Negative Effects Of The California Gold Rush

I. The California Gold Rush is one of the most known gold rushes in the U.S. The phenomenon was started by James Marshall when he found gold in the American River and he said “My heart thumped for I knew it was gold.” Because of his findings the California Gold Rush was born in 1848, then died seven years later in 1855. During these seven years California accumulated over 300,000 people that left their homes to mine for gold. If the gold rush never happened California would most likely belong to Mexico. The California Gold Rush, a phenomenon that drew thousands of people trying to strike it rich with gold had both positive and negative effects in California.

II. California would not be as big as it is now without the California Gold Rush.

People came from all over the United States and the world to strike it rich in California.

a. Some of the countries people came from were South America, Europe, Mexico, Hawaii, and China.

b. People came from all of the other U.S. states as well.

c. The people that traveled to California and left everything behind were called the 49ers.

C. The gold rush affected many other things in California as well.

a. San Francisco’s newspaper was closed due to all the employees quitting their jobs to gold mine.

b. California became a state of the U.S. after the California Gold Rush occurred.

c. Because California was so new to the U.S., there was no governing rule in the state, this meant that robberies were common and there was not much the people could do about it.

III. The journey to California was long and treacherous for most of the people that traveled to California.

A. People traveled on two main routes; the land route and the ocean route.

a. Land travel to the gold rush was very challenging.

i. The furthest land route to California took around seven months. ii. The main way people traveled on land was was by horse and buggy, which was very hard because there were very few roads to travel on.

b. Ocean travel to the gold rush was the other mode of

The California Gold Rush is a unique point in history that helped to shape the U.S. Without the gold rush, California may not be considered a part of the U.S. because it could easily have been acquired by Mexico. With the gold rush the U.S. wanted to obtain California both for its gold and to expand its growing population. Obtaining California was a benefit for many reasons. However, the part of the landscape of California was ruined in the process because many of its rivers were diverted destroying much of its natural landscape. The California Gold Rush marked a significant event in U.S. history that will be remembered