What Is The Rise Of The California Gold Rush

Throughout the first half of the 19th Century, the state of California, and the cities in between were exceptionally low populated. As a matter of fact, all of this changed within a few years. The California Gold Rush was a “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” (Encyclopedia Britannica). Within the mid 1800s, the cities of Sacramento and Los Angeles had little to no population. When the California Gold Rush first sparked, thousands upon thousands of people came into the state via boat, or by any means of transportation possible. As soon as people started
On December 6th, 1848, it was approaching big time. The people that were there knew that they were going to get rich quick, and what most people do not know, anybody else that was planning to make the trek to California, was also going to get rich quick. Just after the Mexican War, the California Gold Rush was going to begin, and new territories were establishing. The search for gold was a huge deal because in the mid 19th century, many people were not wealthy. In fact, a lot of people did not have any money, and they risked their lives to come to the state of California and try to find this gold. Hernando de Soto was one of the first Spanish Conquistadors to come to California and he was famous for his expedition. Once he decided to come here, this drew so many more people from all over the world to come search for this gold. The problem with all of the people coming in was that all of this gold was not going to withstand all of these people, so not everyone will get rich. But, Sam Brannan was the first ever millionaire and profited most from the gold rush. This was one of thousands of people that acquired a lot of money throughout this time period. There were many more people that gained massive amounts of money, and most of them did not even live in California. They came over from other states and other
John Sutter was the first person ever to find a gold nugget, and as soon as that happened, the word spread around rapidly. The first people who found these gold flakes did not want the word to get out this fast and significantly because all of the gold was extracted within a few years .An influx of people were finding gold non-stop all over every street, town, and city. Surprisingly enough, John Sutter was one of the thousands of people who did not get rich from this event in history. ”Sutter, initially more interested in maintaining control over his property, tried to keep the discovery quiet, but the news quickly leaked out. Within months, most of his workers had abandoned him to search for gold themselves, while thousands of other prospectors overran and destroyed much of his land and equipment. Faced with mounting debts, Sutter was forced to deed his land to one of his sons, who used it to create a new settlement called Sacramento. Sutter Sr. was furious—he had hoped the town would be named after him—but he had more pressing concerns. Nearly bankrupt, he began a decades-long campaign to have the U.S. government reimburse him for his financial losses, to no avail. While thousands became rich off his former land, a bitter Sutter retired to Pennsylvania and died” (Maranzani). There were two routes that lead to San Francisco that people followed to get the gold. People came all the way from New York and took a