Gold Rush in the American West

" "I leaned over and picked up the dazzling thing, looked at it carefully, and my heart almost jumped out of my chest, because I was sure it was gold, about the size of half a pea..."—— James Marshall Gold Rush The gold rush in the American West in the 19th century is full of legendary stories. Countless people traveled thousands of miles to the desolate California. Some people became rich overnight, and some people died. Looking back on that period of history, people are slow. Slow discovery, the story of gold mining is more legendary than imagined. Let’s first talk about the “weird” origin of the gold rush. There were already gold diggers in California as early as 1841 near Los Angeles and in Southern California in 1842. Gold was discovered. For the early settlers, the value of gold was self-evident. However, these two gold discoveries did not trigger a gold rush. Even people talking about the "Western Gold Rush" were directly from 1848. Why? It’s also gold. Didn’t anyone know its value in 1842? Of course not, the reason is very simple. Most of the gold discovered before 1848 was located in areas controlled by Indians. They did not realize the value of gold, and their hatred of the colonists also deterred many white people. More importantly, although a few people found some gold, they were unwilling to spread the news to these adventurers. For example, if you risk your life to find a treasure, you would rather die than keep it a secret. Therefore, the low-key behavior of a small number of gold diggers makes people half-believe the rumors of gold discovery, and we have to mention here that few people actually take action. Let’s take a look at California, a place full of legends. It was originally a Spanish colony. After Mexico became independent in 1821, it began to rule California. However, the Mexicans at that time did not know that gold existed here until 1839. A German-Swiss man named John Sutter came to California from Hawaii. He persuaded the then governor of California to transfer 50,000 acres of land to him. This land was located at the confluence of the American River and the Sacramento River. It was fertile and forested. The area is vast. John Sutter built a large sawmill here and dug waterways to use river water to drive the waterwheel of the sawmill. James Marshall, the discoverer of gold, was born in New Jersey and joined the West in 1844. After joining the army, he met Sartre the next year and the two quickly reached a cooperation agreement: Sartre funded the construction of the sawmill, Marshall was responsible for daily operations and management, and a quarter of the profits went to Marshall. All. On January 24, 1848, when Marshall went to inspect the waterwheel of the sawmill, he suddenly saw a shiny yellow thing in the waterway. This discovery was recorded in his diary. They had doubts, so they rode to Sutter's Castle and handed the gold they found into the hands of John Sutter. The two excitedly found a worn-out encyclopedia and compared it carefully before confirming that they had actually discovered gold. However, just like the situation in Southern California a few years ago, John Sutter calmed down and thought about it, and decided to hide the news with Marshall: For them, their sawmill is the foundation of their existence, and if there is gold in the river If the news spreads, his workers will definitely not continue to work, and then he will have no choice but to go bankrupt and work hard to dig for gold with everyone. However, despite the two men's efforts to conceal the news, some people still knew about the discovery of gold in the river - but just like in 1842, people were dubious and unwilling to take risks. On May 12, 1848, a man named Sam Branner came to San Francisco, showed the bottles in his hands to people, and shouted: "Gold, gold!" This is the gold of American rivers! "Brenner told the residents of the city that he went to the American River where gold was legendary to be discovered and dug out the gold sand! People no longer hesitated, immediately went home to pack their bags, gave up their jobs, and rushed to the American River to pan for gold. . Three months later, the Herald in New York also received news about the discovery of gold in California. The whole United States, and then the whole world, was in a state of excitement... I don’t know if anyone has discovered it when things have developed to this point. A question: Why doesn't Sam Brenner secretly dig for gold? Instead of spreading the word and increasing his competitors, the real wealth is not the gold in the river, but the people who come to dig for gold.

California There were not many immigrants in California at that time, and large areas of land were deserted. The shops in those small towns did not have many customers at all and were operating poorly. Sam Brenner is a businessman and a speculator. He had his own "" chain of grocery stores" in California, but the business was not going well. After Brenner heard the news of the discovery of gold, he keenly realized that if he could attract as many people as possible to gold panning, they would need the tools and Food, clothing, housing, and transportation are huge business opportunities - he can completely rely on trading with gold diggers to obtain huge wealth. Therefore, he worked hard to publicize the news of the discovery of gold. In fact, some adventurers have come to Brenner's small town. Shop, use the gold you just found to buy items. When a steady stream of gold diggers came to California, the prices of shovels, metal plates, axes and other products in Brenner's store, such as the previous 20-cent metal plate, increased sharply. The price soon rose to $15 apiece, but demand still exceeded supply. Gold diggers also used gold to buy food and whiskey. In a very short period of time, Brenner became a gold rush rich man in San Francisco. The fermentation continued, with workers leaving factories, soldiers leaving barracks, farmers leaving the land, and civil servants leaving their desks... By June 1848, almost half of the houses in S?o Francisco were empty, and people from surrounding cities also came. , more than 3,000 adult men came to Oregon that year, and they didn't even want the grains that were about to mature. Of course, more and more people saw the business opportunities. For example, the "Indian Newspaper" at that time promoted an ointment that could be used as a medicine. Apply it all over your body, and then roll it down from a high place, and you will be covered with gold particles. The $5 bottle of ointment is very expensive, and it is obviously useless, but the more famous example is Levi Strau. This young man found that the gold diggers' trousers were very easy to wear, so he used canvas to make strong and wear-resistant trousers and sold them to the gold diggers. Later, he replaced the traditional canvas with fabrics imported from France. After discovering that gold diggers were accustomed to putting ore in their trouser pockets, they used brass rivets to fix the two corners above the trouser belt, and also added leather edges around the trouser pockets to make them more resistant to wear and tear. So, the most traditional jeans Appeared. In short, Americans, Mexicans, Chinese, Irish, Germans, French, etc. all came in a steady stream. Most of the gold diggers did not become rich, but those who did business in the gold mining areas Instead, they made a lot of money easily. The bigger winner was actually the United States. The gold diggers at that time had a strong desire for territorial expansion. The United States had just won the war with Mexico. The fat piece of California has already reached its lips. The only thing that needs to be done is to allow this place to have a sufficient population, at least to reach the legal amount to apply for California in the name of a "state"——** * Of course, immigrants can also be encouraged to go to California, but the huge wealth required for resettlement is difficult to come up with at once. When the news of the discovery of gold in California came, the top officials of the United States in California were very excited. Mason even sent a special message to the United States. The 11th President, James Polk, submitted a report stating that the discovery of gold mines was "sufficient to pay hundreds of times more the cost of the Mexican War." In order to encourage the public to go to California, Polk specifically told Congress: "The reports of the discovery of large amounts of gold in that place are so extraordinary that they are unbelievable unless confirmed by authoritative reports." ” Soon, American newspapers began to follow up, constantly reporting on the gold rush in California. People can often see such descriptions in newspapers: gold is everywhere, like mud... Thousands of people poured in San Francisco, California, had only 812 people in March 1848. It had reached 5,000 in early 1849, and grew to 25,000 in 1850... The gold rush brought unimaginable changes to the American West, not only California, but also Nevada and Arizona. Gold mining areas also appeared in areas such as Colorado, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. Colonists continued to pour into the west, establishing towns and realizing their gold mining dreams. When the time comes, deep gold mining will require big companies.

Businessmen, industrialists and banks cooperated one after another to set up large-scale mining companies. They transported huge equipment to the west and hired workers to mine deep gold mines. The entry of large mining companies quickly led to the development of mining towns and cities, and railway transportation crisscrossed the country. East and West, greatly changed the social landscape of the American West. The western United States was "revitalized" by the gold rush, and the American *** became the biggest winner. For those gold diggers who worked alone, the dream was not within reach. Due to the transportation conditions at the time, countless people died on the long journey. , not even the appearance of gold sand was seen; those who were lucky enough to find gold had to spend a very high price to buy tools and food; some gold diggers, in extreme depression, indulged in gambling and alcoholism, and lost the gold they finally got. The gold is given to others... There are thousands of gold diggers, but only a few can get rich overnight and enjoy their old age. The ones who have the last laugh are speculators like Branner and the winner behind the scenes, the United States ***. .