California Golden Rush Essay, Research Paper

Shortly after the acquisition of California from Mexico a man by the name of

John Sutter arrived in East San Francisco Bay in 1839. Born in Germany he had to

leave because he was unable to pay his creditors. With plenty of charm and

letters from friends he convinced the Mexican governor of California to award

him a land grant of more than 50,000 acres. John Sutter built a stockade and a

fort and soon after became referred to as Captain Sutter, and his riverbank

establishment Sutters Fort. Sutter chose a location on the south fork of the

American River, 50 miles to the south of his fort, to build a sawmill. (Pic. 1)

A millrace was dug and wooden gates were opened periodically so that the current

would widen and deepen the channel. During his inspection on January 24, 1848

James W. Marshall found the first piece of gold at the end of the race. Over the

next decade his discovery would have a profound effect on the experiences of

hundreds of thousands of individuals, their families, their communities, and

ultimately the nation as a whole. By the winter of 1848, whispers of a gold

strike had drifted eastward across the country but few easterners believed it.

The gold discovery needed validation, and President Polk was just the one to

deliver it. In his opening address to Congress on December 5, 1848 Polk said

that at the time of the California acquisition it was known that "mines of

the precious metals exsisted to some extent. 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 authentic reports." (Johnson, 38). With Polk’s address

making headlines around the world Gold Fever had begun. The future forty-niners

now under the influence of Gold Fever had to overcome a cruel journey, miserable

living and working conditions, and coming home boom or bust. The trials and

tribulations they faced are many and forever carved into American history.

Polk’s simple words, backing up the claim of gold in California, were a powerful

call to action. Farmers left their fields, merchants closed their shops,

soldiers left their posts, and all made plans for California. The departing gold

seekers faced an immediate problem. There was no railroad to take them there,

nor was there a river route. The journey proved to be a incredible test of

endurance. There were two ways to get to California either by land or by sea. By

land they faced a 2,000 mile trip across rugged landscape (Map 1). Almost

everyone going to California overland travelled with a group, which were

democratic in nature. Contracts were signed that spelled out rules of conduct,

especially with respect to participation and sharing of duties. The journey

across the plains varied in length and difficulty, and because it was so severe

a test it was one the gold seekers would never forget if they survived it. There

were tens of thousands of men and women on the trail and all they could think

about was gold as they crept along at two miles per hour on the dusty trail. At

first it was an adventure, but as they pushed farther westward their enthusiasm

turned to fear of the indians along the trail. The real danger of the overland

journey wasn’t the indians, but the lack of water especially the last 200 miles

through the deserts of Nevada. Goods and food were cast aside along the trail to

lighten the load. "At the beginning of the final stage on the Humboldt

River, many 49ers left their wagons and proceeded on foot, using as pack animals

the stock horses they had brought for breeding." (Rohrbough, 65). The

journey by land was rough but so was the sea voyage. The sea route (Map 2)

around the tip of South America often took more than six months and seasickness

was rampant in the beginning. The accomodations were severely overcrowded

"men were accommodated in tiered berths, usually three men sleeping abreast

on platforms barely two feet apart, one above the other." (Johnson, 64).

Boredom soon took over and the men took to gambling from morning to night.

"Cards and gambling not only drew veteran players, but also rapidly seduced

those heretofore innocent of such vices." (Rohrbough, 59). The food was

often full of bugs, and the meat was often rotten. Water stored for months in

the ships holds took on a foul taste, and was often diluted with molasses or

vinegar so it could be kept down. The weather in the Cape passage was very

perilous. The sea was very rough and it was bitterly cold. At night the

passengers wore all their clothing and shivered in their bunks, praying they

would make it through the night. There was another route that was partly by sea

and partly by land. By sailing across the Atlantic Ocean to Panama the

forty-niners could then cross over the narrow land bridge between North America

and South America. Finally continuing their journey by sailing the Pacific Ocean

to California. This was not as easy as it sounded though for crossing the

jungles of Panama many travelers picked up aches and fevers including cholera

and malaria. For those who remained well and luck was on their side the journey

took about five days. The first leg of the crossing was by canoes, navigated by

the natives, on the Chagres River. After travelling as far as they could by

canoe they finished the trip on foot to Panama City. Waiting in Panama City for

passage to California could take several weeks and the numbers of gold seekers

piling up in Panama City was staggering. There were simply not enough ships to

handle the mass of people waiting to go to California. Many ships would take a

load of passengers to California and the crew would stay leaving the ship

abandoned in San Francisco Bay. By the mid 1850s more than 500 ships lay rotting

in the bay, many still full of cargo that no one had taken time to unload.

Regular steamer service between Panama and California helped relieve the

situation in Panama but never remedied it. After securing passage to California

the journey was over but few men had any idea of the hardships they were going

to face. Prior to the gold rush California had little community life on which to

build on. When thousands began flowing into California settlements sprang up

overnight in the mining fields. According to Paul, "The most common was the

camp: a straggling settle- ment that might vary in size from a few houses to a

small town. A more impressive place was the mining town, a community that was

larger in size than the camp, and usually had a few buildings that could make

some pretentions to substantiality." (California Gold, 72). In the

beginning nearly everyone was camping out, under shelter of a tree, a crude

tent, or a lean to made of canvas. By 1850 log cabins were being built in the

developing settlements. For the common miner construction costs were so high

that most buildings were made of wood frame with canvas stretched over it. Such

methods of construction produced communities that were wiped out by fires

several times. Miners set up a camp close to where they were digging, it could

be set up in a few hours and taken down in even less time. This was an important

part of their lifestyle since they were constantly on the move from one location

to another. If the daily living was rough the work was then severe. Work began

on the streams at daylight, and as the miners dressed and prepared them- selves

for a hard day of labor the cook made their breakfast. After breakfast the

miners made their way down to the streams with their picks, shovels, pans, and

buckets. After arriving at the claim the miners began the routine of digging,

shoveling, carrying, and washing until sunset. (Pic.2). This routine was carried

out at least six days a week and often seven. Often men would be removing the

sand knee deep in ice-cold water for hours on end. One miner summarized the

labors of mining in these terms: "Mining is the hardest work imaginable and

an occupation which very much endangers health. A weakly man might about as well

go to digging his grave as to dig gold."(Rohrbough, 138). Few forty-niners

were prepared for the incredibly hard work. Working fifty pans of dirt in a ten

hour day was a reasonable goal. But digging the dirt to fill those pans, sorting

it out, and panning for the gold became more work than most gold seekers had

anticipated. For a man who could endure hardships, could handle the incredible

amount of labor, and could handle the sorrows of dissapointment, there was never

a better opportunity in the world to make a fortune. There was a great number of

men who barely knew how to pick up a shovel including doctors, lawyers,

preachers, bookkeepers, and other white-collar workers, few of them prepared for

the hard life of mining. As much as a thousand dollars worth of gold could be

washed from a single pan, but few miners ever had that exhilar- ating

experience. A half an ounce of gold a day was generally recognized as the bare

minimum a miner must make to keep himself working due to the inflated prices in

the camps. Prices were so high in the camps that had the miners been making what

they did per day anywhere else in the world the majority of them would have

become rich. As it was though many miners barely made enough to get by on a day

to day basis. A tin pan that could be bought for fifteen cents anywhere in the

United States sold for eight dollars in the gold fields. Everything was sold at

unbelievable profits such as shovels for two dollars, frying pan for two

dollars, a mule for two hundred dollars, a box of sardines for sixteen dollars,

one pound of hard bread for two dollars, one pound of butter for six dollars, a

bottle of ale for eight dollars, a half pound of cheese for three dollars, flour

for fifty dollars a barrel, potatoes for three dollars a pound. Not just the

price of goods was high services were equally severely inflated, for example a

full time house servant would receive around one hundred dollars a month,

clothes washing could bring one hundred dollars per week, a cooked meal cost

around five dollars, women could receive more than one hundred and fifty dollars

a month for house cleaning. These high prices were paid for by the average miner

working day in and day out under miserable condit- ions and poor health. In the

late eighteen hundreds at the time of the gold rush men and women were

accustomed to hard physical labor, but the intense labor required by mining

eventually wore down even the most optimistic and the physically and mentally

tough. "Wealth was the dream; grinding toil was the reality that for many

made it into a nightmare." (Rohrbough, 192). In the face of such demanding

physical conditions, men aged rapidly in the mines. Their hair turned gray,

their teeth rotted, their aching backs cried out for relief from the daily labor

of digging and carrying. The faces of miners were lined by hard labor, hot sun,

and continuing exposure to the weather of all kinds. In addition to the dangers

associated with mining was the communal living and poor sanitation. Baths were

infrequent and the men did not have enough clothes to change on a regular basis.

Epi- demics of smallpox and dysentary afflicted the mines each season, and to

make things worse as prospects in the mines diminished cheap basic foods was all

the miners could afford. These cheap meals lacking in vegetables and fruits,

made the miners susceptible to scurvy. Even with all the hardships and miserable

conditions most of the miners made it through and now faced the most difficult

task of returning home. Few miners found more than enough gold to cover their

daily living expenses, and fewer still had any left over after gambling and

drinking. By the year of 1853 the big gold rush was at an end, the placer

deposits were virtually exhausted, earlier stakes had been worked over several

times, and now the miners had to face the reality of going home. How could the

forty-niner justify his long absence when he returned with no more than he left

with? For those that stayed to the end and had still not struck it rich, there

was the belief that they had done all they could to make their dreams come true.

If they had left after a couple of years they would have been forever looking

back and wondering if they had just missed the mother lode. In a way, coming

home was the coming to terms with failure. Many of the forty-niners who

disappeared into the countryside of California did so because they couldn’t

return home empty-handed and face relatives and loved ones. How much gold would

a returning miner have to possess to measure up as a success? "Ten thousand

dollars was frequently mentioned as the standard in newspaper articles." (Rohrbough,

264). For many a few thousand dollars would be enough, and for others just being

able to square up accounts was enough. Many forty-niners did strike it rich as

is the case of John and Daniel Murphy who came to California in early 1848. By

the end of the year the brothers hade made one and a half million dollars. John

became a politician and Daniel ended up buying three million acres of land in

California. John Bidwell also came to California in 1848 and within six months

had made a fortune and became one of the richest and most respected men in

California. A man named Dye in less than two months mined more than seventy-six

thousand dollars worth of gold. Generally unless a miner found a lot of gold

quick and then left, he would eventually spend it all looking for more gold. The

men who did not make their fortunes in money did gain wealth in their memories

of taming the wild land called California. Captain Sutter prior to the gold rush

wanted nothing more than to start an empire in the new land in which he had

received two hundred and thirty square miles. His land turned out to be the gold

fields, but Sutter turned out to be careless about his business dealings. His

workers went after gold along with the miners and left his fields and cattle

unattended. Sutter tried mining but soon began drinking up all the gold he could

find. By the end of his life Captain Sutter had sold all the land he had

acquired and was a poor man. James Marshall, who found the first nugget, never

made anything off of the gold discovery. He actually lost his mill as

forty-niners overrun his land looking for gold. He tried panning for gold but

never had any success. James Marshall ended up dying penniless and bitter over

the way his life turned out. Of the nearly four hundred thousand men who crowded

into California in the decade after the find at Sutter’s Mill the vast majority

neither prospered or starved. For them it was a grand adventure that they would

never forget. For many it didn’t end in California when the diggings tapered

off. Many men loaded up their tools and moved on to new gold fields such as the

Black Hills, Montana, Oregon, and even as far as Australia. Still other men

simply packed up and went back home, for the most part looking back with

fondness on California and their experiences searching for gold. Many decided to

stay in California and take up trades staying close to the land they had grown

to love

Johnson, William Weber. The Forty-Niners. Ed. Hedley Donovan. Canada: Joan D.

Manly, 1974. Paul, Rodman W. The California Gold Discovery. Georgetown,

California: The Talisman Press, 1967. —, California Gold. Lincoln, Nebraska:

University of Nebraska Press, 1947. Rohrbough, Malcolm J. Days of Gold: The

California Gold Rush and the American Nation. Berkeley and Los Angeles,

California: University of California Press, 1997.