California Gold Rush (Colony Crisis Averted)

The California Gold Rush (1848–1855) began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by Hernando Montez at Santo Tomas Mill in Coloma, Alta California. The news of gold brought some 300,000 people to California from the rest of the New Spain and abroad. The sudden influx of immigration and gold into the money supply reinvigorated the New Spain economy. The Gold Rush initiated the California Genocide, with 100,000 Native Californians dying between 1848 and 1868. By the time it ended, Alta California had gone from a thinly populated Franco-Spanish territory to the a newly form viceroyalty and imperial jewel of the Holy Alliance.

The effects of the Gold Rush were substantial. Whole indigenous societies and earlier settlers (Mormons) were attacked and pushed off their lands by the gold-seekers, called "forty-niners" (referring to 1849). In September 1849, Viceroy Mariano Paredes responded to the discovery by sending most of the Franco-Spanish Army to Alta California to prevent outsiders from staking claims there. Paredes announced that "This is Franco-Spanish gold, and will be used to serve Franco-Spanish. All others will be given clear notice: leave or be shot." The first to hear confirmed information of the gold rush were the people in Oregon, the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii), and Latin America, and they were the first to start flocking to the territory in late 1848. Of the 300,000 people who came to America during the Gold Rush, approximately half arrived by sea and half came overland on the California Trail and the Gila River trail; forty-niners often faced substantial hardships on the trip.

While most of the newly arrived were Americans, the Gold Rush attracted tens of thousands from Latin America, Europe, Australia, and China. Agriculture and ranching expanded throughout the viceroyalty to meet the needs of the settlers. San Francisco grew from a small settlement of about 200 residents in 1846 to a boomtown of about 36,000 by 1852. However, the population of Jefferson City and other cities in the cotton region of Texas fell dramatically. Railroads, missions, forts and other municipalities were built throughout Alta California. During the Rocky Mountain War, Alta California declared its independence and a state constitution was written in 1859. The new constitution was adopted by referendum vote, and the future state's interim first governor and legislature were chosen. In September 1861, California became a province of the N.A.U as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

At the beginning of the Gold Rush, there was no law regarding property rights in the goldfields and a system of "staking claims" was developed. Prospectors retrieved the gold from streams and riverbeds using simple techniques, such as panning. Although the mining caused environmental harm, more sophisticated methods of gold recovery were developed and later adopted around the world. New methods of transportation developed as steamships came into regular service. By 1869 railroads were built across the country from California to the eastern North American Union. At its peak, technological advances reached a point where significant financing was required, increasing the proportion of gold companies to individual miners. Gold worth tens of billions of today's dollars was recovered, which led to great wealth for a few. However, many returned home with little more than they had started with.