On lectures in history, Emory University professor, Patrick Allitt teaches a class about the California Gold rush of the mid1800s. He talks about the evolving Technology Used to mine gold. Good morning, everybody. Morning. My lecture today is the history of the gold rush. And im going to talk mainly about california in the years immediately following 1848. But goallds played a very Important Role in history. The history the conquest, first of the aztecs and then the incas is an unquenchable thirst for gold. When the first english settlers came to jamestown in 1607, one of the things they were hoping to find was gold like the spaniards. They brought with them jewelers and goldsmiths. But americas first gold rush took very close to where we are now in georgia. In 1829. This was the georgia gold rush in north georgia. About to the town of deloniga, the courthouse has been converted into a gold mine museum. First gold was discovered and people started pouring into the area in huge numbers because of the intoxicating possibility that gold would make them wealthy quickly. Until then, this had been an area really beyond the lean ine settlement. But suddenly, now, White Settlement catches up very quickly. And heres gorge gilmer talking about what it was like meeting the georgia miners. Many thousands flocked into georgia from every point of the compass, whose pentup propensities made them like the evil one, in other words, the devil. In his worst mood. After waiting all day in the etowah and chattahoochee rivers, they collected around light wood fires at night and played on the ground and on their hats at cards, dice, push pin and other games of chance for their days findings. Hundreds of combatants were seen at fisticuffs, swearing, striefkistrief striking and fwounling eyes. In the south, many would fight until one had gouged out the eyes of his victim. That was regarded as victory. The army was sent in to restore some sort of order. And a major, the army major sent to keep order reported this. Upwards of 200 persons who presented a most motley appearance of whites, indians, half breeds and negroes. Boys of 14 and old men of 70s. They comprise diggers, shop peddlers, and thieves. Two candidates for the legislature and two ministers of the gospel, all no doubt attracted by the love of gold. So i think hes making the most of those lovely twos. This was a very, very rich site of gold and a large quantity of gold was drawn out of the mines there between 1829 and into the 1870s and 80s. You can see the coin on the left is a United States of america coin. And on the right there after the confederate secession, the Confederate Bank also used georgia gold for minting. And just by living here, youve seen an example of don leagual gold. This is a very, very important source. Now, the people who already lived there, who already lived in the area where the georgia gold took place were the cherokees, one of the nativeamerican societies. Ever since the american revolution, the federal government had been trying very hard to integrate the nativeamerican nations into the, into the United States, saying, learn to become christians. Learn literacy. Learn to become farmers instead of hunters and gatherers. Become integrate glad od into o society. But now comes a test case. Now suddenly, it turns out that the cherokees are living on land for which the whites are very, very hungry indeed. What principle was going to prevail . The principle of racial exclusion was going to prevail. The whites just wanted to get rid of the indians one way or another. And in the election which preceded the georgia gold rush, Andrew Jackson also wanted to get rid of the nativeamericans any way he could. This is john ross, one of the cherokee chiefs, and if any of the nativeamericans had lived up to the homes thpes they had,s the cherokees. They wanted to enable to write down the cherokee language. The bible had been translated into the cherokee language. Many of them had become christians. Many of them now wore american dress. This was a highly integrated community, but nevertheless, the principle prevailed, weve got to get rid of them. Congress passed the indian removal act in 1830, which was signed by president jackson, saying that the socalled five civilized tribes. This is president jackson. And he said that the five civilized tribes should move from their current lands out onto a place that was then called indian territory. The five tribes were creeks, seminoles, choctaws and chickasaws. There would be a resettlement out here. This is now oklahoma. And it was then called indian territory. The Georgia State government passed the law specifying that the lands up in this Northern Tier of georgia should be reallocated by a land lottery to white settlers. To dispossess the former inhabitants and hand it over to the whites instead. This is the movement that is the pl prelude to something im sure youve heard about the trail of tears. There were adverse conditions with many large numbers of them die dying. Now last time, in talking about the spread of american settlement and also the spread of american political power, we talked about the mexican war. This was the war fought between mexico and the United States in the years 1846 to 48. Although the american armies were not technically wellled, they were much more effective than the mexican armies, and they were able to wentin a spectacular series of bhattles. They were able to overrun mexico city itself. You can see a picture of general scotts army marching triumphantly into mexico city where in effect they were able to dictate the terms of the peace treaty that followed. This was the treaty of guadalupe hidalgo, a vast area of mexico was now handed over to the United States. Nearly all the land which currently comprises california, nevada, utah, arizona and then parts of new mexico and colorado. Whats today the southern, the southwestern quarter of the United States. Now certain things are important to remind you of. This is now an area with a high population. But then its population was extremely low. Only a few thousand spaniards had actually ever lived there or after 1821, a few thousand mexicans. There was a low density of nativeamerican settlement. But it was mainly unoccupied territory. And the reason its unoccupied is its so dry. Nearly all of this land has got very, very low rainfall with a few exceptions with the Northern California coast. Most of its too dry for normal agriculture. So not many people could live there. Now just to give you an idea of how low its population was. How many have been to San Francisco . Its a fantastic natural harbor. Its an enormous deepwater, enclosed harbor and now one of the great cities of the world is right there, but this is what it looked like in 18461847. Just a handful of huts and a few streets. Its with a very, very quiet and sleepy little place. And its future significance was unimaginable at that time. Now this is a settler, this is a man called johann setter. And he lived at a place called setters fort which is where sacramento, the current capital of california. I mentioned that americans had been moving into texas even when texas was still a mexican territory. And in the same way, american settlers had been moving into california even when it was still mexican territory. One of them was johann setter. He came from switzerland and set up a trading fort. Now there it is in the upper picture. The fact that, it was very different from a shop. And the fact that he had to have a fort is a sign of how politically volatile the area was. He was kind of expecting to be robbed or attacked. So he took precautions against that. Now he was at sacramento. One of the things he wanted to sell was lumber. But the lumber was going to come from up in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains east of sacramento. So he sent one of his assistants, James Marshall up the river to caloma and asked him to design a sawmill. This is where the American River is flowing fast enough that the water can turn a waterwheel, and the wheel is attached to circular saw blades so the lumber could be sent there and sawn and sent down the river to sutters fort itself. One of the things you have to do to make an effective sawmill is divert the river down the millrace, a flume. In the millrace there, he found little flakes of gold, little metal flakes. He reported back to sutter, his because, saying, found gold in the millrace, and sutter said, dont tell anybody, and well keep tit secret. You know how bad everybody is to keeping secrets. The only way to have a secret is to never tell anyone. As soon as you tell nicanybody,e secret gets out. And it wasnt long before the news got back east and it spread rapidly all over the world, with the result that a massive incursion of people into california began to take place. All right. Now this is, this is the area where the gold was discovered. This is sacramento. And sutters fort was right there. And hed sent heis assistant, marshall to caloma, which is where the gold had been discovered. We now know from extensive geological work that the gold field is about the area thats shown there in yellow, and that the richest area, the area where the most of all the gold was found was about here. This is called the mother lode. And so those little boxes, those are the places where the mining camps sprang up. They correspond very closely as you would expect, to the load itself. Now if you imagine a simplified version of the coast of california, im just going to do this for reasons of simplicity. Heres San Francisco bay. One river is flowing south. And this is the sacramento river. And eventually, it flows into the San Francisco bay, and its parallel with the coast, about 1 h 00 miles inland. And north is the San Joaquin River that eventually flows into San Francisco bay. So this is the central valley. Over here, much higher mountains, what are they called, jenny . I dont know, actually. Give us a clue. The Sierra Nevada . Yeah. And so as you can tell from the map, lots of rivers flow out of the Sierra Nevadas and join the northern ones join the sacramento river. And the southern ones flow into the San Joaquin River, so thats the kind of schematic of the geology of california. And the gold is here. So in the foothills of the valleys. Okay . Now lets just first of all hear about now the news got back east. Allen, can you come up and read first of all. Have you heart of William Sherman . He was a famous Union General during the civil war. At this point, he was a lieutenant in the u. S. Army. And witnessing what was happening when the gold was discovered. So here is lieutenant sherman. Off you go. As the spring and summer of 1840 advanced, the reports came faster and faster from the gold mines at sutters mill. Stories reached us of fabulous discoveries and spread through the land. Everyone was talking of gold, gold, until it ais sumed the character of a fever. Some of our soldiers began to dessert. Citizens were getting pack mules to go to the minds. We heard of thousands of dollars per day. And for a time, it seemed someone would reach solid gold. Thats right. So the news gets out. And heres an army officer reporting whack reporting back to his seniors whats going on. As it happens, weve got the president with us, james kchb. S polk. This, again, is a few months after the initial discoveries are made by James Marshall. It was known that mines of the Precious Metals existed to an extent. Recent discoveries that these mines are more extensive and valuable than anticipated. The accounts of the abundance of gold are such an extraordinary character. Were they not corroborated by officers in the Public Service who have advice illvisited the district. The supply is very large and gold is found in various places in extensive districts of the country. It appears also from these reports that mines of quicksilver are found. One of them is now being worked and is believed to be among the most productive in the world. The effects produced by these rich Mineral Deposits and the success which has attended the labors who have worked them has led to a surprising change in affairs. Labor is an exorbitant price. Nearly the whole of the male population have gone to the gold district. Ships are deserted by crews. Our Commanding Officer is apprehensive that soldiers cannot remain without increase temptation and remain faithful shall be rewarded. The abundance of gold have already caused in california an unprecedented rise in the price of life. Thats. Hes making this declaration back east in about the way in which the economy of california is already being transformed. People are pouring in. Nobody wants to do any work except go and dig for gold. Ships a arriving in San Francisco. They all want to dig for gold. The curious thing about gold is it really isnt particularly useful. But today, its possible in things like semiconductors there are uses for gold and heat shields on spaceships. Then it was used for mainly for decoration. And also sometimes as the unit of currency. Its very chemically inert. It doesnt rust. Coins out of ion rust away. A gold coin persists. Its not really useful. It was incredible bli value. Like gold and tobacco which great fortunes were made. Even though they were actually essential. Worth thinking about. People started po you aring into to california from all over. Back east and england and france, and germany and south america. Even many china. A huge amount of enthusiasm about finding ways to get to california. Handbooks like this began to be published. This was bshed in boston. The wonderful gold regions. With the description of the different routes to the california. Information about the country and the ancient and modern discovery of gold. In other words help for travelers on thinking about how theyre going to get there. Now one of the essentially three ways o of getting there. What they had in common ta were all incredibly difficult. Unbelievably difficult. This is 1849, still another 20 years will pass before you could get by railroad. The first railroads have been invented but so far they were very short lines. All right. So one of the ways was going in a clipper ship. A new type of ship with a lot of sail and capable of sailing fast. So one possibility was sail from the east coast all the way down through the south atlantic and then around cape horn. Whats that like . Horrible. The stormiest waters in the entire world. Were coming into the teeth of the roaring and take weeks to get around and can often get ship wrecked ontd way. Lots of people tried that. This is an add for it. The ship called the california with its commandser henry barber. The artist has implied from the gold dig you can see the coast. Which isnt really true. In other words the artist rearranged that. Thats one possibility. The second possibility was to go by steamship instead of going all the way around the tip of south america to sail from the east coast into the caribbean. To the place where the crossing is narrowest. And then either the place we call panama or bit further north to go across by land across the narrow part. And then take a second ship which would take you to San Francisco. Of the advantage of doing it that way was the journey was a great deal shorter. But the disadvantage is that just about the best place in the world in those days to die from malaria or yellow fever was there. This is an incredibly difficult place to live. Even going across it. Three or four decades later the people successfully built the canal in africa tried to built the first panama canal but all the labor force died from the tropical diseases. The incentive was so great. For california direct extraordinary inducements. Nicaragua. Cheapest, safest. Whether it was true is another matter. The over land trails, this was the one which was most done frequently. As you know from what we said previously in the course. The oregon trail had really opened up in about 1843 or 44. So five or six year previous to this. And then from trial and error they worked out the best way to do it was start from independence, missouri. Across the plat water and the sweet water river. Across the rockies at the lowest point at south pass. Pick up the head waters of the snake river and fwo north until it meets the Columbia River and go to portland where the river meets the columbia. Where the great oregon farmland was. Between 1843 and 49 lots of people had done that. This point the various cut offs were established particularly the california trail with a cutoff down here towards sacramento itself. Approaching overland rather than sea. The oregon trail very difficult in itself. If you then took the california trail it was even worse. By doing that you have to go into northern nevada to a place called humboldt sink. The river called the humboldt river which is usually a dry river bed. It only has water in it for a few days every year. Mostly bone dry. You have to cross this incredibly hot desert. And all along the way people died from various things. To make matters worse you had to cross the mountains themselves. And theyre very formidable. Tfts harder crossing the Sier Ra Nevada than the rockies. Already by then, one of the most famous incidents in history of america, cannibalism had taken part there. A group of immigrants set from independence, missouri, took the california cutoff, part way up the mountains when a very severe blizzard snowed them in. They werent capable of Going Forward any further but neither could they get down the mountains because the snow was too thick. Many of them died and the survivors ate the bodies of their relatives who died in order to survive. O