The Forty-Niners
The California Gold Rush
The World Rushes In
• 2/3 of 49ers were
Americans, rest from –
Mexico, South America,
Europe, Australia, and
China
• Most were young and
male
Life in the Mining Camps
• No police, camps rough
• Miners took it on themselves to punish crimes
• Crimes were common: murders, whippings, hangings,
suicides, and duels
• Digging for gold – tough work: digging up mud and
stones, knee-deep in icy streams.
The 49ers Legacy
• 3 years later, Gold Rush over (gold ran out)
• California’s Indians suffered: warfare and disease
reduced population from 150,000 to 30,000
• So many came, California had enough people to
become the first state in the far west
• “the Golden State”