On January 24, 1848, a carpenter named James Marshall (1810–1885)
was working on a sawmill on the American River in northern California
when he saw a gleam of gold in the river. After his discovery, rumors of
gold began to circulate around the country. Later that year, President
James K. Polk (1795–1849; served 1845–49) notified Congress of the
discovery of gold in California, and gold fever broke out in the nation.
Driven by dreams of wealth, thousands made the long journey to
California, joining in the greatest mass migration in American history. In
the following years, a fortune in gold was mined, and the West Coast was
transformed.
Getting there
Once they had decided to go west, many Americans living on the eastern seacoast traveled to California by sea. Within a month following the
president’s message to Congress, sixty-one ships left the Atlantic seaports
for the six-month voyage around Cape Horn at the southern tip of South
America, arriving at their California destination in the summer of 1849.
Other easterners tried to take a shortcut by taking a steamship to Panama
and then crossing the Isthmus of Panama, the narrow strip of land that
lies between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean, linking Central
and South America. They then boarded another ship on the Pacific side
of Panama, bound for California. This was a rough route with a great
risk of infectious disease, but it became overcrowded with gold seekers
nonetheless.
The largest number of gold seekers went to California over land. The
most popular route was the Oregon Trail. With so much traffic along
the trails, however, the grass supply needed for animals was soon exhausted, and water holes along the trail became infected with disease.
Most immigrants knew nothing about traveling along plains or over
mountains. Guides were scarce, and many guidebooks and newspaper
accounts were misleading. The trails were marked by the graves of those
who had succumbed to infectious diseases such as cholera, dysentery, or
mountain fever.
A new California
At that time, California was a sparsely populated territory that had only
recently been ceded to the United States by Mexico in 1848. The population of the future state hovered at thirteen thousand, about half of
whom were Californios, people of Spanish or Mexican descent. A flood
of about eighty thousand gold seekers arrived in 1849, and the population swelled to three hundred thousand by 1854. The immigrants were
mostly young and male. Because of the vast wealth that could be made,
the gold rush attracted people from all social classes. Both professional
men and unskilled laborers could be found in the gold fields, working
side by side.
California’s sleepy villages and muddy camps grew into cities in
record time. At the beginning of 1849, San Francisco had a population
of eight hundred. By 1850, its population had reached twenty thousand,
and ten years later it was fifty thousand. Other towns, like Marysville,
Sacramento, and Stockton, also expanded, becoming supply centers for
the miners. Hundreds of mining camps sprang up near the diggings with
picturesque names, such as Poker Flat, Hangtown, Red Dog, Hell’s
Delight, and Whiskey Bar, expressing the sentiments of a predominantly
male society. The large influx of people accelerated California’s move to
statehood in 1850.
Getting rich
For those who made it to the mining areas of northern California in the
early days of the gold rush, all that was needed was a pick, pan, and
shovel. Gold was not hard to find. Deposited in streambeds, it could be
harvested simply by poking around with a knife and digging it out with
a spoon. Water could also be used to mine for gold. Flowing through a
tin pan, the water would carry off the lighter particles of dirt and leave
the heavier gold behind. A miner could earn $16 a day by panning an ounce of gold; in comparison, at that time farm hands earned about $1
for a twelve-hour day. People frequently earned the same amount in two
weeks in the gold fields that they would have earned in a full year at
home. From 1849 to 1855, an estimated $300 million worth of gold was
taken from the California gold fields.
The sudden wealth of the miners made prices soar. One miner told
of paying $43 for an ordinary breakfast at a boarding house near the
mines. The cost for the same breakfast before the gold rush was 25 cents.
Fortunately, there was very little for the miners to buy in the makeshift
mining towns. The men wore shabby clothing that was often patched,
lived in tents or lean-tos, and ate drab food. Since at first there were no
banks, miners usually kept their money in their pockets or at their campsite. The early miners had a reputation for honesty and generosity.
The new wealth attracted many people who hoped to profit indirectly. Dentists, doctors, lawyers, builders, road workers, launderers,
cooks, and boardinghouse operators could charge extremely high prices
and make far more money at the time in California than anywhere else
in the country.
Disappointment
The gold rush was not a dream come true for everyone, though. As economic pressures mounted, prejudice against racial and national minorities increased. Anglo-Saxons from New England, the South, the
Missouri frontier, and elsewhere discriminated against Peruvians,
Mexicans, and Chinese. In 1852, the new state of California passed the
Foreign Miner’s Act, which required very high fees of Chinese miners,
making it nearly impossible for them to make a living at the mines.
A few years after the initial strike, the gold that was easy to find had
already been mined. It became more difficult for a miner to realize
dreams of wealth. Large companies began to dominate the gold-mining
industry, and they hired miners for wages. By 1854, miners who could
obtain jobs were averaging only $75 a month. Many miners left in bitter disappointment.
The gold strike greatly enriched the United States and transformed
California from a wild frontier territory to a wealthy, well-populated
state. The new city of San Francisco boasted a thriving arts and letters
scene, with important newspapers in many languages, a host of literary figures, and many painters and other artists. What had once seemed like
the edge of the world was suddenly a vibrant part of the United States.