On
24th January, 1848, James Marshall, discovered gold on land owned
by John Sutter in California. Sutter,
a German immigrant, had successfully
operated a trading post and large ranch at the junction of the American
and Sacramento rivers. News soon spread about the discovery and thousands
of people arrived from all over America in search of gold. Sutter's
men also joined them and he was unable to protect his property. His
sheep and cattle were stolen and his land was occupied by squatters.
In 1849 over 100,000 people had arrived in search of gold. During
the next few years thousands more arrived. The output of gold rose
from $5 million in 1848 to $40 million in 1849 and $55 million in
1851. However, only a minority of miners made much money from the
Californian Gold Rush. It was much more common for people to become
wealthy by providing the miners with over-priced food, supplies and
services. Failed miners often turned to cattle raising and fruit growing.
The people living in the area organized a government and in 1850 California
was admitted as the 31st state of the Union.
(1)
John Sutter,
diary entry (28th January, 1848)
Marshall arrived in the evening, it was
raining very heavy, but he told me he came on important business.
After we was alone in a private room he showed me the first specimens
of gold, that is he was not certain if it was gold or not, but he
thought it might be; immediately I made the proof and found that it
was gold. I told him even that most of all is 23 carat gold. He wished
that I should come up with him immediately, but I told him that I
have to give first my orders to the people in all my factories and
shops.
(2)
The California Star (10th June, 1848)
It is quite unnecessary to remind our readers of the “prospects
of California” at this time, as the effects of this gold washing
enthusiasm, upon the country, through every branch of business are
unmistakably apparent to every one. Suffice it that there is no abatement,
and that active measures will probably be taken to prevent really
serious and alarming consequences.
Every seaport as far south as San Diego, and every interior town,
has become suddenly drained of human beings. Americans, Californians,
Indians and Sandwich Islanders, men, women and children, indiscriminately.
There are at this time over one thousand souls busied in washing gold,
and the yield per diem may be safely estimated at from fifteen to
twenty dollars, each individual. Spades, shovels, picks, wooden bowls,
Indian baskets (for washing), etc., find ready purchase, and are very
frequently disposed of at extortionate prices.
(3)
William Sherman was a young lieutenant
based at Monterey, Alta California, when news reached him about the
discovery of gold in 1848.
I remember one day, in the spring of 1848, that two men, Americans,
came into the office and inquired for the Governor. I asked their
business, and one answered that they had just come down from Captain
Sutter on special business, and they wanted to see Governor Mason
in person. I took them in to the colonel, and left them together.
After some time the colonel came to his door and called to me.
I went in, and my attention was directed to a series of papers unfolded
on his table, in which lay about half an ounce of placer-gold. Mason
said to me, “What is that?” I touched it and examined one
or two of the larger pieces, and asked, “Is it gold?” Mason
asked me if I had ever seen native gold. I answered that, in 1844,
I was in Upper Georgia, and there saw some native gold, but it was
much finer than this, and it was in phials, or in transparent quills;
but I said that, if this were gold, it could be easily tested, first,
by its malleability, and next by acids. I took a piece in my teeth,
and the metallic lustre was perfect. I then called to the clerk, Baden,
to bring an axe and hatchet from the backyard. When these were brought
I took the largest piece and beat it out flat, and beyond doubt it
was metal, and a pure metal. Still, we attached little importance
to the fact, for gold was known to exist at San Fernando, at the south,
and yet was not considered of much value.
As the spring and summer of 1848 advanced, the reports came faster
and faster from the gold-mines at Sutter’s saw-mill. Stories
reached us of fabulous discoveries, and spread throughout the land.
Everybody was talking of “Gold! gold!!” until it assumed
the character of a fever. Some of our soldiers began to desert; citizens
were fitting out trains of wagons and pack-mules to go to the mines.
We heard of men earning fifty, five hundred, and thousands of dollars
per day, and for a time it seemed as though somebody would reach solid
gold. Some of this gold began to come to Yerba Buena in trade, to
disturb the value of merchandise, particularly of mules, horses, tin
pans, and articles used in mining. I of course could not escape the
infection, and at last convinced Colonel Mason that it was our duty
to go up and see with our own eyes, that we might report the truth
to our Government.
(4)
President James
Polk,
speech (5th December, 1848)
It was known that mines of the precious metals existed to a considerable
extent in California at the time of its acquisition. Recent discoveries
render it probable that these mines are more extensive and valuable
than was anticipated. The accounts of the abundance of gold
in that territory are of such an extraordinary character as would
scarcely command
belief, were they not corroborated by the authentic reports
of officers in the public service, who have visited the mineral district,
and derived the facts which they detail from personal observation.
Reluctant to credit the reports in general circulation as to the quantity
of gold, the officer commanding our forces in California visited
the mineral district in July last, for the purpose of obtaining accurate
information on the subject. His report to the War Department
of the result of his examination, and the facts obtained on the spot,
is herewith laid before Congress. When he visited the country, there
were about four thousand persons engaged in collecting gold.
There is every reason
to believe that the number of persons so employed
has since been augmented. The explorations already made warrant
the belief that the supply is very large, and that gold is found in
various places in extensive districts of country.
Information received from
officers of the navy, and other sources, though
not so full and minute, confirm the accounts of the commander
of our military force in California. It appears also, from these reports
that mines of quicksilver are found in the vicinity of the gold region.
One of them is now being worked, and is believed to be among the
most productive in the world.
The effects produced by
the discovery of these rich mineral deposits,
and the success which has attended the labours of those who have
resorted to them, have produced a surprising change in the state
of affairs in California. Labour commands a most exorbitant price,
and all other pursuits but that of searching for the precious metals
are abandoned. Nearly the whole of the male population of the country
have gone to the gold district. Ships arriving on the coast are deserted
by their crews, and their voyages suspended for want of sailors.
Our commanding officer there entertains apprehensions that soldiers
cannot be kept in the public service without a large increase of
pay. Desertions in his command have become frequent, and he recommends
that those who shall withstand the strong temptations, and
remain faithful, should be rewarded.
This abundance of gold,
and the all-engrossing pursuit of it, have already
caused in California an unprecedented rise in the price of the
necessaries of life.
(5)
John
C. Fremont, Geographical Memoir
(1849)
The hill sides were thickly strewn with canvas tents and bush
arbours; a store was erected, and several boarding shanties in operation.
The day was intensely hot, yet about two hundred men were at work
in the full glare of the sun, washing for gold - some with tin pans,
some with close woven Indian baskets, but the greater part had a rude
machine, known as the cradle.
This is on rockers, six
or eight feet long, open at the foot, and at its head has a coarse
grate or sieve; the bottom is rounded, with small elects nailed across.
Four men are required to work this machine; one digs the ground in
the bank close by the stream; another carries it to
the cradle and empties it on the grate; a third gives a violent rocking
motion to the machine; whilst a fourth dashes on water from the stream
itself. The sieve keeps the coarse stones from entering the cradle,
the current of water washes off the earthly matter, and the gravel
is gradually carried out at the foot of the machine, leaving the gold
mixed with a heavy fine black sand above the first cleets.
The sand and gold mixed
together are then drawn off through augur holes into a pan below,
are dried in the sun, and afterwards separated by blowing off the
sand. A party of four men thus employed, at the lower mines, averaged
$100 a day. The Indians, and those who have nothing but pans, or willow
baskets, gradually wash out the earth, and separate the gravel by
hand, leaving nothing but the gold mixed with sand, which is separated
in the manner before described. The gold in the lower mines is in
fine bright scales, of which I send several specimens.
(6)
Edward Gould Buffum, Six Months in the Gold Mines: 1847 (1850)
About one hundred men, in miner's costume, were at work, performing
the various portions of the labour necessary in digging the earth
and working a rocking machine. The apparatus then used upon the Yuba
River, and which has always been the favourite assistant of the gold-digger,
was the common rocker or cradle, constructed in the simplest manner.
It consists of nothing more than a wooden box or hollowed log, two
sides and one end of which are closed, while the other end is left
open. At the end which is closed and called the "mouth"
of the machine, a sieve, usually made of a plate of sheet iron, or
a piece of raw hide, perforated with holes about half an inch in diameter,
is rested upon the sides. A number of "bars" or "rifflers,"
which are little pieces of board from one to two inches in height,
are nailed to the bottom, and extend laterally across it. Of these,
there are three or four in the machine, and one at the "tail,"
as it is called, i.e. the end where the dirt is washed out. This,
with a pair of rockers like those of a child's cradle, and a handle
to rock it with, complete the description of the machine, which being
placed with the rockers upon two logs, and the "mouth" elevated
at a slight angle above the tail, is ready for operation. Modified
and improved as this may be, and as in fact it already has been, so
long as manual labour is employed for washing gold, the "cradle"
is the best agent to use tor that purpose. The manner of procuring
and washing the golden earth was this. The loose stones and surface
earth being removed from any portion of the bar, a hole from four
to six feet square was opened, and the dirt extracted therefrom was
thrown upon a raw hide placed at the side of the machine. One man
shovelled the dirt into the sieve, another dipped up water and threw
it on, and a third rocked the "cradle." The earth, thrown
upon the sieve, is washed through with the water, while the stones
and gravel are retained and thrown off. The continued motion of the
machine, and the constant stream of water pouring through it, washes
the earth over the various bars of rifflers to the "tail,"
where it runs out, while the gold, being of greater specific gravity,
sinks to the bottom, and is prevented from escaping by the rifflers.
When a certain amount of earth has been thus washed (usually about
sixty pans full are called "a washing"), the gold, mixed
with a heavy black sand, which is always found mingled with gold in
California, is taken out and washed in a tin pan, until nearly all
the sand is washed away. It is then put into a cup or pan, and when
the day's labour is over is dried before the fire, and the sand remaining
carefully blown out. This is a simple explanation of the process of
goldwashing in the placers of California. At present, however, instead
of dipping and pouring on water by hand, it is usually led on by a
hose or forced by a pump, thereby giving a better and more constant
stream, and saving the labour of one man. The excavation is continued
until the solid rock is struck, or the water rushing in renders it
impossible to obtain any more earth, when a new place is opened. We
found the gold on the Yuba in exceedingly fine particles, and it has
always been considered of a very superior quality. We inquired of
the washers as to their success, and they, seeing we were "green
horns," and thinking we might possibly interfere with them, gave
us either evasive answers, or in some cases told us direct lies. We
understood from them that they were making about twenty dollars per
day, while I afterwards learned, from the most positive testimony
of two men who were at work there at the time, that one hunded dollars
a man was not below the average estimate of a day's labour.
(7)
John Sutter,
letter to a friend (1852)
Each day steamers go from San Francisco to Marysville, and they all
halt here at Hock Farm . . . every day four large steamboats pass
by the house, and stop on request. I myself use them a lot as it is
so convenient to get here in this way. Just two miles above us is
the flourishing town of Marysville, sixty miles below is Sacramento
City where my Fort still stands, and we are about 150 miles from San
Francisco, the great metropolis. If I leave here about midday, and
stop a while at Sacramento, I can still be in San Francisco early
in the next morning. When I first arrived there, it had only four
houses.
(8)
Frank Soule, Annals of San Francisco (1855)
A short experience of the mines had satisfied
most of the citizens of San Francisco that, in vulgar parlance, all
was not gold that glittered, and that hard work was not easy - sorry
truisms for weak or lazy men.
They returned very soon
to their old quarters and found that much greater profits with far
less labor were to be found in supplying the necessities of the miners
and speculating in real estate.
For a time, everybody
made money, in spite of himself. The continued advance in the price
of goods, and especially in the value of real estate, gave riches
at once to the fortunate owner of a stock of the former or of a single,
advantageously situated lot of the latter. When trade was brisk and
profits so large, nobody grudged to pay any price or any rent for
a proper place of business. Coin was scarce, but bags of gold dust
furnished a circulating medium, which answered all purposes. The gamblers
at the public saloons staked such bags, or were supplied with money
upon them by the "banks" till the whole was exhausted.
There were few regular
houses erected, for neither building materials nor sufficient labor
were to be had; but canvas tents or
houses of frame served the immediate needs of the place. Great quantities
of goods continued to pour in from the nearer ports, till there were
no longer stores to receive and cover them. In addition to Broadway
Wharf, Central Wharf was projected, subscribed for, and commenced.
Several other small wharves at landing places were constructed at
the cost of private parties. All these, indeed, extended but a little
way across the mud flat in the bay and were of no use at low tide;
yet they gave considerable facilities for landing passengers and goods
in open boats.
(9)
J. Ross Browne, Harper's New Monthly Magazine
(January, 1861)
An almost continuous string of Washoeites stretched "like a great
snake dragging its slow length along" as far as the eye could
reach. In the course of this day's tramp we passed parties of every
description and color: Irishmen, wheeling their blankets, provisions,
and mining implements on wheelbarrows; American, French, and German
toot-passengers,
leading heavily-laden horses, or carrying their packs on their backs,
and their picks and shovels slung across their shoulders; Mexicans,
driving long trains of pack-mules, and swearing tearfully, as usual,
to keep them in order; dapper-looking gentlemen, apparently from San
Francisco, mounted on fancy horses; women, in men's clothes, mounted
on mules or "burros"; Pike County specimens, seated on piles
of furniture and goods in great, lumbering wagons; whisky-peddlers,
with their bar-fixtures and whisky on mule-back, stopping now and
then to quench the thirst of the toiling
multitude; organ-grinders, carrying their organs; drovers, riding,
raving, and tearing away frantically through the brush after droves
of self- willed cattle designed for the shambles; in short, every
imaginable class, and every possible species of industry, was represented
in this moving pageant. It was a striking and impressive spectacle
to see, in full competition with youth and strength, the most pitiable
specimens of age and decay - white-haired old men, gasping tor breath
as they dragged their palsied limbs after them in the exciting race
of avarice; cripples and hunchbacks; even sick men from their beds
- all stark mad for silver.
(10)
Ulysses
S. Grant wrote about the Gold Rush in his Memoirs (1885)
San Francisco at that day was a lively place. Gold, or placer
digging as it was called, was at its height. Steamers plied daily
between San Francisco and both Stockton and Sacramento. Passengers
and gold from the southern mines came by the Stockton boat; from the
northern mines by Sacramento. In the evening when these boats arrived,
Long Wharf - there was but one wharf in San Francisco in 1852 was
alive with people crowding to meet the miners as they came down to
sell their “dust” and to “have a time.” Of these
some were runners for hotels, boarding houses or restaurants; others
belonged to a class of impecunious adventurers, of good manners and
good presence, who were ever on the alert to make the acquaintance
of people with some ready means, in the hope of being asked to take
a meal at a restaurant. Many were young men of good family, good education
and gentlemanly instincts. Their parents had been able to support
them during their minority, and to give them good educations, but
not to maintain them afterwards. From 1849 to 1853 there was a rush
of people to the Pacific coast, of the class described, All thought
that fortunes were to be picked up, without effort, in the gold fields
on the Pacific. Some realized more than their most sanguine expectations;
but for one such there were hundreds disappointed, many of whom now
fill unknown graves; others died wrecks of their former selves, and
many, without a vicious instinct, became criminals and outcasts.
(11)
John Sutter,
Hutchings’ California Magazine (November, 1857)
Soon as the secret was out my laborers began to leave me, in small
parties first, but then all left, from the clerk to the cook, and
I was in great distress; only a few mechanics remained to finish some
very necessary work. The Mormons did not like to leave my mill unfinished,
but they got the gold fever like everybody else. After they had made
their piles they left for the Great Salt Lake. So long as these people
have been employed by me they have behaved very well, and were industrious
and faithful laborers, and when settling their accounts there was
not one of them who was not contented and satisfied.
Then the people commenced rushing up from San Francisco and other
parts of California, in May, 1848: in the former village only five
men were left to take care of the women and children. The single men
locked their doors and left for “Sutter’s Fort,” and
from there to the Eldorado. For some time the people in Monterey and
farther south would not believe the news of the gold discovery, and
said that it was only a ‘Ruse de Guerre’ of Sutter’s,
because he wanted to have neighbors in his wilderness. From this time
on I got only too many neighbors, and some very bad ones among them.
What a great misfortune was this sudden gold discovery for me! It
has just broken up and ruined my hard, restless, and industrious labors,
connected with many dangers of life, as I had many narrow escapes
before I became properly established. From my mill buildings I reaped
no benefit whatever, the mill stones even have been stolen and sold.
My tannery, which was then in a flourishing condition, and was carried
on very profitably, was deserted, a large quantity of leather was
left unfinished in the vats; and a great quantity of raw hides became
valueless as they could not be sold; nobody wanted to be bothered
with such trash, as it was called. So it was in all the other mechanical
trades which I had carried on; all was abandoned, and work commenced
or nearly finished was all left, to an immense loss for me. Even the
Indians had no more patience to work alone, in harvesting and threshing
my large wheat crop out; as the whites had all left, and other Indians
had been engaged by some white men to work for them, and they commenced
to have some gold for which they were buying all kinds of articles
at enormous prices in the stores; which, when my Indians saw this,
they wished very much to go to the mountains and dig gold.
By this sudden discovery of the gold, all my great plans were destroyed.
Had I succeeded for a few years before the gold was discovered, I
would have been the richest citizen on the Pacific shore; but it had
to be different. Instead of being rich, I am ruined. Before my case
will be decided in Washington, another year may elapse, but I hope
that justice will be done me by the last tribunal - the Supreme Court
of the United States.
(12)
Luzena Wilson, Memoirs (1881)
The gold excitement spread like wildfire, even out to our log cabin
in the prairie, and as we had almost nothing to lose, and we might
gain a fortune, we early caught the fever. My husband grew enthusiastic
and wanted to start immediately, but I would not be left behind. I
thought where he could go I could, and where I went I could take my
two little toddling babies. Mother-like, my first thought was of my
children. I little realized then the task I had undertaken. If I had,
I think I should still be in my log cabin in Missouri. But when we
talked it all over, it sounded like such a small task to go out to
California, and once there fortune, of course, would come to us.
It was
the work of but a few days to collect our forces for the march into
the new country, and we never gave a thought to selling our seciton,
but left it, with two years' labor, for the next comer. Monday we
were to be off. Saturday we looked over our belongings, and threw
aside what was not absolutely necessary. Beds we must have, and something
to eat. It was a strange but comprehensive load which we stowed away
in our "prairie-schooner", and some things which I thought
necessities when we started became burdensome luxuries, and before
many days I dropped by the road-side a good many unnecessary pots
and kettles, for on bacon and flour one can ring but few changes,
and it requires but few vessels to cook them. One luxury we had which
other emigrants nearly always lacked-fresh milk. From our gentle"mulley"
cow I never parted. She followed our train across the desert, shared
our food and water, and our fortunes, good or ill, and lived in California
to a serene old age, in a paradise of green clover and golden stubble-fields,
full to the last of good works.
(13)
Chief Joseph,
An Indian's Views of Indian Affairs, North American Review
(April, 1879)
My friends, I have been asked to show you my heart. I am glad to have
a chance to do so. I want the white people to understand my people.
Some of you think an Indian is like a wild animal. This is a great
mistake. I will tell you all about our people, and then you can judge
whether an Indian is a man or not. I believe much trouble and blood
would be saved if we opened our hearts more. I will tell you in my
way how the Indian sees things. The white man has more words to tell
you how they look to him, but it does not require many words to speak
the truth. What I have to say will come from my heart, and I will
speak with a straight tongue. Ah-cum-kin-i-ma-me-hut (the Great Spirit)
is looking at me, and will hear me...
The first white men of
your people who came to our country were named Lewis and Clarke. They
also brought many things that our people had never seen. They talked
straight, and our people gave them a great feast, as a proof that
their hearts were friendly. These men were very kind. They made presents
to our chiefs and our people made presents to them. We had a great
many horses, of which we gave them what they needed, and they gave
us guns and tobacco in return. All the Nez Perces made friends with
Lewis and Clarke, and agreed to let them pass through their country,
and never to make war on white men. This promise the Nez Perces have
never broken...
For a short time we lived
quietly. But this could not last. White men had found gold in the
mountains around the land of winding water. They stole a great many
horses from us, and we could not get them back because we were Indians.
The white men told lies for each other. They drove off a great many
of our cattle. Some white men branded our young cattle so they could
claim them. We had no friend who would plead our cause before the
law councils. It seemed to me that some of the white men in Wallowa
were doing these things on purpose to get up a war. They knew that
we were not strong enough to fight them. I labored hard to avoid trouble
and bloodshed. We gave up some of our country to the white men, thinking
that then we could have peace. We were mistaken. The white man would
not let us alone. We could have avenged our wrongs many times, but
we did not. Whenever the Government has asked us to help them against
other Indians, we have never refused. When the white men were few
and we were strong we could have killed them all off, but the Nez
Perces wished to live at peace.
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