Gold Mining It rocks!

Before the California Gold Rush California was not the first place to have gold in the US

Fifty years before gold was discovered at Sutter’s mill, the first gold rush in American history got underway after a 17-pound gold nugget was found in Cabarrus County, North Carolina. 

30,000 miners

For more than 30 years all gold coins issued by the U.S. Mint were produced using North Carolina gold.

The California Gold Rush 1849-1900’s

Peaked in1852

San Francisco became the hub

Began with the discovery of gold nuggets at Sutter's Mill in 1848

Miners extracted more than 750,000 pounds of gold during the California Gold Rush.

$2 billion worth of precious metal was extracted from the area

The Gold Rush was the largest mass migration in U.S. history

Migration The Gold Rush was the largest mass migration in U.S.

history

1848- roughly 157,000 people in the California territory 150,000 Native Americans,

6,500 of Spanish or Mexican descent known as Californios

fewer than 800 non-native Americans.

1849- non-native population had soared to more than 100,000

Mid 1850s- more than 300,000 new arrivals one in every 90 people in the United States was living in

California

Immigration The Gold Rush attracted immigrants from around the world

By 1850 more than 25 percent of California’s population had been born outside the United States

Many of the first immigrants to arrive were from South America and Asia By 1852, more than 25,000 immigrants from China alone had arrived in America.

Foreign Miner’s Tax Discriminatory taxes imposed by the state of California in 1850 on Mexican and Asian

miners

Levied a monthly fee of $20 on non-citizens (That’s around $500 today!)

Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 Barred entry of Chinese workers in the United States altogether.

Resulted from the rise of anti-Chinese sentiment throughout the 1850’s In the absence of restrictive federal immigration laws, the state asserted control over immigrants. 

Important Players John Sutter -- an affable Swiss immigrant to California in 1839.

Wanted to build a private empire Built a fort, amassed 12,000 head of cattle, and took on hundreds of

workers. Never became rich from the Gold Rush

Workers left to mine for gold prospectors overran and destroyed much of his land and equipment.

James Marshall and about 20 men were sent to the river by Sutter to build a sawmill The sawmill was nearly complete when a glint of something caught

Marshall's eye. It was January 24th, 1848. "I reached my hand down and picked it up; it made my heart thump, for I

was certain it was gold. The piece was about half the size and shape of a pea. Then I saw another."

But it wasn't long before stories of gold filtered into the surrounding countryside. Yet there was no race to the American River. The news of Marshall's gold was just another fantastic tale -- too unlikely to be believed.

Important Players Sam Brannan- a San Francisco merchant

A skilled craftsman Eventually, the Gold Rush would make him the richest person in

California -- but Sam Brannan never mined for gold. Opened a general store that sold supplies to miners

understood the laws of supply and demand. He had purchased every pick axe, pan and shovel in the region. A

metal pan that sold for twenty cents a few days earlier, was now available from Brannan for fifteen dollars. In just nine weeks he made thirty-six thousand dollars.

President Polk Confirmed in his State of the Union address that large quantities of gold

had been discovered in California on Dec. 5, 1848 “The accounts of abundance of gold are of such an extraordinary

character as would scarcely command belief were they not corroborated by the authentic reports of officers in the public service.”

Before Polk, many people believed that the claim of gold was a hoax

The Miner Men (almost exclusively) from all jobs and

locations By the peak, only 16% of the population in

California was female

Expensive to head west and get started Men borrowed money, mortgaged their property

or spent their life savings to make the arduous journey to California

Many left families at home in towns out West

Most “busted”, some very wealthy in the end

Mining takes a large corporation to be profitable usually

Life as a Miner Dreamed about adventure and striking it rich

Life as a miner was not as glamorous as they thought and hoped miners were in constant fear of physical danger, illness from the bad

food or harsh environment and miserable living conditions

The abundance of placer gold, or the easier mined gold, was quickly diminishing and the mountains were becoming more and more crowded. It quickly became a struggle to find un-mined land or enough space

to have adequate mine able land

Mining was hard and laborious Rough conditions

Unpredictable weather

Saloons, and gambling houses flourished in the mining towns

The common attire was flannel shirts, old trousers and boots and old, floppy hats. Most men stopped shaving and bathing was not a frequent act. 

Levi Jeans

Early Mining Techniques All of the methods used relied on the natural composition of gold

gold in volume is heavier then dirt and most other rocks, thus it rest or sinks to the bottom of the mining device.

Panning The easiest and simplest way of mining 

physically exhausting as the miner was required to squat by the river bed, scoop up dirt into a pan and then constantly shake and rotate the pan

Rocker Larger amounts of soil could be shoveled into the "cradle" and then rocked back and forth by one or

two men. 

Much like the panning method, but on a larger scale

Long Tom a rocker that was lengthened into a trough

A steady stream of water was sent through the trough while two men shoveled soil into the trough

Since, groups of men were needed for both the "Long Tom" and the "cradle" formal and informal companies were established.

Hydraulic Mining A form of mining that uses high-pressure jets

of water to dislodge rock material and move sediment

The usual application was to construct paths and canals that would move water from the higher mountain ranges, and store the collected water in ponds located several hundred feet above the area that was to be mined.

The water would be directed from the pond into a channel that would narrow as the flow of water moved closer to the mining area, thereby building up pressure.

It had a devastating effect on the natural environment and agricultural in California.

Hardrock Mining Drift Mining, Tunnel Mining, & Pocket Mining

Shafts were sunk and large machinery was needed to remove the veins of gold from the quartz rock.

Drilling could be done by hand or by compressed air-drill.

Dynamite was placed into the holes created and detonated.

after most of the placer gold was found during the California Gold Rush, miners had to tunnel into the earth’s surface to reach gold located in quartz veins.

More expensive and used on richer gold bearing gravels

These methods resembled coal mining

Open Pit Mining Open pit mining consists of developing a pit with

concentric, circular cut rings or ledges.  This allows excavation equipment to move along the cut, dislodging the ore, with pre-blasting, and using large loading shovels to load oversized hauling trucks. 

Became the leading method for new mining of precious metals in the last half of the 1900s

Major corporations with sophisticated mining methods require large capital investments, complex environmental licensing and scientific staffing

The mines operate twenty-four hours a day removing thousands of tons of ore.

Mining as Big Business• Placer mining allowed individuals to pan for gold,

but soon equipment was needed to dig deeper within the earth.

• Large companies were formed to invest in hydraulic mining and hard-rock mining.

• Prospectors became employees, working dangerous jobs for these companies.

• Miners began to organize unions to negotiate safer working conditions and better pay.

•  By the mid-1850s, it was the owners of gold-mining companies who made the money

Government of the Gold Rush California was in transition of ownership between Mexico and US

The Mexican Cession of 1848

Formal US government was not established

Miners established informal rules and regulations Miner’s 10 commandments

Thou shalt have no other claim than one; Thou shalt not make unto thyself any false claim; Thou shalt not remember what thy friends do at home on the Sabbath day; Thou shalt not kill: Thou shall not steal a pick, or a pan, or a shovel, from thy fellow miner

California Constitution 48 prominent Californians assembled in Monterey's Colton Hall early in September

1849 to draft a constitution Because the gold rush had already brought in such a large population, the delegates

wanted to skip the territorial stage and apply immediately for statehood California becomes the 31st state in the union in 1850 only two years after gaining

ownership from Mexico