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Example research essay topic: Oregon Trail Gold Rush - 1,781 words

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California has always been associated with cutting edge development and ideas. For over a century and a half it has been the leader of what the rest of the country follows. No single event has been as groundbreaking (literally and metaphorically) as the Gold Rush of 1849. This historic event single-handedly connected the East to the West in what proved to be the perfect model of expansion. It was what brought hundreds of thousands of Americans and immigrants alike to the fast-paced, ever-changing world of California.

To fully understand the history of the Goldrush, one must know what was actually happening before the lure of gold overwhelmed the country. In 1844, John C. Fremont ordered the U. S. Army to lead a scientific expedition to California. During a second trip in 1846, he encouraged ranchers located in northern area to revolt.

These events lead to the seizure of Sonoma and the proclamation of a republic. The flag that they raised that year was a figure of a bear. It was not yet known that the Mexican War had started and that troops had been sent to quell the battles. According to the New Standard Encyclopedia, there was little fighting in the north, and the south was taken quickly under the forces of General Stephen W. Kearny and Commodore Robert F.

Stockton (C 38 a). In 1849, Mexico ceded California to the United States. (New Standard Encyclopedia C- 38 and C 38 a) One of the most little understood men of the gold rush, John Augustus Sutter, had fled from Switzerland to avoid his debtors in the mid 1800 s. Abandoning his family and friends he came to America in hopes of making it big and making a fortune. In July of 1839 he arrived in California and acquired a land grant from the Mexican government.

He dreamed of one day owning a vast empire of agricultural lands. It was a dream that ultimately ruined him. According to a biography done on him by California State Library, he built Sutter's Fort and sold important supplies to the new inflow of people traveling to California. His fort still lies on the present-day site of Sacramento. (Cal State Library, 1) Luckily for Sutter, he got the local Indians to work for him. In a book written by Donald Jackson, the Indians harvested his wheat and ate in animal troughs in the courtyard of his adobe fort. He had Mexican Vaqueros tending to vast herds that roamed the fort and its surroundings.

He also grew vineyards that European-born vintners looked after (8). All in all, Sutter was building what he though to be his future dream castle. (Jackson 7, 8) After the war with Mexico, John Sutter was left with the spoils that had been left in the aftermath. The book Gold Dust states that about 150 Mormons who had been soldiers of the war had been ordered to stay in California by Mormon leaders in Utah. A messenger from Salt Lake had told them to stay there through the winter due to the lack of food in Zion (8). The 150 Mormons consisted of carpenters, tanners, wagon makers, and mechanics. Sutter had badly wanted to build a flower mill and a sawmill.

This gave him the opportunity to do so immediately. (Jackson 8, 9) The sawmill was located forty-five miles up the American River in Coloma Valley (8). To supervise the building of the sawmill he employed the services of James Marshall. Marshall was a strange, sober mango had wondered down from Oregon two years earlier (8). Jackson states that Marshall believed that he could see visions of the future, which caused him to be labeled as peculiar. (Jackson 8) It was January 24 when James Marshall noticed a few glimmers of something in the mud a few miles upstream from the mill. He and his crew had been working on widening a tailrace for Sutter's Mill. He only had a faint idea of the types of minerals in the area, yet seeing the glimmers of the mineral excited him.

When he told his workers of his find they only believed it be another one of Marshalls odd notions. It is said that not one of them even bothered to look where he had been poking around (Jackson 9). Marshall proceeded to put the pieces that he had found into his hat and walked back to the mill. The following occurrence took place: The first man that he came to was William Scott, at the carpenters bench. Boys, by God I believe I have found a gold mine, he exclaimed. Scott glanced at the metal flakes in the hat.

Marshall set the hat on a workbench. Azariah Smith pulled out a five-dollar piece and compared it with the flakes; the coin looked brighter and whiter the result of the alloy, they guessed. James Brown stuck a piece in his mouth and tried to twist it, but it wouldnt give. Their skepticism was eroding. (26) It turned out that what Marshall had found was what he had said it was, gold. (Jackson 9) After bringing his findings to Sutter they worked out a plan, first to establish legal title to the gold by drawing up an agreement with the local Yalesumni Indians (12). After that they marked up their own claims and agreed that the mill hands could work the claims for half of what gold that they discovered. (Jackson 12) Sutter wanted the gold to be kept a secret for at least six weeks until he could finish his mills. That being to big of a secret, it proved to be something that none of the men could keep to themselves.

Charles Bennett had been sent to Monterey with a bottle of gold dust. On his way there he overheard some men talking about a recent coal discovery 13). Bennett was unable to stop himself from pulling out the bag and showing it to the men. (Jackson 13) During the course of a few weeks, word had spread from the mill workers and also Bennett, to all of California. On February 15, word of the gold finally made it to the press in the San Francisco Californian.

It was only one paragraph long and it read as follows: In the newly made raceway of the Saw Mill recently erected by Captain Sutter, on the American Fork, gold has been found in considerable quantities. One person brought thirty dollars worth to New Helvetica (Sacramento), gathered there in a short time. California, no doubt, is rich in mineral wealth; great chances are here for scientific capitalists. God has been found in almost every part of the country. (15) The book states that the person who wrote it, wrote it in a fashion that made it seem like he knew he was telling a huge lie. The rest of San Francisco remained unmoved by the paragraph. (Jackson) Nothing much was said or done about the gold that was discovered until Sam Brannan came into the picture. He was a hard businessman who knew what he wanted and how to get it.

Already a famous man, he acquired a printing press from a newspaper back east. Brannan printed two thousand special copies and sent them to the Midwest to be devoured by the Missouri and Mississippi valleys. From there they went to St. Louis and St.

Joseph. Unfortunately, the reprints of the paper failed to mention that any gold was found. (Jackson 18, 19) On or around May 3 was the time that Sam Brannan started making his big moves. He had traveled to Sutter's Fort and found it mostly abandoned by the gold-frenzied workers. They had all left to find the wealth in prospecting gold. This was enough for Brannan to open up two stores in the Coloma region. He returned to the fort to tell Sutter of his plans to build the Sacramento River Landing in the heart of what would soon become Sacramento. (Jackson 24, 25) Later that day Brannan ordered that Kit Carson take letters and a copy of the California State first news of the gold discovery and sent him off to the East Coast (25).

By May 15 the population had risen to six hundred. On May 12 it had only been up to two hundred. News had spread fast and by May 25 the news had spread along all of the settlements up and down the coast. Soon it would be every man for himself. (Jackson 25 - 27) In two years the population of California had risen to 90, 000 souls. By 1854, it had reached 300, 000.

The gold rush ripped families apart and took men from their cities. In an article written by Steve Wiegand he states that it changed the countrys view of the relationship between wealth and labor. And it ensured that California would always be a different kind of place in America (1). He wrote that California was unlike any other movement that America had ever experienced.

It was a take all place instead of a place that families came to and settled down with their families. To many it was an adventure, and many of the men that came called themselves Argonauts (1). The rest of the world remembers them as the 49 ers. (Wiegand 1) There were three basic routes that would get a traveler to California. All three proved both dangerous and deadly to anyone that chose to take them. One route was to travel across the United States.

The Oregon Trail became very popularized by this route. Another was to sail from New York, and go around Cape Horn (located at the bottom of South America), to the destination of San Francisco. The third route was to sail to Panama City, walk or canoe through the jungle, and then sail to San Francisco from that point. No route was safer than the next, and thousands of people died on each one. (Marks 82) Traveling by land across America took the average traveler three months. The trip was an easy 15, 000 miles of open land and prairies. There were also many different routes in which a traveler could take, making it easy for the average person to get lost.

Besides that, cholera proved to be just one of the many dangers that most men were being constantly confronted with. Marks stated that the fatal sickness lurked on the main route from St. Louis to the one of the three Missouri River outfitting towns and westward across the prairies and plains along the artery used by Oregon farm immigrants, the Oregon Trail (Marks 56). In 1849, steamboats were regularly docking and depo...


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