The California Gold Rush and Manifest Destiny

California before the Gold Rush

• Settled mostly by Native Americans and Californios (Mexicans living in California)

• At the end of the war, the United States acquired California through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo after they won the Mexican-American War

Gold is discovered On January 24, 1848 James W. Marshall found gold along the American River.

• Marshall quietly brought what he found to his boss, John Sutter.• Sutter was dismayed by this, and wanted to keep the news quiet because he feared what would happen to his plans for an agricultural empire if there were a gold rush.• Rumors spread anyway, and soon thousands made their way to California to get rich quickly.

The World Rushes In

• By 1849, tens of thousands of gold seekers from around the world had joined the California gold rush

• 2/3 were Americans• The rest came from Mexico, South

America, Europe, Australia, and China

49er?

The real 49ers

• Most were young men• Spent long days digging up mud, dirt,

and stones while standing knee-deep in icy streams

• Most originally wanted to return home, but many ended up staying in California

The Effects of the California Gold Rush

• San Francisco and Sacramento grew from small settlements to boomtowns, and roads, churches, schools and other towns were built throughout California.

• A system of laws and a government were created, leading to the admission of California as a free state in 1850.

California’s Native Americans

• Between 1848 and 1870, warfare and disease reduced their number from about 150,000 to just 30,000

Manifest Destiny

• Literally means “obvious fate”• Coined in 1845 by John O’Sullivan, a

New York newspaperman. He wrote that it was America’s “manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent.”

• However, In 1845, Oregon territory, California, and Texas, were not yet part of the United States!