The California Gold Rush began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter’s Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California from the rest of the United States and abroad. The Gold Rush had severe effects on Native Californians and accelerated the Native American population’s decline from disease, starvation and the California Genocide.
About California Gold Rush in brief
The California Gold Rush began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter’s Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California from the rest of the United States and abroad. The Gold Rush had severe effects on Native Californians and accelerated the Native American population’s decline from disease, starvation and the California Genocide. At its peak, technological advances reached a point where significant financing was required, increasing the proportion of gold companies to individual miners. Gold worth tens of billions of today’s US dollars was recovered, which led to great wealth for a few, though many who participated in the California Goldrush earned little more than they had started with. 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’ The Gold rush attracted thousands from Latin America, Europe, Australia, and China, and agriculture and ranching expanded throughout the state to meet the needs of the settlers. In September 1850, California became a state. 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. By 1869, railroads were built from California to the eastern United States. The first major newspaper to report on the discovery of gold on the East Coast was the New York Herald in August 1848. On December 5, US President James K.
Polk confirmed the discovery in an address to Congress. As a result of the gold rush, individuals seeking to benefit from the rush moved to the Gold Country of California or ‘Mother Lode from other countries and other parts of the U.S. Other countries and countries from which gold was recovered also moved to California. In the early 19th century, gold was discovered in the Pacific Northwest, the Pacific Coast, the South Pacific, the Caribbean and the South American Islands. The discovery was made by James Marshall, a foreman working for Sacramento pioneer John Sutter, at a mill he was building for Sutter on the American River. Marshall brought what he found to 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. Rumors of gold were confirmed in March 1848 by San Francisco newspaper publisher and merchant Samuel Brannan. On August 19, 18 48, the first major paper to report the gold discovery, the NY Herald, confirmed that the discovery had been made by Marshall. The gold rush began in San Francisco, and by 1852, San Francisco grew from a small settlement of about 200 residents in 1846 to a boomtown of about 36,000 by1852. About half arrived by sea and half came overland on the California Trail and the Gila River trail; forty-niner often faced substantial hardships on the trip.
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This page is based on the article California Gold Rush published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 03, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
