America Past; D22; The Gold Rush

[Beep] [Sound effect] [Music] This is supposed to be easy. Panning for gold. You've simply got a little water and sand and gravel in your pan. You sloshed it around. And you dipped it out. The heavier gold would settle to the bottom. The trashy stuff

would wash away. The first gold discovered in California was this type of gold. It wasSurface gold. You could get out of it with a pick and shovel. Or just pan out of the streams. That's where you get your ol' individual prospector with his mule and his pick and traveling around the western mountains. Later you had to drill for gold. And that takes all the fun out of it. The big mining companies came in, drilling 200 feet underground. You couldn't do that, by yourself. Gold was discovered in 1848 in California. We had just received that area from Mexico. We wonder if Mexico would have given it to us for $15 million dollars if she had known that gold is going to be discovered. Probably not, in spite of having lost the Mexican War. Before we get back to the Gold Rush, I want to get back to the Mexican Cession. want to go back to the Mexican Cession, the territory that we received in

1848. Just a couple other points to mention concerning that. The Mexican Cession is that vast expansive land across California, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and part of Colorado that we acquired as a result of the war between the United States and Mexico in 1848. Much of it was privately owned. And the treaty that ended the war, The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, said that people who own land, Mexican citizens who own land, would, of course, be allowed to keep that land. [Music begins playing] Many of them had owned it for hundreds of years, 250 years. Some of it went back to grants made by the king of Spain to their ancestors. And there was no question in anybody's mind that they owned this land. Everybody knew that family controlled that territory. But a problem arose. You see, after 1848, [Music ends] Americans began streaming into that territory. And they began to try to take over the area and they demanded proof

that you owned the land. Now your neighbors and your friends and you, knew you owned the land. But could you prove it in a court of law, or was it just custom? Was it just understood? Do you still have the deed or has it been lost? Has the land grant been lost? Well Americans began to challenge this. These cases would go into the courts. The courts were nearly always manned by Citizens United States or judges from the United States. Who tended to rule in favor of the Anglos, against the old Spanish families that owned this land. So many of them lost it. To this day some families are still trying to regain the territory that they lost, as a result of Americans moving into the southwest after the Mexican War. It is, of course, virtually a hopeless legal tangle by now. One other comment on the Mexican War. It certainly qualifies as one of the most unpopular wars in our history. The War of 1812 had been unpopular,

at least in the northeast. Certainly in the 20th century the Vietnamese war would qualify as an unpopular war. The Mexican War was, to a great extent too. Many people looked upon that war as just a war for expansion. A strong neighbor taking something from a weaker neighbor. And they felt that was dishonorable. General Grant, who had fought in the war, said it was the most unjust war in history. Others opposed it because they saw it as a war that would expand slavery. That Southerners had wanted the war, because they wanted the territory, because they wanted slavery to expand. A young congressman from Illinois had stood up in Congress, in the House of Representatives, and demanded that President Polk show him the spot where Mexico had invaded the United States. It's called the Spot Resolutions. The young congressman later did rather well in American politics. So, it was an unpopular

war. If you look at the map of the territory we gained, at that time, you'll see some people living in California and up in Oregon. Those spots represent population areas, most of the area is blank but there's a little dot in the middle of Utah. Now what does that represent? What people would have been living in Utah in 1848. Well, The Mormons. The members of what are called the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. They were about the only American inhabitants between Missouri and the West Coast. Oddly enough they had moved to Utah to get away from the United States. And they got there just in time to find out that Mexico had given us that territory and they were right back into the country they were trying to escape from. Why were they trying to escape? Well obviously they were unhappy in the United States, that's why. The Mormon religion had developed in western New York. [Choir Music] It had been founded by Joseph

Smith. Joseph Smith had been led to some buried tablets, some gold tablets, to form the basis of their religion. The basis of the Book of Mormon. But the Mormons had moved into the Midwest and had trouble with their neighbors. They were persecuted for various reasons. And settled in Missouri, Ohio, and Illinois, particularly in the town of Nauvoo, Illinois. Nauvoo was a large Mormon settlement. It fact it was the second largest town in Illinois. They had their temple there. They had their own private army even for protection because of unhappy neighbors. Joseph Smith was murdered just outside of Nauvoo, in Carthage, Illinois. And at that time the Mormons decide to move to the west. To move away from the United States. Fortunately they came up with a very charismatic and capable leader to guide them to the west in Brigham Young. And Brigham Young believed that God would tell him when they had reached the spot where they should settle. So

taking their belongings they move across Nebraska across the Rocky Mountains and they emerged into the Salt Lake Valley of Utah. And at that point Brigham Young said this is the place.[Choir music ends] If you go to Salt Lake you can still see a monument there called the This is the Place Monument. You also see the Mormon tabernacle which they built without using any nails. And the famous Mormon temple. They were going to establish a very successful prosperous community in Utah. Why have they been unpopular? A variety of reasons. They were opposed to slavery and many people in Illinois favored slavery. They were prosperous. They looked after each other economically. And much of Illinois was poor. And if you're poor a bunch of prosperous people around you can be irritating. The Mormons believe that theirs was the one true religion. A lot of religions feel that way but they made a point of it in those early years, in particular, and that made them unpopular. And then they were trying to lead their life the way life was led during biblical

times. And that meant polygamy, having more than one wife. Well as soon as they started practicing that, they were instantly labeled, of course, as peculiar. So they moved to Utah to get away from the persecution. And when Utah becomes a state the polygamy part of their religion, of course, has to be dropped. But in 1848 they were one of the few groups of Americans settled in the Mexican Cession. But before long, they're going to have lots of company as people start moving to the west. [Music begins] Gold was discovered in California in January of 1848. And the way of life in the West was never the same again. The very landscape,

was scarred. Americans character was affected. New states were added to the union. New problems arose for the government.[Music stops] Gold was discovered on the land of John Sutter, near Sacramento, California. Sutter was a Swiss immigrant, who came over here and was doing very well. In fact he was leading the life virtually of a feudal Baron on his estate. He was in the lumber business. He was grazing cattle. He had vineyards. He had a large workforce. And his own little private army complete with uniforms to guard it all. And was on his property that gold was discovered. One of his workmen, James Marshall, was building a mill, a farm mill, looked into the water, and saw gold. Sutter wrote in his diary that day, 'Some metal found today, looks like gold'. Probably did not realize what chain of events would be set in motion by that discovery. If he thought about the chain of events he wasn't happy he wanted to keep the discovery a secret.

Not so much because he wanted the gold himself but because he envisioned people coming in trampling over his property, ruining everything and upsetting his whole lifestyle. But keeping the discovery of gold secret is a little hard. People are going to talk. Some say that Sutter himself got in his cups one night at the local saloon and blurted it out. However it happened, by the end of the year, President Polk had announced, on the floor of Congress, that gold had been discovered in California, 3000 miles away. The first affected were people of course living in California. Sailors would just desert their ships. There were ships there that had come to haul animal hides back around Cape Horn to the east coast. Very few sailors were interested in hanging around and piling up animal hides in the hold of a ship when there's gold just a few miles inland. They took off and captains found they had no crews. Other people just dropped what they were doing and

left. It was easy gold. People knew they could get to it by just panning it or using a pick and shovel. Sutters' fears, of course, were fully realized. Maybe the Mayor of Monterey, California gave a pretty accurate description of what happened in most places. "The excitement produced was intense and many were soon busy in the hasty preparations for departure. The family who kept house for me caught the moving fever. Husband and wife were both packing up. The blacksmith dropped his hammer; the carpenter his plane; the mason his trowel; the farmer his sickle; the baker his loaf; and the barkeep his bottle. All were off for the mines. Some on horses, some in carts, some on crutches and one in a litter." I guess the real surprise is that the Mayor of Monterey wasn't joining in the rush, to stake himself out a claim. This is the beginning of the great gold rush. The gold rush of

1849, the coming of the Forty Niners. And what a curious mixture of Eastern farmers, merchants, laborers, criminals, one step ahead of the law, a sprinkling of saints, all pouring to the west, to get rich. San Francisco was the jumping off place to the mines. That grew from a small town of tents to a city of 40,000. Costs were incredible. Rooms were renting for a thousand dollars a month and eggs selling for $10 a dozen. But we don't care. We're all going to get rich. What's $10 to us. Men went armed as a matter of course in these mining town, shootings were seldom investigated. [Music and shots fired] [Music]

What Law and Order there was, was generally enforced by groups known as vigilantes. Vigilantes were just groups of citizens who banded together to try to preserve at least a modicum of order. Groups that usually operated under the theory that you should give a man a fair trial and then hang him. Looking at the ghost towns scattered through the West today, it's hard to imagine what they were like in their prime. [Music] "In those mining camps named Poker Flats, Hang Town, Whiskey Bar, Hell's Delight, Skunk Gulch, Dead Dog and the like were some of the most colorful desperadoes gathered in one spot: Missouri farmers, Yankee sailors, English shopkeepers, French peasants, Mexican peons, the heathen Chinese, and a liberal sprinkling of assassins from Hell."{Music ends]

That descriptions probably pretty accurate. Not only for the gold camps in California, but those that came later in Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, as they had their own gold rushes in the 50's, 60's, and 70's. In the long run very few prospectors, a very small percentage, made a lot of money. Some did. Some moved from their Miner's shack into a mansion on Nob Hill in San Francisco. But James Marshall, who discovered gold in the first place, died poor, trying to get people to pay him for his autograph. John Sutter, on whose land gold had been discovered, was penniless, suing the government for damages done by prospectors moving across his property. A lot of the money that was made, was made by people who came to provide services to the miners. Who ran mining supply stores, or kept saloons. A lot of money was exchanged in saloons or hotels. You didn't have to have

much of a building to call it a hotel in those days. Just a big ol' room, hang sheets from the ceiling and people rented space in between those sheets. Would you really want to go to sleep in there at night, with here's your diggings from the mines. Next to you is some killer and you're lying there hoping you wake up in the same place or at least the same world. In spite of the dangers, the shootings, the problems, there was never any shortage of people wanting to come to the west. The lure of gold was strong. Depression and hard times in the East made people want to leave. The only real question was how would they get to California. [Music] Whatever route you chose for going to the West, you were going to have half a continent in front of you.[Music ends]

You were going to have deserts to cross, plains, mountains to scale and rivers to ford. Actually there were two water routes and two land routes that were pretty popular. Those often used was the land route along the Oregon Trail. The Oregon Trail lead across Nebraska followed the Platte River but instead of going to Oregon, in this case, they cut down toward California. That was probably the fastest route but it had some problems. The Sioux Indians were along there. They could be rather unfriendly as George Custer found out a few years later. Also if you didn't start out on that route early enough in the year you were going to get to the mountains and it was going to be winter time. And you run the risk of being trapped. Like the Donner party. The Donner party got caught on what is now called Donner Pass. And they got snowed in and they spent the whole winter there. Almost half of them died. Those that

survived were reduced to eating the bodies of those who had died. Stories like that got back to the east. People read them. They saw nothing particularly desirable about that sort of experience and they looked for other routes. You could take the southern route, follow the Santa Fe Trail on the Arkansas River, cut down through New Mexico and Arizona into Southern California and then up to San Francisco. That was a little longer. It also had Indians, The Comanche and The Apache. And it was a lot hotter. And you're plodding along in a covered wagon, ten miles a day. The trail was lined with the bleached skulls of oxen along there. Nothing encouraging about that route. But you're going to be rich, you'll put up with it. You'll survive. You're going to get to California, and the money will come rolling in. If you want to be a coward about it all you can go buy water. The safest and the longest water route went around the tip of South America. Clear down there and

backup. That was fairly safe. But all the time you're on that ship slowly sailing along, you're going to have in your head 'there's people already getting to California. All the gold is going to be claimed. There's going to be nothing left for me. And here I am out here in the middle of the ocean waiting.' If you kind of want to compromise you could take a ship from the east coast of the United States down to Panama. Walk across the Isthmus of Panama; getting the yellow fever and malaria and other unpleasantries while you did so. On the other side you could try to catch a ship headed north. Hoping one would stop, hoping there was room for you on it, and again hoping there was gold left by time you got there. Cartoonists had a field day depicting the Forty-Niners and their various attempts to get to the gold fields. Now, What is the significance of this whole westward movement, at least as far as the United

States was concerned? The immediate significance. Obviously we fulfilled our manifest destiny. We spread to the Pacific. There are no more major chunks of North America that we will acquire until we purchase Alaska later from the Russians. So it did that and it brought a lot of money into the country from the goldfields. Anything else? Yes, it is going to bring up a key question, a crucial question. Will this territory out here. Is this going to be slave or free? That question had come up before in regard to the Louisiana territory. At that time Congress worked out a system called the Missouri Compromise, that said the northern part of Louisiana would be free and the southern part slave. Many people naively thought that the Missouri Compromise had settled the slavery question, forever. When we were fighting the war with Mexico, slavery hadn't even been discussed during that period much. There had been a period about 20 years, that there, there was a rule,

actually a rule in Congress, that you would not discuss the question of the expansion of slavery. It was called the gag rule. And one time when they were voting on a bill to spend money for the war, a young representative from Pennsylvania, named David Wilmont, stood up. And he had an amendment, added an amendment to a bill, this money bill, in which he said that if we should gain any territory as a result of the war, it was to be free territory. That was called the Wilmot Proviso. The Wilmot Proviso. It provided that there would be no slavery in the territory we got from Mexico. People were astounded. You're not supposed to discuss that. And here's this young congressman standing up and bringing up that issue again. Well they voted him down. He kept getting up and adding it to every bill that came along. And again they would vote it down. But they couldn't vote away the question. Sooner or later this territory was going to be added and sooner or later you have to answer that question. Well, how are you going to answer it?

Well you can let Congress decide, they had decided about the Missouri Compromise. Let them decide the issue. Or you could let the people living out here. Let them vote on it. That would be called popular sovereignty. Let the people who are living there vote on the question, popular sovereignty. There was an election coming up in 1848. Why not make it a campaign issue see what the people think. There's a good chance. But neither party saw fit to do that. They ignored the issue. That election was won by Zachary Taylor. Taylor had been a hero in the Mexican War and never even voted before. One newspaper man says his mere nomination was an insult to the intelligence of the American people. But as a people we seem to often like our intelligence to be insulted and he was nominated. His campaign manager said we'll just mix in a little humbug with his military record and he'll be elected. Which he was. Defeated the

Democratic candidate, Lewis Cass. Not many people have heard of Cass today, not many people had heard of him then. He lost. Then you got the question right away. How are we going to deal with this expansion? Well the solution comes, a temporary solution comes, with what's called the Compromise of 1850. They had a compromised, nobody was completely satisfied with it. Nobody was completely irritated, everybody just sort of mad about it. It was dreamed up by Henry Clay, Called the great compromiser, 73 years old, has two years to live. Reaching the end of a long and distinguished career. And in the compromise he's proposed this. First of all, California would be admitted as a free state. They would be free. The rest of the territory that we got from Mexico, the people living there could decide for themselves. So on the rest of the Mexican cession we would employ popular sovereignty. That gave the south at least a chance to spread slavery. It

didn't guarantee it. I mean, were those areas going to be suitable for cotton plantations? Would slavery move there if they could move there? Maybe they should have just let geography take care of it. One thing for the North then, California is free, the north is happy. The rest of the area popular sovereignty, the south is sort of happy. The compromise also outlawed the slave trade in Washington DC. It did not outlaw slavery there, but it outlawed the slave trade. There seem to be something wrong with the greatest democracy on earth, with the Declaration of Independence right inside, having a slave market outside. So it is abolished and that pleased the north. The South, one other provision for it. Northerners were required to help return runaway slaves. That was called the Fugitive Slave Act. The North must help return these slaves and you must help hunt them down so they can be found and returned. A hard law to enforce. How do you know I saw a runaway slave? I'll just say

I never saw one. I would report it if I did, sure I would, but I just never saw one. So using this slave law to please the South, abolish slave trade South. Abolish slave trade in Washington DC to please the North. Allowed people to vote on slavery in the southwest, that pleased the South. California a free state in order to please the North. That is a temporary solution. They thought it would be permanent. Eleven years later the civil war begins. Began because of a series of events between 1850 and 1860. They are going to rush us toward that conflict, a conflict that some thought was already inevitable. [Music] [Music]

Thank you.