Calif Gold Rush: Environment & Culture in the US

In the year 1849 California found themselves having an unforeseen population growth. This was a result of an event that is now known as the California gold rush. Many people from different countries came to California because at the time, “California holds in its bosom resources that no other country can boast of comprised in so small a territory—its mineral wealth, its agricultural capacity, its geographical position, conspire to make it in time one of the most favored lands." In 1848 a man by the name of James W.

Marshall was put to the task of building a sawmill for Captain John Sutter in Coloma California. While at work he accidentally came across “some small yellow substances" in the American River.

After further observation of these small substances he found them to be metal and heavy too. He noted that there was an abundance of these nuggets so he collected a large number of additional pieces. Marshall was so delighted about the Gold that before he rushed over to Hock Farm he impulsively told his companion about his findings.

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He arrived at Hock farm by horseback, this was where Marshall's employer Captain Sutter was. Marshall demanded that there be no one in the room with him when he told Sutter about his discovery. He expounded to him what he saw at the bottom of the river. The farm was approximately seventy miles away, By the time that he got to Hock Farm, the secret had transpired, and already some hundred men had collected on the spot, every one of whom rapidly acquiring gold.

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” As more people learned of this more people came on the search of gold thus triggering the California Gold Rush (1848-1852).

The California gold Rush was one of the most important events to our Nations expansion. This gold rush caused America to be populated from the east coast all the way to the west coast. This embodied the idea of Manifest Destiny. Manifest Destiny is the term coined by John L. O'Sullivan which referred to the drive to expand out west. ".... the right of our manifest destiny to over spread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federative development of self government entrusted to us. It is right such as that of the tree to the space of air and the earth suitable for the full expansion of its principle and destiny of growth.”

He believed that the United States was "destined” to expand and become a great nation full of opportunities. The process to extract the gold was first just panning for it. Which involved using a dish and scraping the bottom of the river then letting the water run through and what remained in the dish would be gold. But as more people tried to search for gold is was harder to find so processes like “hydraulics were put into effect. Hydraulics is the process that uses extremely high-pressure jets of water to free rock material and take away all of the sediment leaving only the gold behind."

An American settle by the name of Samuel Brannan grew rich from the stores that he set up in Sutter's Fort in Coloma. It was very close to Sutter's Mill. He sold necessary items for acquiring gold such as a panning dish, picks axes, sifters, as well as packing supplies. Brannan was the first millionaire to get rich off of the gold rush. To Brannan increase his profit he went back to San Francisco and brought a jar full of goal with him and yelled, "Gold, gold from the American River.” That caused almost half the men to get up and leave for Sutter's Mill. The population of California was largely increasing and fast. California had become independent of Mexico after the Mexican-American War in 1948.

A great percentage of the population was made up of Mexicans that spoke Spanish but after the gold rush the number of American Citizens outnumbered the amount of Mexican people there were. 90,000 Men were lured to California in 1849. These men were named the “forty-niners” because of the year they had arrived. The word spread even more when newspapers published stories about the detection of gold. “Some of the miners [were] making as much as fifty to sixty dollars per day" And at the time the average salary for a worker was anywhere from one to sixteen dollars a day. The Gold rush was not only a migration of people from east to west but it was an international effort. It made America more of a melting pot where many cultures would come together. Naturally because they all came to America with the same goal: everyone wanted to strike it rich. The gold rush of California had many effects to our nation.

There were negative aspects as well as positive aspects of the California gold rush. Many of the miners were getting into fights and brawls over who can mine where and there were many injuring from that. People were extremely eager to get their hands on gold. Newspapers such as The California Star, and the Californian published stories like “The whole country from San Francisco to Los Angeles... resounds to the sordid cry of gold, gold, GOLD.” Cities in Sacramento were abandoned because so many people wanted to be closer to the goldmines stores often closed and went out of business. Although it did bring riches to many families it tore apart many families as well.

Generally men were leaving their families and moving out west to Sacramento California, most of the time they would leave their wives behind. Later on the women were persuaded to come and be with their husbands in California. Women played a big role in having a prosperous society, “Women, to society, is like a cement to the building of stone" going on it says, "bring women here, and at once the process of crystallization... will set into the society” as women came along the men saw it fit to start families out west because the ones that found gold had the means economically to support a family. Not all miners were successful in finding gold but instead of them heading back home to where they came from they decided that they liked California.

So they sent for their families to come to them. They noticed that instead of finding wealth in the mines they could find wealth from farms now.' Other miners didn't give up in obtaining gold; they began to invent different ways to finding gold. A lot of the methods they used were very damaging to the land. Some of the water supplies ended up being poisoned with mercury or arsenic. Some people ended up dying from disease starvation or even abuse. The Gold Rush is an unforgettable event. It has shaped the United States of American. It was changed environmentally with the different mining strategies. Also culturally the United States was transformed because there were so many different cultures and different races that came to the United States of American the search for gold. The population in the western states also grew a great deal.

Bibliography

  1. Wierzbicki, Felix Paul, and George D. Lyman. California as It Is & as It May Be, Or, A Guide to the Gold Region. Vol. 1. San Francisco: Grabhorn Press, 1849. 60.https://books.google.com/books? hl=en&lr=&id=OILOAAAACAAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=gold+rush+in+california&ots=ZXP suEfpXj&sig=LBwiAnb5vaHGOPURE4y6KskaaWU#v=onepage&q=immi&f=false
  2. Huntley, H. V. California Its Gold and Its Inhabitants. Vol. 1-2. London: T.C. Newby, 1856. https://books.google.com/books? hl=en&lr=&id=kHOUAAAAYAAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=gold+rush+in+calirnia&ots=oVIZ Tm1t96&sig=X7wvny SWZQKJYKNCKMHckmGrl8#v=onepage&q=marshall&f=false
  3. Sullivan, John. "Manifest Destiny, 1839." The Great Nation of Futurity, The United States Democratic Review 6, no. 23 (2003). https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/osulliva.htm
  4. Holliday, J. S., and William Swain. The World Rushed In: The California Gold Rush Experience. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1981. https://books.google.com/books? hl=en&lr=&id=sMVgBwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA25&dq=california+gold+rus h&ots=gAfkh YUQBN&sig=7snogcAhueexiORbYsdqgPc_eNo#v=onepage&q= california%20gold%20rush&f=false
  5. Turrill, Charles B. "California Gold Mining Terms and Procedures - 1876." California Gold Mining Terms and Procedures - 1876. 1876.
Updated: May 03, 2023
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Calif Gold Rush: Environment & Culture in the US. (2021, Dec 09). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/the-environmental-and-cultural-effects-of-the-california-gold-rush-on-the-united-states-essay

Calif Gold Rush: Environment & Culture in the US essay
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