California Gold Rush Research Paper

1870 Words8 Pages
The year is 1849 and your family is packing up all the essentials they need for what looks like a long travel. Your family travels to a nearby port and when you arrive you see a ship. Once on the ship you start to sail away and all that you have ever known is slowly vanishing into the distance. This is how many migrant families departed to the new world in search for a chance to better their life and their economic status. With news of gold being found in California many people headed off leaving their families and businesses. Pretty soon gold fever had spread and the California Gold Rush had begun. The California Gold Rush of 1849 was what set the foundation for California's success, and turned California into a place of many people and cultures…show more content…
James showed the gold to nugget to John and to make sure it was real John Sutter ordered some test to be made on nugget to prove it was real. A cook working there that day suggested to put the gold nugget in a kettle of lye-based soap she was making. Further testing proved the gold was real and thus the California Gold Rush began.This would launch the largest mass migration in American history, turning a quiet region into a dynamic, fast-growing state. All information in this paragraph is drawn from Victoria Sherrow. Life during the Gold Rush. San Diego, CA: Lucent, 1998. Print.…show more content…
There was particularly large numbers of chinese immigrants. Prior to the gold rush there were hardly any chinese in California. By 1852 there was nearly twenty thousand men living in California, They were mainly young men fleeing poverty. Chinese were already familiar in California but at the same time the were exotic. Many immigrants felt great relief when they arrived on the shore of California. Once on shore they headed straight to the mining fields. Americans and Europeans welcomed the Chinese ships arriving, eager to trade for some of their gold dust for some precious goods such as dried fruit, candied ginger, and lumber. Eventually Chinese success in the gold mines caused jealousy between the Chinese and Americans. According to Governor Stanford, “‘ It is clear that their settlement among us is to be discouraged by every legitimate means. Large numbers already here, and already here, and unless we do something early to check immigration, the question- which of the two tides of immigration meeting upon the shores of the Pacific [ the Caucasian and the Asiatics] shall be turned back- will be forced upon our consideration when far more difficult than now of Disposal ”’
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