[1981]. The World Rushed in: The
California Gold Rush Experience.
Norman: University of Oklahoma
Press. ISBN 0-8061-3464-X.
Hurtado, Albert L. (2006). John Sutter:
A Life on the North American Frontier.
Norman: University of Oklahoma
Press. ISBN 0-8061-3772-X.
Klare, Normand E. (2005). The Final
Voyage of the SS Central America 1857.
Ashland, Oregon: Klare Taylor
Publishers. ISBN 0-9764403-0-X.
Knorr, Lawrence (2008). A Pennsylvania
Mennonite and the California Gold
Rush. Camp Hill: Sunbury Press.
ISBN 0-9760925-8-1.
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
Owens, Kenneth N. (ed.) (2002). Riches
for All: The California Gold Rush and the
World. Lincoln: University of Nebraska
Press. ISBN 0-8032-8617-1.
"Haun Collection Archive" .
Roberts, Brian (2000). American
Alchemy: The California Gold Rush and
Middle-class Culture. Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press.
ISBN 0-8078-4856-5.
Rohrbough, Malcolm J. (1998). Days of
Gold: The California Gold Rush and the
American Nation. Berkeley and Los
Angeles: University of California Press.
ISBN 0-520-21659-8. 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 0-8173-1117-3.

External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related
to California Gold Rush.

California Gold Rush at Curlie (based

on DMOZ)
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

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