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... siting blanket-wrapped corpses in hurriedly dug holes on river bars. At least fifteen hundred travelers died along the Oregon Trail in 1949. (Mark 56, 57) Nearly all the routes on the trail led the traveler to the Sierra Nevada's. The ones that didnt led through Death Valley. Either the mountain range or the desert had to be crossed in order to get to the Sacramento Valley or Los Angeles, respectively.
Both routes had their challenges, and climatic changes were always a factor in which the travelers were constantly battling. (Marks 60, 61) The trip across the land proved to be a great adventure for all who undertook it. Women made up a mere 2 % in the early years. This gave men the chance to experience a certain crude freedom (68). They could curse freely and in general some became very cutthroat.
Men were found burning the trails behind them and a great many dead animals were found along the trails. Along with rotting corpses, scores of wagon skeletons were left behind in what one woman described as long chains in any number, trunks and clothing and bacon and florin piles and piles (70). The trip proved to turn men into animals. (Marks 68 - 71) The route that took travelers around Cape Horn proved to be the safest way to make it to California. Although it could take up to half a year, many New Englanders opted for this route due to the amount of experienced mariners that had traveled the route for forty years or more. There were of course those who hadnt sailed a vessel in forty years as well. Paula Marks stated that of the thousands that went by way of Cape Horn, about fifty died drowning, or as a result of scurvy and various illnesses (84).
This type of travel was considered the easy way to go. (Marks 82 - 84) Halfway through the trip, a seafarer would inevitably come to Cape Horn. Violent winds and tricky currents were a common problem that mariners came across on this trip. Once around the Horn, the vessels reached the calm Pacific waters. It was relatively smooth sailing from there. From there they would sail up the coast making stops in the various ports along the way, eventually making their way to San Francisco. (Marks 82 - 84). The third discussed route was to travel through Panama.
This way could take as little as eight weeks if good weather prevailed. Once the traveler arrived in Chagres, they were to take a three-day, forty-mile trip down the Chagres River. There was little signs of life along the river and the bingo operators (natives who would take travelers down the river in a certain kind of boat) would often demand more money as the trip came to an end. Most travelers had no choice to pay or be stranded in the jungle. (Marks 85, 86) After boating down the Chagres, travelers had to walk another twenty miles to reach Panama City.
From there they would try their luck trying to find a steamboat. Most would take anything that came along at this point in their voyage. In truth, most Panama travelers were happy to board anything that looked as if it might reach San Francisco (87). A few weeks later, most travelers did eventually make it to their final destination. (Marks 87, 88) Once travelers finally reached their destination, they had to find their claims and start mining the gold that they had yearned for so badly. There were various types of ways to mine gold in this era, including gold pan and cradle, sluice and board tom, and the Californian pump to name a few. It was all a matter of preference and experience that led each man or group to his chosen method of mining gold. (Hoban, Lewis, 1 - 6) The gold pan and cradle was one of the earliest methods of mining and is still used today by many.
It consisted of a pan and cradle. The miner would fill his pan or cradle with riverbed. Since gold is heavier than other minerals, it would fall to the bottom first. The trick was to remove the other rocks while leaving the gold behind. The cradle had a sieve on the top of it that would separate the larger rocks and keep them on the top and let the other pieces fall to the bottom. Water was constantly being run through to keep the flow going. (Hoban, Lewis 1) The sluice and broad tom was a long contraption that involved the use of flumes, riffles, and of course a sluice.
A flume was a method of keeping water constantly running down the sluice. The sluice was a long trough that ran a certain distance. Riffles are pieces of wood that catch the gravel and gold on the way down the sluice. The broad tom was located at the end of the machine and it the held the final remnants of what had made it down the sluice. Here the miners could sort through the rocks and gravel easier, enabling them to find more gold. (Hoban, Lewis 2) The California pump was the process of moving water uphill. It took into account the use of pulleys and the bottom end was place in the water.
One man had to constantly be pumping the handle to pull the water up a tunnel to bring it to the top. This method wasnt as popular as most for obvious reasons. (Hoban, Lewis 2) Mining the earth was also a popular, yet a very dangerous way to mine gold. It involved digging shafts into the ground and sending men down to mine the ore that was hidden in the depths of the earth. Empire mine located in Grass Valley was a very popular mine and can still be seen by people today. It was one of the most famous mines and an estimated $ 2, 000, 000 was taken out of just the first few feet of the surface. (Morley, Foley 5 - 7) With the coming of settlers and travelers came the ever-alluding boomtown's that would rise and fall within months, even weeks sometimes. It is not commonplace to drive through parts of California today and still see them.
Towns throughout California popped up, lasted for a few years, then promptly died away after the gold was taken out of them. Towns such as Altaville, Bodie, Fiddle town, Mother Lode, Swansea, Timbuctoo, Volcano, and Whiskey town can still be seen today. Empty shells of what they once were. Some still even have plates out on the table, as if all somebody had to do was serve diner. (Florin 156) The gold rush spurred the hearts of thousands of men, both common and famous. Men like John C.
Fremont who was already a famous figure in society. One man, Phillip Armour, came not to prospect gold, but to prospect the miners. He opened up a meat shop in Placerville and soon earned enough money to open up a meat packing plant in Milwaukee. One of his neighbors sold wheelbarrows. According to Wiegand, his family later went into the car business.
His name was John Studebaker. Those mentioned are just a few of the many. (Wiegand 2) Also mentioned by Wiegand was the diversity of California. In a census done in 1850, California proved to be a culturally diverse society including immigrants from England, Spain, France, Portugal, Hawaii, Hamburg, Bremen, Belgium, Sweden, Chile, Peru, Russia, Mexico, Norway, Tahiti, China, Ireland, Italy, and Australia. Wiegand states that no other place on earth was as racially and ethnically diverse California (2). A trait that has continued to mark California ever since. (Wiegand 2) It was very dangerous and to live in California. Insurance companies refused to write policies for anybody going to the gold fields.
It was estimated that one in every five miners that came to California was dead within six months. Milo Quaife states that at least one-third of the miners suffered from a disease of some type (Quaife 147). Newcomers had to find ways to adapt to the new type of life that California represented. There were no rules when it came to living here. (Wiegand 3) Racism ran rampant in the new republic. According to Chatterjee, California had spent one million dollars in 1851 to exterminate the Native Americans that inhabited the surrounding areas (1). Violence had escalated by most whites taking out any form of retaliation against other races.
In some places, natives were even barred from working gold claims that were on their own tribal land. They basically had no rights. (Marks 285 - 286) Its hard to believe that a 175 years ago California was thought of as a faraway land. All it took was the findings of a few ounces of gold dust to start a revolution that would someday be considered one of the most vital events in the expansion of the United States. From the get go California was considered to be a place where things were made to happen. Even in the first glimmers of its existence it proved to be a place of innovation and wild imagination. It was a place that started out as being one mans dream and ultimate failure of an agricultural empire, and ended up being the nations future.
Bibliography: Bibliography California. New Standard Encyclopedia. 1981 ed. Chicago: Standard Educational Corporation. 1956. Chatterjee, Pratap. The Gold Rush legacy: Greed, pollution, and genocide. Britannica Online.
Earth Island Journal, spring 1998. 13 December 1999. Available web Florin, Lambert. Ghost Towns of the West. Chicago: Superior. 1971 Jackson, Donald.
Gold Dust. New York: Knopf, 1980 Lewis, Gary, and Peter Hoban. Gold Rush Technology: 1850 s 1990 s. Sovereign Hill Education Service. 15 December 1999. Available web Morley, Jim, and Doris Foley. Gold Cities: Grass Valley and Nevada City.
Rev. Ed. California: Howell-North Books, 1965. Marks, Paula.
Precious Dust: The American Gold Rush Era: 1948 - 1900. New York: William Morrow and Co. , 1994. Quaife, Milo, ed. Pictures of Gold Rush California. Citadel Press, New York: 1967. Wiegand, Steve.
Sacramento was gateway to gold. Sacramento Bee. 18, January 1998: Sacramento Bee Online. 15 December 1999. Available web -- -. The California Gold Rush: An era remembered.
Sacramento Bee. 18, January 1998: Sacramento Bee Online. 15 December 1999. Available web
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