California Gold Rush
It lasted just a decade, but the California gold rush was a gigantic adventure for a generation of fragile young men, most of them citizens of a fragile young nation. They took their name ~ the forty-niners ~ from the year that the gold rush began. In 1849 the East was dazzled by the news that across the continent, on land that was just given to the U.S. by Mexico, golden nuggets were lying around loose on the ground. Abandoning farms and apprenticeships, deserting their families, the forty-niners swarmed West by the thousands. In California, they heard that a man could make a fortune by simply digging in hills with just a little more equipment than a shovel, a tin pan and a wooden, box like thing called a cradle. "If the man did not get rich from digging, who cared? For most of the forty-niners the adventure alone was enough treasure to last a lifetime.1" The gold rush all started in 1848 when James W. Marshall found gold nuggets at Sutter's Mill. He rushed down to the nearest town and yelled that he had found gold. People from the near shanty towns rushed to El Derado to claim their fortune from Sutter's Mill. By 1949, President Polk released this information to the rest of the country. People from all over the conti
In the next few years people from Europe, Asia, and South America joined the Americans in their search for gold. Many of the people took what was called the water route, traveled by ship around Cape Horn, the southern most point in South America. Other people made their way overland by the Panama and Nicaragua route. About 100,000 people participated in the gold rush. Most of the men involved in the gold rush just wanted their gold. After that, they wanted to head back east, because life was dangerous and violent there. "In the mining camps lynch law took the place of justice.2" The men lived in rugged camps with names like Hell's Half Acre, Rough and Ready, and Hangtown. The lack of medicine and medical help caused an estimated number of deaths of about 10,000 persons from dysentery. Criminals also contributed to these deaths. Most of the people that came to California for gold did not get what they were looking for. Most of the Argonauts (forty-niners) died on the way to California. It was a long hard journey to California. Many people left their own family on the Oregon Trail to go get their fortune from California. This caused many wives and their children to die. A typical day for the forty-niners was not very fun. There was a lot of work and people would fight a
Some common words found in the essay are:
, Ready Hangtown, San Francisco, Sydney Ducks, Panama Nicaragua, President Polk, Oregon Trail, American Texas, Sutter's Mill, South America, gold rush, california gold, gold people, california gold rush, san francisco, sutter's mill, south america, mining camps, found gold, people california,
Approximate Word count = 872
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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