• Discovery of Gold
  • 49'ers
  • Travel Routes
  • Positives/Negatives
  • Turning Point in History
  • Pictures
  • Bibliography
The California Gold Rush
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The Start

Picture
Sam Brennan
    John Sutter wanted to keep what James Marshall discovered a seceret. Obviously,
this was an enormous secret and unforutnately, word had gotten out. Sutter and
Marshall's crew had left them to dig across the American River in hope of
finding  gold. News spread to San Francisco, but many were in
disbelief.

     Sam Brannan, a man who owned a store on Sutter's Fort, had noticed a few of his customers had bought items using gold. Brannan bottled up some gold dust and headed to San Francisco.Roaming the streets of San Francisco, he had shouted, "Gold! Gold! Gold from the American River!."  Now with proof , people were now convinced.

    After Brannan had shown proof, San Francisco had been a ghost town. An eyewitness had said, " in a few days time, no more than 20 people were left in the city." Sutter, however, had his nightmare finding its way to reality. Everyone, from the clerk to the cook, left him in search of gold.


 49 'ers  & Immigrants

The forty niners are referred to as that because of they were the  rush of people that arrived in the year 1849 to find gold. Word about gold had spread quickly through out California, the rest of America and eventually reached out to the world .News has lured a stampede of people to seek their fortune. 

The gold rush resulted in having massive foreign immigration to the state of California. Most came from parts of Europe,Asia and the pacific. Immigrants were accepted because there was plenty of land, gold and resources available. As those resources became less attainable, few americans feared they had foreign competition and that they would take over their legislature and began to set up barriers from the immigrants.Foreign miners also had to pay a twenty dollar monthly fee. Some immigrants left, while others persevered and  took part in the cultural assortment seen in California today.

Some miners chose to open shops selling mining equipment rather to mine for gold themselves.
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