 |
R. D. Stoney
(attributed to), Gold Mining in the
Mother Lode, c. 19th century
California Historical Society
|
On January 24, 1848, James Marshall was inspecting a recently
built saw mill at Coloma on the south fork of the American River when he caught
a glimpse of something shining at the bottom of a ditch. Picking it up, he
recalled, “It made my heart thump, for I was certain it was gold.”
So began one of the great adventures of the American West.
As word spread of Marshall’s discovery, millions of people from all over the
world arduously made their way to northern California—by ship, overland trail,
and through the jungles of Panama. In two years, the population of California
skyrocketed, from about 10,000 to more than 200,000 people.
In the years that followed fortunes were made, lost,
or never realized. But California—and the West—would never be the same.
 |
Sutter’s Mill, c. 1849–50
California
Historical Society
|
 |
Capt.
Sutter’s Account of the First Discovery of the Gold, 1854
California
Historical Society
On
October 9, 1849, the San Francisco
Pacific News published Sutter’s account of the visit Marshall made to Sutter’s
Fort just after he found gold. Sutter recalled, “He mounted his horse,
and rode down to me as fast as it could carry him with the news.” This letter sheet, lithographed and published by
Britton & Rey, San Francisco, reproduces Sutter’s text,
along with a portrait of Marshall “taken from nature at the time when he made
the discovery of gold in California,” and an illustration of the sawmill.
|
 |
“Gold
Mine Found,” Californian, March 15,
1848
California
Digital Newspaper Collection
At first Marshall and Sutter tried to
keep Marshall’s find a secret, but the news could not be contained. On March 15,
1848—in the first printed notice of the discovery of gold—the Californian reported that gold was being
found “in considerable quantities.” On May 29 the Californian reported that “The whole country . . . resounds with
the sordid cry of ‘Gold, gold, gold!’ while the field is left half-planted, the
house half built, and everything neglected but the manufacture of shovels and
pickaxes.” It was the paper’s last editorial: the entire staff had departed for
the gold fields.
|
 |
Position of the Upper and Lower Gold Mines
on the South Fork of the American River, 1848
California Historical Society
This map was included in reports and artifacts from the
gold mines sent by Richard B. Mason, military governor of California from 1847
to 1849, to President James Polk. Mason’s report was published as part of the
president’s State of the Union address on December 5, 1848. Polk’s confirmation
of the existence of gold in California in his address to Congress elevated gold
fever to national and international status. By the end of 1848, an estimated 5,000 people were mining in California.
|
 |
Group
of Miners, c. 1850s
California
Historical Society
In 1849,
as reported in The Annals of California
(1855), nearly 40,000 immigrants landed in San Francisco, lured by the prospect
of fortune. They arrived by overland trail or by ship around Cape Horn, by way
of Panama, and from China and Japan. Additional thousands of seamen deserted
their ships once they docked in the bay.
|
 |
A
Gold Hunter on His Way to California, via St. Louis, c. 1850
California
Historical Society
This
satirical drawing shows a prospector walking to the gold mines, weighed down
with everything he needs for gold digging., “I am sorry I did not follow the
advice of Granny and go around the Horn, through the Straights, or by Chagres
[Panama],” he bemoans.
|
 |
Chinese Gold Miners in California, date unknown
California Historical
Society
Beginning in 1849 thousands of foreign gold
seekers—Asians, Mexicans, South Americans, African Americans, Europeans,
Australians, and more—poured into California, joining Americans, Californios,
and natives in the search for gold. But gold digging was not an equal
opportunity endeavor: discrimination in the form of unfair laws and taxes made
it virtually impossible for Chinese, Mexican, and other foreign miners to own
or work gold claims. Many African American slaves from the South who had
entered California before it became a slave-free state in 1850 were sent to the
mines to dig for gold. Natives panned for gold alongside whites, but many were
exploited and used like slaves.
|
 |
Charles
Drayton Gibbes (Cartographer), A New Map
of
the Gold Region in California, 1851
Library of Congress
This map of California’s gold region by Charles
Drayton Gibbes was one of the first maps to identify the boundaries of the
state’s counties. In his sixteen-page accompaniment, Gibbes included a
description and brief history of the state, its climate, soil, crops, and
waterways, information on the mines, and advice for equipment. In his estimation,
at least $100 million dollars had been dug from California’s gold region since gold
was discovered.
|
 |
View of San Francisco, Formerly
Yerba Buena, in 1846-47
before the Discovery of Gold
(detail), 1884
Library of Congress
|
 |
Yerba Buena Cove, 1849–50
Frank Soulé, John H. Gihon, James Nisbet, The Annals of San Francisco, 1855
|
 |
The
City of San Francisco. Birds Eye View from the Bay Looking South-west, c. 1878
Charles
R. Parsons / Currier & Ives; Library of Congress
Change was in the air, and nothing would
stop it. San Francisco grew from a small town of about 1,000 to 25,000 people
in three years. In 1849 the city’s port was teeming with abandoned boats as
their crews and passengers headed for the gold fields. By the end of that year,
San Francisco’s harbormaster recorded that 782 ships had arrived since March 26
alone. To accommodate the city’s rapid growth, the abandoned ships were
dismantled and their lumber was sold for construction.
|
California is not an enchanted
land, where gold can be had for the wishing, and where men can grow rich
without toil, or while wasting their energies in idleness and vice. To the
prudent, industrious, and enterprising, it offers every reasonable facility,
not only for obtaining a livelihood, but ultimately a competence. . . . [T]he
general condition of society may be expected to assume gradually a higher
character, and compare favorably in refinement and cultivation with that of
other and older States of our great Republic.
It is these
expectations, and more, with which we embrace our state’s future in our own
transformative era.
Shelly Kale
Publications and Strategic Projects
Manager
Sources
- Diane Barclay, The California Gold Rush, History through the Collection Series, Part 1 (San Francisco: California Historical Society, 2001)
- William Deverell and David Igler, eds., A Companion to California History (Oxford, UK: John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 2014)
- “Discovery of Gold,” American Memory, Library of Congress, https://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cbhtml/cbgold.html
- Charles Drayton Gibbes, Accompaniment to Gibbes’ New Map of the Gold Region in California (Stockton, CA: J. Drayton Gibbes / New York: Sherman & Smith, 1851)
- Gold Rush Timeline, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/goldrush/timeline/
- J. S. Holliday, Rush for Riches: Gold Fever and the Making of California (Berkeley: Oakland Museum of California/University of California Press, 1999)
- Kenneth Owens, “Far from Zion: The Frayed Ties between California’s Gold Rush Saints and LDS
- President Brigham Young,” California History 89, no. 4 (2012): 5–23
- Frank Soulé, John H. Gihon, James Nisbet, The Annals of San Francisco (New York: D. Appleton & Company, 1855), https://archive.org/details/annalsofsanfranc00soul
- Lewis J. Swindle, The History of the Gold Discoveries of the Northern Mines of California’s Mother Lode Gold Belt as Told by the Newspapers and Miners, 1848–1875 (Victoria, B.C.: Trafford Publishing, 2000)
- Charles B. Turrell, “An Early California Photographer: C. E. Watkins,” News Notes of California Libraries 2, no. 1 (Jan. 1918): 29–37.
No comments:
Post a Comment