The California gold rush was the mass movement of men and women to California in response to the discovery of gold by James W. Marshall, a carpenter, who found nuggets at John Sutter’s mill on January 24, 1848. Although Marshall and his employer Sutter tried to keep the news quiet, rumors spread quickly. First arrivals came from along the West Coast, from Sonora and Oregon, and from the Hawaiian Islands. The news then spread to the eastern states, from Maine to Mississippi, Wisconsin to Florida, and finally around the world. In response to the news of gold that was available to everyone, Americans initially set forth by sea as early as the winter of 1848-49, some on voyages of 8-10 months around Cape Horn; others took a shorter route to Panama, where they crossed the isthmus and then sought a ship to take them up the coast to San Francisco. Overland emigration began in the spring of 1849 from Independence and St. Joseph, by way of the California Trail. The appeal of gold in California turned out to be universal. Those who would become known as the Forty-niners came from farms, small towns, and large cities, with representatives of every class, from the wealthy to those in average circumstances and from every state and territory, including slaves brought by their owners to the goldfields.
The prospect of the wealth opened by news of the dazzling discoveries at Sutter’s mill offered young people escape from what they thought of as the limited horizons of the village, the farm, or the shop, and the daily demand of labor associated with these places. It was not the young alone, however, who were spurred into action. Men of all ages and conditions made plans to go to California, and a surprising number of women wished to join them.
The response to the California gold discoveries was the greatest westward migration in the history of the nation. Some 80,000 went to California in 1849 and probably 300,000 by 1854. It was an immigration that was made by land across half a continent and by sea over thousands of miles of ocean to new and heretofore unimagined adventure and wealth. In the end, the California gold rush drew people from all over the world, including peasants from China and lawyers from Paris, miners from Wales and merchants from Chile. California would become in a few short years the most cosmopolitan place in the world, and San Francisco the most cosmopolitan city.
Astonishing as it might seem (and did to the Americans at the time) in a world of rumor and exaggeration, the stories of riches in California were true. The Golden State—it would join in Union in 1850—produced a seemingly endless flood of gold. While agricultural laborers in the East earned a dollar a day for 12 hours of work in the fields, and artisans and craftsmen received perhaps a dollar and a half for the same hours, men who were recently farmers and mechanics made $16 and even $20 a day washing gravel in the streambeds of California’s foothills. In the six years from 1849 to 1855, the argonauts (as they were sometimes called) harvested some $300 million in gold from California.
The other astonishing feature of the California gold rush was that gold was available to everyone. This greatest bonanza in the history of the young republic and newly crowned continental nation was open to all, regardless of wealth, social standing, education, or family name. No experience was necessary, mining skills could be learned in 15 minutes, and the only tools necessary were a pick, pan, and a shovel, at least in the early years.
Those who went to California overland in 1849 and subsequent years often did so with their friends and neighbors, joining together in what they called a company. This was a group of people who shared the duties of work on the trail and looked after one another—in other words, a support network. As the young and inexperienced argonauts confronted an unknown adventure involving great distances and a strange and alien landscape, such a network was both welcome and necessary.
Gold mining in California (Hulton/Archive)
The first companies went by ship or by wagon overland from St. Joseph or Independence, Missouri, to Placerville (or Hangtown, as the argonauts affectionately referred to it). By 1852, the newest victims of gold mania—and it seemed to produce annual outbreaks in different parts of the nation—were traveling by railroad to steamships and then by sea to the golden shores of California in a fraction of the time taken by their predecessors in the first great overland emigration only three years earlier.
Once arrived in California, whether by land or by sea, the Forty-niners reassembled once more in groups for living and working. They called these groups mining companies or messes, after the domestic duties that were as much a part of their lives as the work in the rushing streams of the mountains. It was one of the unexpected characteristics of the California gold rush that mining, viewed as a lonely and selfish enterprise, was in reality an intensely cooperative experience.
With his new companions, the average Forty-niner established a new set of economic and social bonds. As early as the summer and fall of 1848, the first observers in the goldfields commented on the advantage of working in groups of at least three or four. These divisions for mining, with its unending hard physical labor, long hours, and collective work, also helped to develop the new living arrangements. For the argonauts, it was cheaper and more practical to live in groups. As few as three men, but often from six to eight, would occupy a large tent or cabin, where they would take turns cooking, cleaning, and making trips to town for food and mail.
The mining company as a unit of work and living offered support in case of sickness and even death. The Forty-niner’s companions would sit up with an ill miner, fetch the doctor, and arrange the burial. They would settle the estate, and they would write to the dead man’s family and carry out his last wishes.
The work of mining was arduous, repetitive, and took place under difficult physical conditions. Gold mining in California at mid-century—called placer mining—was among the most onerous work performed by free labor anywhere. Working a claim was a continuous round of digging, shoveling, carrying, and washing that continued unabated and with little variation throughout the day from sunrise to sunset. For many members of the company or mess, the work was carried out in swift, ice-cold, moving water up to their knees. Overhead was the burning summer California sun that shone into the canyons and watercourses. The summer months were crucial for digging and washing, for
The dry season meant a drop in the water level, exposing the bars and riffles with the richest dirt. So hot were the days that even during the best mining season, the company often rested during the heat of the day. Placer mining was repetitive and exhausting.
When the miners had finished a day’s work, they returned to the cabin and a round of chores. The domestic duties associated with the goldfields were as necessary and repetitive as the search for gold itself. They included cooking, serving, and fetching firewood and water, all rotated on a weekly basis. For those who preferred to live alone, there were boardinghouses, complete with meals. Miners also washed and mended their clothes. Although cleanliness does not seem to have been a high priority, mending had a certain practical aspect, saving the cost of expensive new clothing.
The domestic dimension of the gold rush reflected the powerful influence of women, who dominated aspects of life in California by their absence rather than their presence. With the mining counties 97% male, the gold rush was also a continuing search for a scarce and valuable commodity—women, who turned out to be, for some years, even rarer than gold. The Forty-niners came from a world in which they had taken the presence of women for granted, but in California the argonauts confronted for the first time the prospect of a society without women, and they struggled to make the adjustment.
The growth of numbers in the goldfields was explosive. At the end of 1848, observers estimated there were 5,000 miners in California; 50,000 at the end of 1849; 100,000 at the close of 1850 and 125,000 miners in subsequent years. These numbers produced great returns, although unevenly spread across the range of mining and miners. Such astonishing numbers of miners generated new markets for goods and services. Every crossroads and mining camp of any size had a store, and towns had three or four or more. Miners took Sunday as a day off and went into town, so the entertainment business flourished, especially gambling. San Francisco became a thriving port of entry for people and goods, and the volume of commerce demanded a growing transportation network of wagons, animals, and facilities to care for them. Saloons, eateries, and boardinghouses sprang up everywhere in the goldfields, and they flourished.
The annual immigrations of new argonauts continued throughout the 1850s. As new Forty-niners arrived, others went home. The patterns of movement to and from the goldfields were continuous. Mining gradually changed, becoming less and less the work of individuals or even mining companies. First, large groups of miners joined together to build a dam to divert the flow of a stream, with a view to mining the streambed. This technique, known as river mining, demanded large numbers of miners and a substantial capital investment for a major construction project. River mining was soon followed by quartz mining, digging shafts into the sides of hills to follow seams of gold; and then hydraulic mining, in which a powerful stream of water would be used to wash away a hillside and produce gravels that could be processed for gold. All these techniques needed capital investment, and mining entrepreneurs soon began to sell stock in such ventures to the public.
From the first primitive venture, mining changed the landscape, and with larger numbers and larger-scale techniques, the changes created devastation. Beyond the physical reconfiguration of the streams and rivers of central California were the endless signs of indifferent human habitation. Old camps and mining sites marked the passage of tens of thousands and eventually hundreds of thousands through the California landscape. The common quality that bound all these individuals over a generation was that they had come to get rich, and since they intended to stay the briefest possible time, they were not interested in the devastation wreaked on the countryside. Most miners were not purposefully destructive; they were simply intent on wealth.
The California gold rush also had a catastrophic impact on the Indian peoples of California. Driven from the meadows and streams that had provided their places of habitation for centuries, they retreated to the isolation of the high mountains. But no matter how remote the location, prospecting parties of miners would invade their habitats. As their economic condition worsened, the Indians raided mining camps in search of food. Their incursions were met with organized violence by large numbers. Miners and others reacted with a rage born of uneasiness and racial superiority. They organized expeditions into the distant Indian sanctuaries, especially in the winter when miners were idle. These expedition were often undertaken as official acts of the state government. The violence, in conjunction with a legalized form of indentured service, reduced the Indian population from 250,000 to 15,000 between 1850 and 1900. This was among the most calamitous outcomes of any Indian group from first contact with Euro-Americans.
By the end of the 1850s, gold production in California had stabilized at about $40 million annually. Agriculture had become increasingly significant for the Golden State, especially the development of wheat and grazing in the Central Valley, while San Francisco had made the transition from mining town to a cosmopolitan city. Yet the influences of the California gold rush were everywhere. The discovery of gold had affected the history of California and its peoples (including Mexican and Indian peoples) in dramatic and sometimes final ways.
Further reading: H. W. Brands, The Age of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the New American Dream (New York: Doubleday, 2002); Rodman W. Paul, California Gold: The Beginning of Mining in the Far West (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1965); Malcolm J. Rohr-bough, Days of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the American Nation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997).
World History
