California has had many events in history that have shaped the state to what it is today. It all began with an event that would change the way people viewed California and an opportunity for the state to grow. One of the major events that changed the course of the state is the Gold Rush. The California Gold Rush had a huge impact in the state because it gave people the opportunity to better their economic circumstances. It also created a great migration and violence between different ethnicities that were all seeking the same thing. California was never viewed as a land of opportunity before the Gold Rush, this event created a state that was now viewed very different. This discovery had many different effects on people’s lives in the United …show more content…
He heard that a sawmill would have great profits and it would help him economically. With the help of his employee James Marshall, Indians, and Mexicans, they found a location in Coloma, California and began the construction. Marshall would always allow the river to flow through the millrace and do his daily check of the flow of the river. One morning on January 24, 1848, after checking the river he saw something shiny T the bottom of the river and scooped up a nugget that looked like gold (Rice, Bullough, Orsi, & Irwin, 2012). Marshall took it to get examined and make sure that it was really gold before letting his boss John Sutter know. When he was sure it was gold he let his Sutter know and they kept it a secret for a while. Both Marshall and Sutter gained nothing from the gold they actually both died with no wealth at all after discovering …show more content…
It is said to be, “arguably one of the most significant events to shape American history during the first half of the 19th century” (History.com Staff, 2010, para.1). Even though there was good and bad it made California a state of great opportunity for many people. California’s diversity is also an impact that the Gold Rush had. The migration during the Gold Rush led many people of all origins around the world, and it changed the culture of California forever. After the Gold Rush California would never be the
On January 24, 1848 James Wilson Marshall found flakes of gold in the American River at the base of the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range. Marshall was a carpenter from New Jersey working on a water-powered sawmill owned by John Sutter, a German-born Swiss man who founded the colony of New Switzerland, later to be known as Sacramento. Marshall and Sutter tried to keep the news of the discovery out of the public ear, but word got out, and around March, at least one newspaper was out reporting of gold being discovered at Sutter’s Mill. At first, when the news hit San Francisco, there was disbelief about the discovery until a storekeeper, Sam Brannan, shocked the public with a vial of gold from Sutter’s Mill.
I think the biggest change in the west was the economically and the socially. At the time of the Civil War in Mississippi millions of fertile acres, that in this state had minerals, and herbs for buffalos that provide food, clothing and shelter for all the Indians the live there. Referring to the book “Give Me Liberty by Eric Foner in the Chapter 16 America’s Gilded Age”. The change starts when the white settlers move to Western region, after Western farmers from the Revolution time, they immigrate into Ohio, Indiana, and Illinoi, and it was an empty space. By the eighteen century in California the Indian the land that look like a paradise start changing to small little town creating railroads, mini companies in the West by the order of members
Title: The Sand Creek Massacre Research Question: What were the reasons behind the gold rush in Colorado in the 19th century and the war atrocities committed by United States Government towards the culmination of the Sand Creek Massacre? Though Colorado was not yet a state in the 1950s, the gold prospects within the territories which were still under Kansas at the time led to an influx of emigrants in a land that was originally occupied by Native Indians. The Colorado gold rush to this day is considered to have been the largest in the United States in the 19th century forming an intricate description of the country’s history in general. Following the discovery of gold in 1859 thousands of people descended towards the Rocky Mountains of Colorado,
At the news of the gold discovery a steady immigration commenced which continued until 1876, at which time the Chinese in the United States numbered 151,000 of whom 116,000 were in the state of California” (Norton 3). The Chinese additionally went to California because it was a developing state, wanted to find jobs and settle there, and “American businessmen actively sought Chinese laborers...” (Whiting
Throughout the time of the California Gold Rush, the population of the western states bloomed which encouraged ethnic diversity and cultural spread. One of the different cultural groups were the European immigrants who experience many different experiences compared to the other groups. White settlers and the other people the brought with them were another group that traveled to the West during this time period. Finally, the Chinese immigrants experienced different treatment compared to the other immigration groups. The many groups that migrated to California all experienced different lifestyles and affected other groups of people.
In December 1848, President James Polk announced during a speech that there was more gold in California than people had previously thought. Miners came by the thousands across land, and sea to find the gold and the journeys that
After President Polk confirmed the rumors of gold in California in 1848 (Oakland Museum Staff), around 250,000 people came to California in seek of the soft metal that could lead to a fortune: gold (The forty-niners). The California Gold Rush not only presented fortune, it presented a new idea of the American Dream: “‘one where the emphasis was on the ability to take risks and the willingness to gamble
Ever since the Gold Rush of the mid 1800's, the name California has been synonymous with such timeless concepts as progress, success, and fulfillment. The reason why is
The Gold Rush was a historical event that brought around 300,000 people into California, impacting California forever. Some major impacts included the increase in the population of California’s settlements. A prime example of this is San Francisco. It had grown from a tiny town of around 200 people to a major city with a population of 36,000 in 1852. Another example was the California Genocide.
Even though there has been some positives to the California Gold Rush. There are some negatives to the Gold Rush and one of those negatives is the affect that it had on the environment. The environment during and after the Gold Rush was horrible because of all of the trees they cut down, the hydraulic mining, and the mercury that they used to separate the gold from the ground. According to my first site, “The Gold Rush also had a severe environmental impact. Rivers became clogged with sediment; forests were ravaged to produce timber; biodiversity was compromised and soil was polluted with chemicals from the mining process.
Americans were able to make thousands of dollars off of gold and immagrants and foreigners from all over the world came to California. Citizens became richer and all different cultures learned to
I. The California Gold Rush is one of the most known gold rushes in the U.S. The phenomenon was started by James Marshall when he found gold in the American River and he said “My heart thumped for I knew it was gold.” Because of his findings the California Gold Rush was born in 1848, then died seven years later in 1855. During these seven years California accumulated over 300,000 people that left their homes to mine for gold.
The gold was found January 24, 1848 by James Wilson Marshal at the river base of the Sierra Nevada Mountains near Coloma California. Shortly after the discovery the population of California sky rocketed. The non-native population of California reached one hundred thousand. The amount of gold they got was
What was the Gilded Age and why did Mark Twain refer to it as such? To help understand this question, one must know the meaning of the word gild. Per Merriam Webster, the term gild means to “to give an attractive but often deceptive appearance to” (Gild, n.d.). After the Civil War the American people had become tired of all the corruption and simply wanted to see an end to it and to have a stable economy. The Gilded Age was fashioned to be prosperous times for all Americans, promising wealth, and an end to past political corruption.
The streams and rivers were made into dams, then drained, then rerouted. It killed fishes in the rivers and subsequently the wildlife. It also caused aggravation of the Native Americans who became deprived of their resources. Ten years after the arrival of the Forty-niners, the places previously gold fields became wastelands with “caved-in hillside, heaped debris, and tree stumps.” Sanitation and the rushed housing during the Gold Rush was terrible.