California Gold Rush, rapid influx of fortune seekers in California that began
after gold was found at Sutter’s Mill in early 1848 and reached its peak in 1852.
According to estimates, more than 300,000 people came to the territory during
the Gold Rush.
John Augustus SutterThe discovery of gold on Sutter's land in 1848 started the California Gold
Rush.
In 1848 John Sutter was having a water-powered sawmill built along the
American River in Coloma, California, approximately 50 miles (80 km) east of
present-day Sacramento. On January 24 his carpenter, James W. Marshall,
found flakes of gold in a streambed. Sutter and Marshall agreed to become
partners and tried to keep their find a secret. News of the discovery, however,
soon spread, and they were besieged by thousands of fortune seekers. (With his
property overrun and his goods and livestock stolen or destroyed, Sutter was
bankrupt by 1852.) From the East, prospectors sailed around Cape Horn or
risked disease hiking across the Isthmus of Panama. The hardiest took the
2,000-mile (3,220-km) overland route, on which cholera proved a far greater
killer than the Native Americans. By August 1848, 4,000 gold miners were in the
area, and within a year about 80,000 “forty-niners” (as the fortune seekers of
1849 were called) had arrived at the California goldfields. By 1853 their numbers
had grown to 250,000. Although it was estimated that some $2 billion in gold
was extracted, few of the prospectors struck it rich. The work was hard, prices
were high, and living conditions were primitive.
1 of 2
California Gold RushThe gold-mining camp at Poverty Bar, California, 1859.
2 of 2
Observe mining methods used during the California Gold RushLearn what life was like for
prospectors trying to strike it rich during the California Gold Rush by using such mining methods
as panning, cradling, and using a sluice box.
See all videos for this article
In what was a typical pattern, the Gold Rush slackened as the most-workable
deposits were exhausted and organized capital and machinery replaced the
efforts of individual miner-adventurers with more efficient and businesslike
operations. Likewise, the lawless and violent mining camps gave way to
permanent settlements with organized government and law enforcement. Those
settlements that lacked other viable economic activities soon became ghost
towns after the gold was exhausted. The California Gold Rush peaked in 1852,
and by the end of the decade, it was over.
Other Famous Gold Rushes
●​ Australian gold rushes (began 1851)
●​ Cariboo Gold Rush (1860–63)
●​ Klondike Gold Rush (1896–99)
Travel across the United States with gold miners to explore the dynamics of the California Gold
RushFind out how the California Gold Rush started and how it quickly took hold of the whole
country.
See all videos for this article
The Gold Rush had a profound impact on California, dramatically changing its
demographics. Before the discovery of gold, the territory’s population was
approximately 160,000, the vast majority of whom were Native Americans. By
about 1855, more than 300,000 people had arrived. Most were Americans,
though a number of settlers also came from China, Europe, and South America.
The massive influx gave rise to numerous cities and towns, with San Francisco
gaining particular prominence. The Gold Rush was credited with hastening
statehood for California in 1850.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
This article was most recently revised and updated by Melissa Petruzzello.
westward movement
Table of Contents
Introduction
References & Edit History
Quick Facts & Related Topics
Images & Videos
Lifestyles & Social IssuesHuman Migration
Currier & Ives: The Rocky Mountains: Emigrants Crossing the Plains The Rocky Mountains:
Emigrants Crossing the Plains, lithograph by Currier & Ives, 1866.
westward movement
United States history
Written and fact-checked by
Article History
Quick Facts
Date: c. 1631 - c. 1895
Location: United States the West
Context: American frontier
Key People: Marcus Whitman
Examine how U.S. westward movement and the annexation of Texas sparked the
Mexican-American WarBegun when the United States annexed Texas, the Mexican-American War
ended with the United States acquiring much of what is now the American Southwest.
See all videos for this article
westward movement, the populating by Europeans of the land within the
continental boundaries of the mainland United States, a process that began
shortly after the first colonial settlements were established along the Atlantic
coast. The first British settlers in the New World stayed close to the Atlantic,
their lifeline to needed supplies from England. By the 1630s, however,
Massachusetts Bay colonists were pushing into the Connecticut River valley.
Resistance from the French and Native Americans slowed their movement
westward, yet by the 1750s northern American colonists had occupied most of
New England.
In the South, settlers who arrived too late to get good tidewater land moved
westward into the Piedmont. By 1700 the Virginia frontier had been pushed as
far west as the fall line—the point upstream at which the rivers emptying into the
Atlantic became unnavigable. Some pioneers climbed beyond the fall line into
the Blue Ridge Mountains, but the major flow into the backcountry regions of
Virginia and the other southern Atlantic colonies went southward rather than
westward.
Germans and Scots-Irish from Pennsylvania moved down the Shenandoah
Valley, largely between 1730 and 1750, to populate the western portions of
Virginia and the Carolinas. By the time of the French and Indian Wars, the
American frontier had reached the Appalachian Mountains.
More From Britannica
United States: Westward expansion
The British Proclamation of 1763 ordered a halt to the westward movement at
the Appalachians, but the decree was widely disregarded. Settlers scurried into
Ohio, Tennessee, and Kentucky. After the American Revolution, a flood of
people crossed the mountains into the fertile lands between the Appalachians
and the Mississippi River. By 1810 Ohio, Tennessee, and Kentucky had been
transformed from wilderness into a region of farms and towns.
Despite those decades of continuous westward pushing of the frontier line, it was
not until the conclusion of the War of 1812 that the westward movement became
a significant outpouring of people across the continent. By 1830 the Old
Northwest and Old Southwest—areas scarcely populated before the war—were
settled with enough people to warrant the admission of Illinois, Indiana,
Missouri, Alabama, and Mississippi as states into the Union.
American frontierCrossing the South Platte, painting by William Henry Jackson.
During the 1830s and ’40s the flood of pioneers poured unceasingly westward.
Michigan, Arkansas, Wisconsin, and Iowa received most of them. A number of
families even went as far as the Pacific coast, taking the Oregon Trail to areas in
the Pacific Northwest. In 1849 fortune seekers rushed into California in search of
gold. Meanwhile, the Mormons ended their long pilgrimage in Utah.
Between the Gold Rush and the Civil War, Americans in growing numbers filled
the Mississippi River valley, Texas, the southwest territories, and the new states
of Kansas and Nebraska. During the war, gold and silver discoveries drew
prospectors—and later settlers—into Oregon, Colorado, Nevada, Idaho, and
Montana.
Are you a student?
Get a special academic rate on Britannica Premium.
By 1870 only portions of the Great Plains could truly be called unsettled. For
most of the next two decades, that land functioned as the fabled open range,
home to cowboys and their grazing cattle from ranches in Texas. But by the late
1880s, with the decline of the range cattle industry, settlers moved in and fenced
the Great Plains into family farms. That settlement—and the wild rush of
pioneers into the Oklahoma Indian Territory—constituted the last chapter of the
westward movement. By the early 1890s a frontier had ceased to exist within the
48 continental states.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
This article was most recently revised and updated by Alicja Zelazko.
Information from your device can be used to personalize your ad experience.
Do not sell or share my personal information.
California Gold Rush, rapid influx of fortune seekers in California that began
after gold was found at Sutter’s Mill in early 1848 and reached its peak in 1852.
According to estimates, more than 300,000 people came to the territory during
the Gold Rush.
John Augustus SutterThe discovery of gold on Sutter's land in 1848 started the California Gold
Rush.
In 1848 John Sutter was having a water-powered sawmill built along the
American River in Coloma, California, approximately 50 miles (80 km) east of
present-day Sacramento. On January 24 his carpenter, James W. Marshall,
found flakes of gold in a streambed. Sutter and Marshall agreed to become
partners and tried to keep their find a secret. News of the discovery, however,
soon spread, and they were besieged by thousands of fortune seekers. (With his
property overrun and his goods and livestock stolen or destroyed, Sutter was
bankrupt by 1852.) From the East, prospectors sailed around Cape Horn or
risked disease hiking across the Isthmus of Panama. The hardiest took the
2,000-mile (3,220-km) overland route, on which cholera proved a far greater
killer than the Native Americans. By August 1848, 4,000 gold miners were in the
area, and within a year about 80,000 “forty-niners” (as the fortune seekers of
1849 were called) had arrived at the California goldfields. By 1853 their numbers
had grown to 250,000. Although it was estimated that some $2 billion in gold
was extracted, few of the prospectors struck it rich. The work was hard, prices
were high, and living conditions were primitive.
1 of 2
California Gold RushThe gold-mining camp at Poverty Bar, California, 1859.
2 of 2
Observe mining methods used during the California Gold RushLearn what life was like for
prospectors trying to strike it rich during the California Gold Rush by using such mining methods
as panning, cradling, and using a sluice box.
See all videos for this article
In what was a typical pattern, the Gold Rush slackened as the most-workable
deposits were exhausted and organized capital and machinery replaced the
efforts of individual miner-adventurers with more efficient and businesslike
operations. Likewise, the lawless and violent mining camps gave way to
permanent settlements with organized government and law enforcement. Those
settlements that lacked other viable economic activities soon became ghost
towns after the gold was exhausted. The California Gold Rush peaked in 1852,
and by the end of the decade, it was over.
Other Famous Gold Rushes
●​ Australian gold rushes (began 1851)
●​ Cariboo Gold Rush (1860–63)
●​ Klondike Gold Rush (1896–99)
Travel across the United States with gold miners to explore the dynamics of the California Gold
RushFind out how the California Gold Rush started and how it quickly took hold of the whole
country.
See all videos for this article
The Gold Rush had a profound impact on California, dramatically changing its
demographics. Before the discovery of gold, the territory’s population was
approximately 160,000, the vast majority of whom were Native Americans. By
about 1855, more than 300,000 people had arrived. Most were Americans,
though a number of settlers also came from China, Europe, and South America.
The massive influx gave rise to numerous cities and towns, with San Francisco
gaining particular prominence. The Gold Rush was credited with hastening
statehood for California in 1850.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
This article was most recently revised and updated by Melissa Petruzzello.
westward movement
Table of Contents
Introduction
References & Edit History
Quick Facts & Related Topics
Images & Videos
Lifestyles & Social IssuesHuman Migration
Currier & Ives: The Rocky Mountains: Emigrants Crossing the Plains The Rocky Mountains:
Emigrants Crossing the Plains, lithograph by Currier & Ives, 1866.
westward movement
United States history
Written and fact-checked by
Article History
Quick Facts
Date: c. 1631 - c. 1895
Location: United States the West
Context: American frontier
Key People: Marcus Whitman
Examine how U.S. westward movement and the annexation of Texas sparked the
Mexican-American WarBegun when the United States annexed Texas, the Mexican-American War
ended with the United States acquiring much of what is now the American Southwest.
See all videos for this article
westward movement, the populating by Europeans of the land within the
continental boundaries of the mainland United States, a process that began
shortly after the first colonial settlements were established along the Atlantic
coast. The first British settlers in the New World stayed close to the Atlantic,
their lifeline to needed supplies from England. By the 1630s, however,
Massachusetts Bay colonists were pushing into the Connecticut River valley.
Resistance from the French and Native Americans slowed their movement
westward, yet by the 1750s northern American colonists had occupied most of
New England.
In the South, settlers who arrived too late to get good tidewater land moved
westward into the Piedmont. By 1700 the Virginia frontier had been pushed as
far west as the fall line—the point upstream at which the rivers emptying into the
Atlantic became unnavigable. Some pioneers climbed beyond the fall line into
the Blue Ridge Mountains, but the major flow into the backcountry regions of
Virginia and the other southern Atlantic colonies went southward rather than
westward.
Germans and Scots-Irish from Pennsylvania moved down the Shenandoah
Valley, largely between 1730 and 1750, to populate the western portions of
Virginia and the Carolinas. By the time of the French and Indian Wars, the
American frontier had reached the Appalachian Mountains.
More From Britannica
United States: Westward expansion
The British Proclamation of 1763 ordered a halt to the westward movement at
the Appalachians, but the decree was widely disregarded. Settlers scurried into
Ohio, Tennessee, and Kentucky. After the American Revolution, a flood of
people crossed the mountains into the fertile lands between the Appalachians
and the Mississippi River. By 1810 Ohio, Tennessee, and Kentucky had been
transformed from wilderness into a region of farms and towns.
Despite those decades of continuous westward pushing of the frontier line, it was
not until the conclusion of the War of 1812 that the westward movement became
a significant outpouring of people across the continent. By 1830 the Old
Northwest and Old Southwest—areas scarcely populated before the war—were
settled with enough people to warrant the admission of Illinois, Indiana,
Missouri, Alabama, and Mississippi as states into the Union.
American frontierCrossing the South Platte, painting by William Henry Jackson.
During the 1830s and ’40s the flood of pioneers poured unceasingly westward.
Michigan, Arkansas, Wisconsin, and Iowa received most of them. A number of
families even went as far as the Pacific coast, taking the Oregon Trail to areas in
the Pacific Northwest. In 1849 fortune seekers rushed into California in search of
gold. Meanwhile, the Mormons ended their long pilgrimage in Utah.
Between the Gold Rush and the Civil War, Americans in growing numbers filled
the Mississippi River valley, Texas, the southwest territories, and the new states
of Kansas and Nebraska. During the war, gold and silver discoveries drew
prospectors—and later settlers—into Oregon, Colorado, Nevada, Idaho, and
Montana.
Are you a student?
Get a special academic rate on Britannica Premium.
By 1870 only portions of the Great Plains could truly be called unsettled. For
most of the next two decades, that land functioned as the fabled open range,
home to cowboys and their grazing cattle from ranches in Texas. But by the late
1880s, with the decline of the range cattle industry, settlers moved in and fenced
the Great Plains into family farms. That settlement—and the wild rush of
pioneers into the Oklahoma Indian Territory—constituted the last chapter of the
westward movement. By the early 1890s a frontier had ceased to exist within the
48 continental states.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
This article was most recently revised and updated by Alicja Zelazko.
Information from your device can be used to personalize your ad experience.
Do not sell or share my personal information.