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The California Gold Rush was the opportunity of a lifetime for westward expansion as well as helped inspire the American dream it gave prospectors the hope of financial and family security, job opportunity and freedom.
The California Gold Rush was one of the most influential events in California's history. It also caused thousands of people from all over the world to make the long, dangerous journey to California in hopes of striking gold. [2] The Gold Rush began in the 1848, when a guy named James W. Marshall discovered a few gold flakes.[3] Marshall did not want the news to discovered, he feared that his land would get destroyed in search of gold.[2] The gold miners were known as the “forty- niners”, they traveled overland across the mountains or by sea either to Panama or around Cape Horn and then up the Pacific coast to San Francisco.[1] People around the United States, they were mostly men, mortgaged their property, spent their life saving to make the journey to California.[1]
In the 1848 the population of California was 20,000, by the end of 1849, the non-native population of the California territory was some 100,000.[1] Men left their women and families behind, in search of the kind of wealth they had never dreamed of. The “forty-niners” came to California to be gold miners. To serve the needs of the “forty-niners”, gold mining towns had saloons, shops, and other businesses get to make their own Gold Rush wealth.
In addition to massive emigration from the eastern US, the California gold rush triggered a global emigration of ambitious fortune-seekers from China, Germany, Chile, Mexico, Ireland, Turkey, and France.[3] The “forty-niners” journey to California was not easy at all, they faced a variety of hardships, especially those prospectors that were coming from China and other parts of Asia.
Chinese traveled across the pacific ocean and faced hard time with starvation. [2] The number of Chinese gold-seekers was particularly large.[3] Chinese coming over- were not allowed to marry white women-bring back women to be their wives but they were brought over to be prostitutes- kept in prostitution. Occasionally they could get enough money to buy a wive. Could marry irish, black, and Indian American but they still could not marry white. Emasculated the men by giving them women jobs. They Typically didn’t bring their families, hoping to strike it rich and go home. The California Gold Rush Still made many people rich overnight.
[1]"California Gold Rush (1848–1858)." Open Collections Program: Immigration to the US, California Gold Rush, 1848-1858. http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/immigration/goldrush.html (accessed May 3, 2014).
[2]"History of California Gold Rush and The Forty-Niners." History of California Gold Rush and The Forty-Niners. http://www.luckypanner.com/history-of-california-gold-rush-and-the-forty-niners/ (accessed May 3, 2014).
[3] A&E Television Networks. "The Gold Rush of 1849." History.com. http://www.history.com/topics/gold-rush-of-1849 (accessed May 3, 2014).