Gold Rush and the Native Americans
As the United States gold rush expanded through out all of California and dominated most western civilization, it brought an obsession for gold that dominated the desires of all the men and women that flooded in from all over the world. While the gold rush offered these new foreigners the promise of great wealth and security it inversely created great turmoil for the Native Americans, who were the original, indigenous inhabitants of California. “The Native American Population in California, estimated at 150,000 in 1845, had dropped to less than 30,000 by 1870”[1]. This dramatic drop in population was due to the destruction of the Native Americans environment, the spread of foreign disease, and racial violence all brought on by the surge and greed of the gold rush.
Native Americans have always been reliant on hunting and gathering as their fundamental source of food and sustenance. Their knowledge and understanding of agriculture allowed them to thrive in any environment but made them extremely dependent on the land for their basic survival. Once the discovery of gold was publicized the Native Americans who inhabited California slowly became the victims of starvation as their land and its resources slowly depleted[2]. The Native Americans primary water sources became contaminated with gravel, silt and toxic chemicals as the gold mining operations were prominently located in nearby rivers and streams. Not only did this kill off most of the fish and wild life that populated these rivers, but it poisoned and killed the Native inhabitants that relied on these streams as their main water supply. In addition, it was the mining and dredging associated with the expansion of the gold rush that eventually lead to the deforestation and the disappearance of the wildlife that the Native Americans relied on to survive[3]. The greediness of the gold rush not only killed off the native’s food and water sources, but it expanded and slowly consumed all of their land.
As the success of the California gold rush spread through out the world, men and women from countries such as Mexico, Chile, China, and France fled to the west coast with the allure of wealth on their minds. They did not foresee however the disease and illness they would also unintentionally bring with them to the new world. Out of all the diverse cultures and ethnicities in California, it was the Native Americans that suffered exponentially from the sudden exposure to foreign illnesses. Smallpox, influenza, and measles were the three most prominent diseases that swept through the natives villages and “estimates indicate case fatality rates of 80–90% in Native American populations” during theses epidemic waves[4].
The final but most devastating and destructive component of the gold rush was the violence practiced on the Native Americans by the white, American settlers. Those who settled in California saw the Native Americans as competition for the abundant and rich in gold land as well as a threat to their mining efforts. On April 22, 1950 an act entitled The Act for the Government and Protection of Indians was passed which “allowed settlers to continue the California practice of capturing and using Native people as bonded workers. It also provided the basis for the enslavement and trafficking in Native American labor, particularly that of young women and children, which was carried on as a legal business enterprise”[5]. Gold miners would raid the Native Americans communities not only to kidnap the women and children and pillage their supplies, but also with hopes of reducing the Indian population. “Vigilantes murdered thousands of Indians…State officials paid millions in bounties to private militias that launched attacks on the states Indians.”[6] The perspective of these settled miners were lead by California’s first governor, Peter Burnett who stated that, “California was a battleground between the races and that there were only two options towards California Indians, extinction or removal”[7]. In the end, the devastation the Native American population suffered through was astronomic. Over the expansion of the gold rush the Indian occupation went from that of 150,000 to 30,000, a drop in population of over 100,000. Though the gold rush was known to many as a time of wealth and prosper, it was a time of desolation and loss for some of the last remaining Native Americans.
[1]Starr, Kevin. California: A History (Modern Library Chronicles). (New York: Random House Inc. 2005). 99.
[2] Henry, G. A. Captain Bayley's Heir: A Tale of the California Gold Fields (Tuscon: Fireship Press. 1999) 32–36.
[3] Rapps, Eric. A Golden Myth: The Truth Behind California's Gold Rush. Accessed May 11, 2014.http://historymatters.appstate.edu/sites/historymatters.
appstate.edu/files/Eric%20Rapps%20Final_1.pdf. Paragraph 2.
[4] "The Cambridge encyclopedia of human paleopathology". Arthur C. Aufderheide, Conrado Rodríguez-Martín, Odin Langsjoen (1998). Cambridge University Press. 205.
[5] Heizer, Robert F. (1974). The destruction of California Indians. (Lincoln and London: Univ. of Nebraska Press). 243.
[6] Foner, Eric, “A House Divided.” Chapter 13 in Give me Liberty: An American History, 3rd ed. (New York: W.W, Norton & Company, Inc, 2012) 472-473.
[7] Norton, Jack. Genocide in northwestern California: when our worlds cried. (San Francisco: Indian Historian Press. 1979)
Native Americans have always been reliant on hunting and gathering as their fundamental source of food and sustenance. Their knowledge and understanding of agriculture allowed them to thrive in any environment but made them extremely dependent on the land for their basic survival. Once the discovery of gold was publicized the Native Americans who inhabited California slowly became the victims of starvation as their land and its resources slowly depleted[2]. The Native Americans primary water sources became contaminated with gravel, silt and toxic chemicals as the gold mining operations were prominently located in nearby rivers and streams. Not only did this kill off most of the fish and wild life that populated these rivers, but it poisoned and killed the Native inhabitants that relied on these streams as their main water supply. In addition, it was the mining and dredging associated with the expansion of the gold rush that eventually lead to the deforestation and the disappearance of the wildlife that the Native Americans relied on to survive[3]. The greediness of the gold rush not only killed off the native’s food and water sources, but it expanded and slowly consumed all of their land.
As the success of the California gold rush spread through out the world, men and women from countries such as Mexico, Chile, China, and France fled to the west coast with the allure of wealth on their minds. They did not foresee however the disease and illness they would also unintentionally bring with them to the new world. Out of all the diverse cultures and ethnicities in California, it was the Native Americans that suffered exponentially from the sudden exposure to foreign illnesses. Smallpox, influenza, and measles were the three most prominent diseases that swept through the natives villages and “estimates indicate case fatality rates of 80–90% in Native American populations” during theses epidemic waves[4].
The final but most devastating and destructive component of the gold rush was the violence practiced on the Native Americans by the white, American settlers. Those who settled in California saw the Native Americans as competition for the abundant and rich in gold land as well as a threat to their mining efforts. On April 22, 1950 an act entitled The Act for the Government and Protection of Indians was passed which “allowed settlers to continue the California practice of capturing and using Native people as bonded workers. It also provided the basis for the enslavement and trafficking in Native American labor, particularly that of young women and children, which was carried on as a legal business enterprise”[5]. Gold miners would raid the Native Americans communities not only to kidnap the women and children and pillage their supplies, but also with hopes of reducing the Indian population. “Vigilantes murdered thousands of Indians…State officials paid millions in bounties to private militias that launched attacks on the states Indians.”[6] The perspective of these settled miners were lead by California’s first governor, Peter Burnett who stated that, “California was a battleground between the races and that there were only two options towards California Indians, extinction or removal”[7]. In the end, the devastation the Native American population suffered through was astronomic. Over the expansion of the gold rush the Indian occupation went from that of 150,000 to 30,000, a drop in population of over 100,000. Though the gold rush was known to many as a time of wealth and prosper, it was a time of desolation and loss for some of the last remaining Native Americans.
[1]Starr, Kevin. California: A History (Modern Library Chronicles). (New York: Random House Inc. 2005). 99.
[2] Henry, G. A. Captain Bayley's Heir: A Tale of the California Gold Fields (Tuscon: Fireship Press. 1999) 32–36.
[3] Rapps, Eric. A Golden Myth: The Truth Behind California's Gold Rush. Accessed May 11, 2014.http://historymatters.appstate.edu/sites/historymatters.
appstate.edu/files/Eric%20Rapps%20Final_1.pdf. Paragraph 2.
[4] "The Cambridge encyclopedia of human paleopathology". Arthur C. Aufderheide, Conrado Rodríguez-Martín, Odin Langsjoen (1998). Cambridge University Press. 205.
[5] Heizer, Robert F. (1974). The destruction of California Indians. (Lincoln and London: Univ. of Nebraska Press). 243.
[6] Foner, Eric, “A House Divided.” Chapter 13 in Give me Liberty: An American History, 3rd ed. (New York: W.W, Norton & Company, Inc, 2012) 472-473.
[7] Norton, Jack. Genocide in northwestern California: when our worlds cried. (San Francisco: Indian Historian Press. 1979)