Gold Rush America 19th century. America's Gold Rush

California Gold Rush - unorganized massive gold mining in California in the years 1848-1855. The gold rush began on January 24, 1848, when James W. Marshall discovered gold near Sutter's sawmill, owned by California entrepreneur John Sutter, on the American River. As soon as news of the discovery spread, about 300 thousand people. arrived in California from other US states and abroad.

The first gold miners, who became known as the "Men of '49," traveled to California on sailing ships and boxcars from across the continent, often encountering significant difficulties along the way. The Gold Rush also attracted tens of thousands of volunteers from Latvia. America, Europe, Australia and Asia. Gold worth several billions of today's dollars was discovered, increasing the fortunes of some miners. Others, however, returned home empty-handed.

The consequences of the gold rush were numerous. In just a few years, San Francisco grew from a small town to a large settlement, roads, schools and churches were built in California. A system of laws was created, and in 1850 California officially became a US state, now often called the “Golden State.” The agricultural sector has grown and developed dramatically. However, the gold rush in California also had a number of negative consequences, including the displacement of Indians from their traditional lands and harm to the environment.

It all started not far from Sutter's sawmill near the town of Coloma. On January 24, 1848, James W. Marshall, working for John Sutter, discovered pieces of gold in a water wheel on the Russian River. He took the find to Sutter, and the two of them carefully checked the metal, confirming the guess that it was gold. Sutter was very concerned and wanted this information to remain secret, because he was afraid that his agricultural business would suffer if a massive search for gold began. However, rumors soon spread, which were confirmed in March 1848 by newspaper publisher and merchant Brennan from San Francisco. After he opened his gold trading business, he walked the streets of San Francisco holding a vial of the precious metal over his head, exclaiming “Gold! Gold! Gold from the American River." After this, many Californian families who had previously been farmers decided to go in search of gold, becoming the first prospectors.

On August 19, 1848, the New York Herald, the most widely circulated newspaper on the East Coast at that time, reported the beginning of a gold rush in California, and on December 5, US President James Polk confirmed this in his address to Congress. Soon, huge numbers of immigrants from all over the world, later called the '49ers, came to California. Sutter's worst fears were confirmed; his business was destroyed; workers left in search of gold, and settlers settled on his land, stealing grain and livestock.


Sutter's sawmill in 1850
Before the fever began, San Francisco was a tiny community. When its inhabitants learned about the discovery of gold, the town was deserted, and people abandoned their affairs and joined the search for gold. However, many immigrants and merchants subsequently arrived in the city, leading to its dramatic growth. The population grew from about 1,000 people in 1848 to 25,000 permanent residents in 1850. As with many rush towns, the sudden influx of people undermined the infrastructure of San Francisco and other towns near the gold mines. People lived in tents, wooden shacks, or cabins salvaged from abandoned ships. In each camp of such buildings there was a saloon and a casino.

It was very difficult to come to California in those days. “Argonauts” (that’s another name for the people of ’49) initially arrived mostly by water transport. From the east coast, such a journey through South America took from 5 to 8 months. Other waterways lay through Panama and Nicaragua. Also, many gold miners came from the eastern shore along the overland road, the so-called California Route.

On each of these routes, the “Argonauts” faced various dangers: from shipwrecks to epidemics of typhoid and cholera.

Due to the fever, a whole cluster of abandoned ships ended up in the port of San Francisco. The townspeople turned these ships into warehouses, shops, taverns, hotels, and one ship even became a prison.

A few years later, some of the arrivals began to move further to northern California, for example, to the site of modern Trinity. Findings of gold in Wireke caused an increase in the flow of immigrants to those areas.

San Francisco in 1851

Only one in twenty gold miners returned from California richer than they were before coming here.

Stefan Zweig once wrote an essay, “The Discovery of Eldorado,” in which he called the discovery of gold deposits in the United States the finest hour of mankind. This hour cost dearly one of the owners of Eldorado, John Augustus Sutter. But first things first.

It is believed that white settlers first discovered gold in 1799, when a 17-pound gold nugget was discovered in the river. Unaware of the value of the find, its owners used it as a door stop for several years. The second case was not so incidental. In 1828, gold was discovered in Georgia by a certain Benjamin Parks. The news excited people so much that the town of Nuckallsville, near which gold was found, was renamed Auraria - from the Latin aurum, which means “gold”. The reserves of the precious metal were large enough to establish a mint nearby in Dahlonega, which existed until 1861. But, of course, in scale and significance these episodes cannot compete with the two most famous gold mining campaigns in history USA - California and Alaska.

It’s not for nothing that California is called the “golden state” - it was thanks to the quickly spreading news of gold found here that this region survived into the 19th century. the invasion of a huge number of people eager to get rich quickly, and it was then that the beginning of such a rapid growth and development of California was laid. It all started on the cold morning of January 28, 1848: James Wilson Marshall, one of the workers who built a sawmill for Sutter, on the banks of the American River near Sacramento, discovered something very similar to gold. He showed it to Sutter, and a simple test of the find with nitric acid showed that this pea-sized piece of rock was gold of the highest standard.

The two months that Sutter kept the discovery a secret were relatively quiet. Few people took seriously the information about Marshall's discovery, published on March 15 in The Californian newspaper. Californians were more concerned about the final salvos of the Mexican-American War, which ended on February 2 with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which gave Alta California to the United States. Most considered the description of the find to be an ordinary newspaper duck. Yes, people appeared in the vicinity and began to look for gold, but there was no talk of any massive searches.

But on May 12, everything changed: the famous merchant, publisher and Mormon Sam Brannan ran through the streets of San Francisco shouting: “Gold! Gold! Gold from the American River!” In his hands he held a bottle of precious sand. Brennan personally did not mine any gold. They just paid with sand in his shop. Brannan began to massively and methodically spread rumors about the untold riches hidden in the depths of California, but he himself did not even think about prospecting - he perfectly understood that when the massive influx of gold miners began, he would be able to make a fortune for himself without even touching a shovel: seekers of fortune You will need basins, shovels, axes, pots and various utensils. Showing enviable enterprise, Brannan was soon able to accumulate very significant reserves of various utensils and tools, which he later sold at a huge profit.

Rumors quickly took their toll, and on May 27, mass desertion of the crews of ships stationed in San Francisco began. The commander of the Pacific Flotilla, Commodore Jones, announced a reward for the capture of deserters, but in the mountains they clearly paid more. By June 4, there were already two hundred abandoned ships in San Francisco. Persons of liberal professions joined the sailors bound by military discipline.

On May 29, The Californian newspaper ceased publication, whose employees went in search of gold. On June 14, the California Star newspaper was interrupted. The journalists decided to extract all the sensations from underground. When the ratification of the peace treaty with Mexico was announced on August 7, no one cared. The population fled in search of easy money.

On June 12, the governor of California, Colonel (later General) R.B. Mason, went in search of the escaped population, accompanied by a young lieutenant (and future general) William Sherman. They left Monterey, then the capital of California, and reached San Francisco on June 20, where “almost not a single man” remained. However, there were probably few women either.

On June 24, officials set out for the American River. The countryside they passed through looked as deserted as the city. Abandoned farms, neglected fields... July 2 at Fort Sutter, Mason and Sherman found mostly traders. The owner of the Sutter gold lands complained that he had only four workers left, to whom he had to pay $10 a day. They paid an unheard-of price for renting a room - $100 a month, for a house - $500. But when Mason and Sherman got to the Mormon Mines (Mormon Island), they saw hundreds of people bustling around the rock washing trays. Gold was found in the Mormon mines a little later than the first discovery on the American River. To the north of these sites, on July 4, John Bidwell found rich deposits of gold, which brought one of the prospectors income sufficient to purchase a three-story house.

Gold literally flowed like a river. Even the Indians, who were not allowed access to modern technologies, also became adept at washing gold using pans and baskets. On July 7, officials reached Webers Creek, west of Sacramento, where Sunol & Company was already operating. I wonder who registered it? The prospectors thoughtfully presented the governor with small gold-bearing samples, which were then sent to Washington along with an official report. Mason's report contained detailed information not only on gold mining, but also on prices and wages.

Things got even more fun when, on August 19, the New York Herald published an article about gold deposits being found. The magical legends found tangible confirmation in the form of Lieutenant Lucian Lauser, who reached Washington with 6.5 kg of gold.

Residents of other states remote from it also flocked to California. Moreover, having heard about gold, even miners from Chile and Mexico began to arrive. Some residents of the Hawaiian Islands also moved to the mainland. Many of those who arrived not only worked themselves, they called friends and relatives for help, and even hired Indians to help them. By the end of the year, about 6 thousand people arrived in California. By this time, it was already possible to sum up some impressive results: on November 28, the warship Lexington left San Francisco, on board which was half a million dollars worth of gold intended for minting coins. This was very lucky for the Murphy brothers, who, after just a few days of searching south of Webers Creek, came across gold deposits that made it possible to equip this ship.

On December 5, the discovery of the field was officially confirmed by US President James Polk in an address to Congress. This news meant nothing to Polk himself: he was already leaving the White House. But the rest received hope for quick enrichment.

At the initiative of Sutter and Brannan, the construction of the new capital of the gold-bearing territory began in Sacramento - closer to the fabulously rich American River. And so the already provincial San Francisco turned into a “ghost town” with abandoned houses, businesses and shops. It’s time to write notices on every abandoned house: “Everyone has gone to the mine.” Gold miners were not afraid of anything: neither arrows, nor bullets, nor the record low temperature for California on December 31, 1848. A year after Marshall’s discovery, the gold rush truly took over the country. Despite the fact that traveling to California was not an easy task due to the lack of a developed road network at that time, such difficulties did not stop people - according to some estimates, about 80 thousand people arrived there in 1849, and another 90-100 the following year thousand From 1848 to 1852 the state's population grew 6.5 times compared to the pre-war years and amounted to 255 thousand people. At the local mines one could meet teachers and soldiers, farmers and merchants, doctors and lawyers - they all came here to realize their “American dream”. These crowds of prospectors were later called the “Forty-Niners” (the same name now used by the football team from San Francisco - the San Francisco 49ers) or “Argonauts”, because the path to California ran not only by land, but also by sea. These "Argonauts" were Europeans. Yes, they took a risk, but they believed that the gold they found would pay for the travel expenses. The prices, however, were "ridiculous" in modern times: fare on a ship from Liverpool to New York was $18, including supplies of such products as bread, water, flour, oatmeal, corned beef, tea, sugar and molasses. By 1851, the price for boat travel had risen to $50.

Transport connections with California became increasingly intense. By the end of 1849, the San Francisco Customs Office reported that 697 ships had arrived in California during the year, of which 401 were American. On January 27, 1855, construction of the railway across the Isthmus of Panama was completed, and the Panama Canal was already looming in the dreams of some engineers.

Brennan, on the other hand, made a fortune: in addition to pots and shovels, he sold everything to those arriving - from drinking water, which suddenly turned out to be in short supply, to clothing and toiletries. Others also did not lag behind, such as the “father” of jeans, Levi Strauss.

And gold miners kept coming and coming to California - with enviable regularity. However, the easy time of gold mining was already in the past. Everything that could be found on the surface in the Sutter Fort area near Coloma was sifted by the tireless Californians and residents of other states using ordinary kitchen utensils.

But the further gold mining unfolded, the deeper it was necessary to dig to get to the precious sand or vein. Among those who arrived, professional miners from Georgia, Chile and England began to appear more and more often, who were able to distinguish at least a dozen minerals from each other. And mining went from being a fun activity to find shiny pebbles to being a regular mining operation with underground workers, fastening materials, ventilation and water pumping.

It was impossible to mine gold on enthusiasm alone, read - greed. Thousands of gold miners had to be fed, provided with clothing, and, finally, simply exchanged gold for money. And auxiliary enterprises and institutions began to rapidly grow around the gold mines. At the end of 1848, on the initiative of Colonel Mason, a store was opened to serve miners. It was necessary to take care of storing the money earned. On January 9, 1849, Henry Nagley and Richard Sinton opened a bank in San Francisco called The Exchange and Deposit Office. The sharks also reached out for the small fish. In 1849, an agency of the Paris office of the Rothschilds was opened in San Francisco, headed by Benjamin Davidson and John May.

At the same time as technical and financial issues, it was necessary to understand the legal status of gold miners. The problem was that private land ownership had not yet developed in California; vast areas were simply uninhabited or inhabited by Indians, for whom land ownership was of little importance. Therefore, it was enough for gold miners to simply seize the desired area and stake it out. In the absence of American legislation, Mexican law was used, according to which a "claim" for a gold-bearing site was valid while the site was in active use. Often sites were abandoned almost immediately if they turned out to be unpromising. Simultaneously with the “applications,” “reapplications” occurred, when new applicants appeared for an already occupied site. Conflicts between gold miners were resolved either through arbitration or weapons.

Only in 1866 and 1872. laws were passed regulating mining. At the same time, a standard fee was established for an application per acre with ore veins ($5) and placers ($2.5). Just recently, in 1992, the United States had to pass a special law banning trading in non-working “applications”. The new application price was set at $100 per year.

Unregulated mining wasn't the only legal problem in California. Along with the growth of mines, the number of people wishing to make money by extracting gold not from underground, but from the pockets of gold miners, grew. Among the “knife and ax workers,” Joaquin Murieta, the same hero of the musical, especially distinguished himself, although to this day it is unknown which of the six criminal Joaquins bore that surname. Both individual robbers and entire gangs acted. One of these gangs called "Hounds" operated in San Francisco.

To cope with the criminal invasion, a large police force was required, which was almost non-existent in California - there were too many gold miners in the gold-bearing country to be distracted by maintaining order. Ultimately, more or less law-abiding citizens decided to “take the law into their own hands.” The Law and Order Party was even formed. In the 50s XIX century A movement of “vigilance committees” (“vigilants”) spread throughout California, which for some time replaced both the police and the court. In essence, these were “lynchings.” Newspapers were full of advertisements like "Hurry to see! The head of Joaquin Murieta and the hand of Three-Fingered Jack!"

Simultaneously with the destruction of criminal elements, gold miners tried to liberate rich territories from the indigenous inhabitants of these places. As a result of wild massacres (combined with epidemics), the number of California Indians decreased from 150 thousand people in 1845 to 30 thousand in 1870. Most of them were destroyed during the gold rush. California Governor Peter Burnett told the legislature that "a war of extermination will be the order of the day until the Indian race disappears."

It is believed that American history, rich in bloody skirmishes with Indians, does not contain anything even close to the destruction of the Californian tribes, to which the physical term “annihilation” is applied. The survivors were settled on reservations and then moved to other reservations.

Gold miners of European descent were treated more tolerantly, but not always leniently. For example, one of the fathers of the “gold rush,” Sam Brannan, decided, in addition to payment for goods, to collect “tithes” from Mormons purely for church needs. It took some time for the parishioners to flatly refuse to pay these voluntary levies. It was becoming increasingly difficult for the owners of gold-bearing lands to endure the arbitrariness, and they decided to establish at least some kind of authorized civil authority.

California never received the usual intermediate "territory" status in the United States, remaining in 1848-1850. a zone under martial law with a military governor. Everything depended on the number of soldiers who, during the “gold rush,” scattered in search of treasures. To replenish the dwindling troops, reinforcements were transferred to California by sea. On April 12, 1849, a brigade arrived in San Francisco under the command of General Bennett Riley, who replaced Mason, who had been promoted to brigadier general, as military governor.

On June 3, the new governor announced the convening of a “Constitutional Convention” (Constituent Assembly) in Monterey. On September 1, 1849, meetings of the convention opened, which approved the State Constitution on October 13. California's motto became one word: "Eureka." With good reason, one could say that the Californians had found a “gold mine” that allowed them to become a full-fledged state in the shortest possible time.

California's admission to the Federation was accompanied by heated discussions in Congress about the fate of slavery in the new state. As a result, a compromise was reached in 1850, according to which slavery was prohibited in California. Having settled federal problems, California became the full 31st state on September 9, 1850. The new status allowed local legislators to protect the interests of the main part of the population - gold miners. The rights of Mexican landowners stated in the US-Mexico Treaty were completely ignored. These plots of land brought many miners income without any rent. But new gold miners were accepted very reluctantly. A gold mining tax of $20 per month, specially introduced on April 13, 1850, began to be levied on foreign citizens. This act marked the beginning of a whole series of “anti-Chinese” laws.

The flow of gold never dried up. On May 1, 1850, the steamship Panama left San Francisco with $1.5 million in gold. According to the official report on October 26, 1850, 57 thousand people were engaged in gold mining in California.

Despite increased competition and financial barriers, gold miners continued to arrive from all over the world. Among them appeared a large group of participants in the European revolutions of 1848, forced to emigrate for political reasons. Chinese and Latin Americans continued to arrive, but the main migrants were still Americans.

In 1851, fugitive slave Jim Beckwurth discovered a passage in the Sierra Nevada Mountains that allowed a shorter route to California. People still traveled in wagons, but plans were already being made in Boston to build a railroad to California. For the convenience of gold miners, regular service on the Sacramento River was opened on December 1, 1849 using six steamboats. A ticket from San Francisco to Sacramento cost $30. It was a little expensive, but people were not traveling for the fog, but for gold.

Single miners still tried to find rich placers, but they were gradually replaced by gold mining firms. Mining was increasingly transformed from a cottage industry into an industrial enterprise. Instead of a pick and a tray for washing, in the mines, since 1853, hydraulic methods began to be used, which made it possible to wash away the layers with jets of water. Instead of manual crushing of stones, they began to use “mills” that crushed the mined rock. Gold mining increased for some time. During 1849, $10 million worth of gold was mined in California, in 1850 - $41 million, and in 1852 - $81 million. According to other data for 1848-1852. prospectors panned gold worth $51,669,767.

Beginning in 1852, the growth of gold production in California stopped and began to decline. It’s not that there was no gold at all, but it was much more difficult to count on easy income. Many of those who worked in the mines during the best time of gold mining were also unlucky. Historian Oscar Lewis believed that only one in twenty gold miners returned from California richer than they were before the gold rush. It is difficult to verify such statistics, because in California 1848-1852. there was no reliable accounting of the number and income of the population. In addition, many gold miners remained in California: some richer, some poorer.

The discoveries of gold miners allowed some to earn 10-15 times more in California than on the East Coast of the United States (they received six years' income in six months). Of course, for Chinese and Latin Americans the ratio to income in their native places was much greater. The problem was rising prices, which forced gold miners to leave part of their income in California. A significant part of the gold was consumed by transportation costs. The US government was even forced to move the minting of gold coins to California. Ultimately, getting gold was sometimes easier than keeping it.

Not everyone managed to save their wealth. Sutter actually paid dearly: he failed to defend his rights to the gold-bearing land. And Brannan, who started so well, the richest man in California with a fortune of millions (he owned hundreds of hectares in the Los Angeles area), was not lucky. His prosperity was interrupted in 1870. Brennan's wife started a divorce and wanted to get her share in cash. The sale of the Californian millionaire's real estate took place under rather unfavorable conditions. As a result, Brannan spent the rest of his life engaged in an unsuccessful pencil trade and almost became an alcoholic. The discoverer of gold, James Marshall, after several unsuccessful attempts to create his own enterprises, was left without a cent and lived on a government pension.

Along with the decline in income, the number of people willing to cross the ocean in search of gold also decreased. In addition, gold was found in Australia, where a stream of new “Argonauts” headed. A smaller silver rush began in neighboring Nevada, bringing in more treasure hunters, including Mark Twain. Californians could now look down on these “fevers.” The impetus given by the “gold rush” to the development of California was already irreversible.

It must be said that California has not yet run out of gold. To this day, several dozen mines operate here - in the form of mines and quarries. The United States produces $2 billion worth of gold a year, more than was mined during all the years of the California gold rush. Most of this wealth goes to jewelry, but about a quarter of the yellow metal is already consumed by electronics. They receive considerable income from gold mining, but they are no longer enough to give up what they have acquired and go far away.

At first, it was relatively easy to mine gold in California - often it was literally lying under your feet. It was much more difficult to extract the precious metal from the frozen ground of Alaska.

The first mention of “northern” gold dates back to 1872, when it was discovered in southeastern Alaska near Sitka; later it was found in other places. The “first sign” of the Alaskan “gold rush” was the discovery in 1880 by two prospectors on a stream, later called Gold Creek (golden stream), of huge deposits of quartz interspersed with gold. Soon a city appeared on this site, named Juneau in honor of one of the prospectors, Joseph Juneau.

But the Klondike experienced a real influx of gold diggers at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, when news of George Carmack's discovery spread - it was he who discovered a rich gold deposit on Bonanza Creek in 1896.

The harsh nature of Alaska prepared difficult challenges for gold miners; most of the miners could not stand them - so, out of about 100 thousand people who went to the Yukon in the first six months, only about 30 thousand reached their destination.

It was not enough to find gold - it was necessary to get it out of the ground. As a rule, mining was carried out only during a few summer months; the rest of the time, when the ground froze several inches deep, the prospectors whiled away the time in numerous villages.

And again, a large influx of gold miners contributed to the development of not only Alaska, but also, for example, Seattle, which for most prospectors was the last “stronghold of civilization” before the final part of the sea voyage to the “land of eternal silence.”

Many settlements that began as mining villages have not only survived to this day, but have also become quite large cities - for example, Fairbanks.

Today, for those who want to learn more about the times of the “gold rush” and see with their own eyes the places where thousands of people searched for precious metal in the ground, various excursions are held in Alaska and California; Sometimes tourists are even given a chance to try to wash a tray with rock - what if luck smiles on them? And sometimes he smiles...

Based on materials from the magazines "Around the World", "Knowledge is Power".

The Brazilian gold rush is considered the largest in history. It affected about a million people. It broke out in 1690 in the Serra do Espinhaço mountains near the city of Ouro Preto in the state of Minas Gerais.

The so-called bandeirants discovered gold. Initially, they were engaged in theft of Indians into slavery. But when the Portuguese government placed a reward for prospecting for gold and silver in Brazil in the 1660s, the Bandeirantes began searching for precious metals along with the slave trade. And later this became their main activity. The expeditions were not organized by the authorities; their participants provided themselves with everything they needed on their own.

Soon the news of the discovered gold spread throughout the surrounding area. First, local residents, and then visitors, were drawn to the gold-bearing veins. The excitement grew, but the gold did not decrease. Many people left the sugar cane plantations, and the cities of the northeastern coast of Brazil emptied. This led to the fact that by 1725 half of Brazil's population lived in the southeast.

The Gold Rush was of great importance to the Brazilian economy and led to such a large influx of capital into the southeastern colonies that the Portuguese government moved the capital of Brazil from Salvador (in the northeast) to Rio de Janeiro in 1763. In total, 1000 tons of gold were mined between 1700 and 1800. The Brazilian gold rush died down by the 1820s.

2 Gold Rush in Siberia

The era of gold rushes in Russia began in the 19th century, after the Senate adopted a law in 1812 that allowed Russian subjects to search for and develop gold ores with the payment of taxes for this to the state. Until this time, gold was also searched for. But they did it secretly, under the threat of severe punishment.

In the first half of the 19th century, large reserves of the yellow metal were found in the Tomsk province. The first successful earner is considered to be Yegor Lesnoy, an Old Believer peasant. He mined gold somewhere on the Sukhoi Berikul River. He kept the location a secret. Many tried to find out the coordinates of the gold mine from him, and as a result, Lesnoy’s life ended tragically.

In 1827, the merchant of the first guild, Andrei Yakovlevich Popov, and his nephew Feodot Ivanovich Popov decided to engage in gold mining. Having received permission to search for gold, they headed to the Tomsk province. Having learned about the finds of Yegor Lesnoy, A. Popov went to him, but it turned out that he was no longer alive. On August 11, 1828, Popov submitted an application to the Dmitrov volost administration of the Tomsk province for the allotment of an area on the Berikul River. This date is considered to be the beginning of the development of private gold mining and the gold rush on the land of the modern Kemerovo region. The 1st Berikulskaya Square mine, where the Popovs began working, yielded 1 pood and 20 pounds of gold in 1829. In 1830, more than four and a half poods were mined, and after another five years, gold mining increased to more than 16 poods.

In 1829, new mines were opened next to the mines of the Popov merchants. They belonged to the companies of merchants Ryazanov, Kazantsev, Balandin. In 1830, the Popovs discovered gold in the Salair Ridge, in the Koktekbinsky, Krasnoyarsk and Minusinsk districts of the Yenisei province. In 1838, gold deposits were discovered in the Kansky and Nizhneudinsky districts. On May 31, 1843, private gold mining was allowed in Western Transbaikalia. In Eastern Transbaikalia, private gold mining was permitted on November 3, 1863.

This is how the gold rush began in Siberia. More and more gold deposits were discovered. In the 40s of the 19th century, several hundred search parties worked in Siberia. The population of Siberian cities increased, trade developed rapidly.

According to estimates of the Main Office of the Altai Mining District, from 1819 to 1861, 35,587 pounds of gold worth more than 470 million rubles were mined in Siberia. In 1861, 459 gold mining companies and partnerships were registered. 30,269 people worked at 372 mines. In a year they extracted 1,071 pounds of gold. By 1861, 1,125 gold mining permits had been issued.

3 California Gold Rush

The most famous gold rush is the California gold rush. Gold was discovered near Sutter's sawmill near the town of Coloma. On January 24, 1848, James W. Marshall, working for John Sutter, discovered pieces of yellow metal in a water wheel on the American River. He took the find to Sutter, and the two of them came to the conclusion that it was gold. Sutter wanted this information to remain confidential. However, rumors about gold soon spread, which were confirmed in March 1848 by newspaper publisher and merchant Samuel Brennan from San Francisco. After he walked around the city waving a vessel of precious metal and exclaiming “Gold! Gold! Gold from the American River,” many California families who had previously been farmers decided to go in search of gold, becoming the first prospectors.

On August 19, 1848, the New York Herald reported the beginning of a gold rush in California, and on December 5, US President James Polk confirmed this in his address to Congress. Those wishing to get rich from all over the country flocked to California. In 1848–49, among the prospectors there were a lot of Americans who came from the northwestern part of the country. Then streams of Europeans poured into California. Thus, by 1855 the number of immigrants exceeded 300 thousand people.

It was difficult to get to California in those days. “People of the 49th” arrived mostly by water transport. From the east coast, the journey through South America took 5 to 8 months. Other waterways lay through Panama and Nicaragua. Also, many gold miners came from the eastern shore along the overland road, the so-called California Route.

Before the fever began, San Francisco was a small community. When its inhabitants learned about the discovery of gold, the town was deserted, people abandoned their affairs and joined the search for gold. However, many immigrants and traders subsequently arrived in the city. The population grew from approximately 1 thousand people in 1848 to 25,000 permanent residents in 1850.

Few of the miners enriched themselves by mining precious metals. It was possible to extract it using simple methods only during the very beginning of the gold rush - gold was then amenable to extraction by the schlich method, when the gold-containing soil was washed with water. Then gold mining technology became more complicated. By about the mid-50s, single earners had largely dropped out. The fever has subsided.

4 Gold Rush in Australia

In 1851, gold prospector Edward Hargreaves, just returned from California, discovered gold in a river near the town of Bathurst in New South Wales. After reporting the site to the authorities and naming it "Ophir", Hargraves was appointed "special commissioner" of the area. The gold rush quickly swept the country, with almost every second adult male in Australia declaring himself a gold miner. New South Wales in 1852 gave the country 26.4 tons (850 thousand ounces) of pure gold. Also in 1851, six months after the discovery of gold in New South Wales, a gold mine was discovered near Ballarat and a little later at Bendigo Creek in Victoria.

In 1852 alone, more than 370,000 immigrants arrived in Australia, and the country's economy boomed. In the 1850s More than 1/3 of the world's gold was mined in Victoria, and in just two years the state's population grew from 77 thousand to 540 thousand people. The country's total population tripled from 430 thousand in 1851 to 1.7 million people. in 1871.

In Western Australia, the first gold deposits were also found in the early 1850s, in Queensland - in 1853, in the Northern Territory - in 1865, in Tasmania, in Beaconsfield - in 1877.

Over time, masses of immigrants moved from distant places to large cities, giving them the impetus to grow. In 1900, while the gold rush was still in progress, Australia's population had grown to 3.7 million people, more than 1 million of whom lived in Melbourne and Sydney.

5 Witwatersrand Gold Rush (South Africa)

The Witwatersrand rush began in March 1886, when Australian gold prospector John Harrison found the first gold there. He applied for a land license to the then Transvaal government of South Africa, which resulted in the area being declared open.

Very little time passed after the discovery when gold miners from all over the world began to arrive in this territory. Soon, the mountain villages concentrated in the area of ​​the Ferreira camp formed into one settlement. At first the Transvaal government did not believe that the fever would last long, and allocated a small triangular piece of land for the construction of the city. The city of Johannesburg appeared on this site.

Within ten years, Johannesburg had become the largest city in South Africa - its growth outpaced that of Cape Town, which had previously been the largest city in southern Africa for more than 200 years. The discovery of gold also led to the formation of a whole class of super-rich miners and industrialists known as "Randlords".

Witwatersrand fever was one of the main reasons for the outbreak of the Second Boer War (1899-1902). The Boers were outraged by the large number of foreign workers - "Uitlanders" - in the Witwatersrand. Therefore, the Boer government raised taxes and denied gold miners the right to vote in elections. In response, the Uitlanders and British mine owners began protesting to overthrow the Transvaal and Orange Republic governments.

The war ended with the signing of a peace treaty on May 31, 1902, according to which the Boers recognized the authority of the British Crown. After 1902, the British brought about 50,000 Chinese to South Africa to work in the gold mines on the Witwatersrand.

6 Klondike Gold Rush

In 1896, the Klondike gold rush began. The discovery of Klondike gold was not accidental. The prospectors approached him slowly but surely. Gold has been found on the Pacific coast of Canada before. Missionaries and fur traders were the first to notice the precious metal in local rivers back in the 40s of the 19th century. In the early 50s, the first prospectors appeared on the Fraser River. There were few of them: the mines here were not rich. Gold miners explored the beds of Canadian rivers, gradually moving north to the border with Alaska.

In early August 1896, residents of the Canadian state of Yukon, bordering Alaska to the north, came across rich gold deposits in the vicinity of the mouth of the Klondike River. Gold simply sparkled in the stream; it could be collected with bare hands. On September 5, one of them, George Carmack, brought a couple of kilograms of gold dust to the Circle City village to exchange it for currency and necessary goods. The village was instantly empty - everyone rushed to the mouth of the Klondike, followed by residents of the entire area. About three thousand people gathered to mine gold in the fall of 1896.

Winter was beginning, there was no connection with the “mainland,” and wide circles of the American public learned about new gold deposits only in the summer of next year. Local residents had the opportunity to pan for gold in the most fertile areas for six months, without worrying about competitors.

The real gold rush began when the steamship Excelsior entered the port of San Francisco on July 14, 1897. He was on a flight from Alaska. Each passenger had gold dust worth from $5 thousand to $130 thousand. Three days later, another ship, the Portland, entered the port of Seattle. There were three tons of gold on board the Portland. After this, US residents rushed for gold.

Dozens of ships headed north. By September, 10 thousand people left Seattle for Alaska. Winter put a pause on the fever, but the following spring more than 100 thousand fortune hunters took the same route. The easiest route to the Klondike looked like this: several thousand kilometers across the ocean to Alaska, then crossing the kilometer-high Chilkoot Pass, which could only be overcome on foot. To avoid starvation, the Canadian authorities did not allow him to cross the pass unless the miner had at least 800 kg of food with him. Next is a crossing across Lake Lindeman and 800 km of rafting along the Yukon River strewn with rapids to the Klondike. In May 1898, as soon as the river was free of ice, a flotilla of seven thousand so-called ships set off on an 800-kilometer voyage downstream.

In place, a harsh climate awaited people with severe frosts - up to 40 degrees - in winter and sweltering heat in summer. People died from hunger, and from disease, and from accidents during work, and from clashes with competitors. The situation was aggravated by the fact that a significant number of “white collar” workers, unaccustomed to either hard physical labor or everyday hardships, came to mine gold.

In 1898, at the height of the gold rush, the independent unit "Yukon Territory" was formed as part of the Canadian confederation with its capital in Dawson. The gold rush contributed to the development of the territory's infrastructure.

1. California Gold Rush

2. Golden fever in Alaska

3. Golden fever in Siberia

4. "Gold Rush" in philately

"Golden fever"- began in the history of the country with the discovery of gold on January 24, 1848 at Sutter's sawmill on the American River in northern California. Although gold was mined in western Georgia already in the late 30s of the 19th century.

When rumors of this reached, gold miners flocked there from all over California. The fever peaked in 1849. The population of California grew from 14 thousand people in 1848 to 100 thousand in 1850, and by 1860 it was 380 thousand people. Many of the wave of “people of the 49th” came from China, Australia, the burning continent. During the decade the main production gold was carried out in three areas of California: the main mining area was the Sierra Nevada, south of Sutter’s sawmill, the second was north of it, in Nevada County, and the third was the northern coastal ridges west of Shasta.

In 1859-90, gold miners moved from one field to another in Colorado, Nevada, Idaho, Utah, Montana and Arizona. New outbreaks of the “gold rush” occurred in the Klondike (1896) and Alaska (1898).

The “Gold Rush” brought not only gold miners to the West, but also merchants, farmers, etc., contributed to the construction of postal routes and railways, the development of technology, attracting investment and the development of the economy as a whole.

California Gold Rush

Stefan Zweig, in his essay “The Discovery of Eldorado,” called the discovery of gold deposits in the United States the finest hour of mankind. This hour cost dearly one of the owners of Eldorado, Johann August Sutter (John Sutter, Sutter). And what happened after this “fateful” day on January 24, 1848? The two months that Suter kept the discovery a secret were relatively quiet. Few people took seriously the information about Marshall's discovery, published on March 15 in The Californian newspaper. Californians were more concerned about the final salvos of the Mexican-American War, which ended on February 2, 1848, with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which gave up Alta California USA.

But on May 12 everything changed, when the streets San Francisco the famous merchant, publisher and Mormon Sam Brannan ran by shouting: “gold! gold! from the American River!” In his hands he held a bottle of precious sand. Brennan personally did not mine any gold. Just sand paid at his shop.

On May 27, mass desertion of the crews of ships stationed in San Francisco. The commander of the Pacific Flotilla, Commodore Jones, announced a reward for the capture of deserters, but in the mountains they clearly paid more. By June 4, 1849, there were already 200 abandoned ships in San Francisco.

Persons of liberal professions joined the sailors bound by military discipline. On May 29, 1848, The Californian newspaper ceased publication, whose employees went in search of gold. On June 14, the California Star newspaper was interrupted. The journalists decided to extract all the sensations from underground. On August 7, 1848, the ratification of the peace treaty was announced agreements with Mexico, but no one cared anymore.

On June 12, California Governor Colonel Richard Barnes Mason, accompanied by a young lieutenant (and future general) William Sherman, set out in search of the escaped population. They left the then capital of California, Monterey, and on June 20 reached San Francisco, where “almost not a single man” remained (there were probably few women either).

On June 24, officials set out for the American River. The countryside they passed through looked as deserted as the city. Farms were abandoned. On July 2, Colonel Mason and Lieutenant Sherman found mostly traders at Sutter Fort. The owner of the gold-bearing lands, Zuter (Sutter), complained that he had only four workers left, to whom he had to pay $10 a day. They paid an unheard-of price for renting a room - 100 dollars per month, per house - 500.

But when Mason and Sherman reached the Mormon Diggings, they saw hundreds of people bustling around the rock washing trays. literally "flowed like a river." Even the Indians, who were not allowed access to modern technologies, also became adept at washing gold using pans and baskets. On July 7, officials reached Webers Creek, where Sunol and Company was already operating (who registered them?). The prospectors thoughtfully presented the governor with small gold-bearing samples, which were then sent to Washington along with an official report. Mason's report contained detailed information not only about gold mining, but also about prices and salaries.

The center of California was moving closer to gold. At the initiative of Zooter and Brannan, the construction of the new capital of the gold-bearing territory began in Sacramento - closer to the fabulously rich American River. The already provincial San Francisco immediately turned into a “ghost town” with abandoned enterprises and shops. On every abandoned house one could write: “Everyone has gone to the mine.” It was not far from the gold-bearing mountains of the Sierra Nevada, so the first miners were Northern Californians of European origin, and then Indians and Mexicans (Californios). They were not afraid of arrows, bullets, or the record low temperature for California on December 31, 1848.

Following the Californians, several thousand Oregonians moved, reaching the neighboring territory not along the expressway, but along the Ciscayyou Trail. Rumors quickly spread to Mexico and then to other countries. countries the Pacific coast of Latin America, from where new groups of gold miners came. Some residents of the Hawaiian Islands also moved to the mainland.

By the end of 1848, about 6 thousand people arrived in California. By this time it was already possible to sum up some results of gold mining. On November 28, 1848, the USS Lexington left San Francisco, carrying half a million in gold. dollars, intended for minting coins.

Meanwhile, the news spread further to the east and south. On August 19, 1848, the New York Herald reported the discovery of California gold. The magical legends found tangible confirmation in the form of Lieutenant Lucian Loeser, who reached Washington with 6.5 kilograms of gold. And on December 5, 1848, the opening was officially confirmed by the President USA James Polk in his State of the Union address. This news did not give anything to Polk himself: he was already leaving the residence of the US President (White House). But the rest received hope for quick enrichment.

As news of the fabulous riches spread westward, crowds of would-be prospectors, who were later called “forty-niners” or “Argonauts,” moved west from the east coast of the United States and from Europe. At that time, it was possible to move from the East to the West Coast of the United States along the Oregon Trail, around burning continent or with a transfer on the Isthmus of Panama. The overland route was shorter, but crossed sparsely populated (or Indian-inhabited) lands. It is not surprising that at the initial stage no more than 500 people decided to go through Oregon.

Gold miners who set off on a voyage around America took no less risk. For almost six months, the pitching and dampness required great endurance from the passengers. It is characteristic that the mail steamer California, which set sail around Cape Horn in October 1848, left half empty. The race for gold forced each captain to go at top speed. Record crossings were preserved in the memory of descendants. So, on May 18, 1849, the sailing ship Gray Eagle arrived in San Francisco, having arrived from the east coast of the United States in 113 days.

Residents of the Eastern Hemisphere traveled to California more slowly and usually with transfers. Here we had to take into account in advance the risk that the gold found would not cover the travel expenses. Prices, however, in modern times, they were “funny”. The fare for the ship from Liverpool to New York was $18, including provisions such as bread, water, flour, oatmeal, corned beef, tea, and molasses.

It soon became clear that there was a shorter route from the East Coast to California, which passed through the Isthmus of Panama, which at that time belonged to the Colombian Republic (New Granada). The narrow bridge between the two continents seemed easily passable, but in fact the roads in these places have changed little since the 16th century. First you had to hire boats and go up the Chagres River to Las Cruces, and then follow the old Spanish "Golden Road" to Panama. According to the agreement between the United States and Colombian Republic 1846, transit was duty-free. But for transporting 1 person for two weeks the cost jumped to 10 dollars, and for every pound of luggage you had to pay 10 cents. By 1851, boat fares had risen to $50.

The first steamship ("Falcon"), heading to the Isthmus of Panama, left New York on December 1, 1848. There were only 29 passengers on board. But while the Falcon reached New Orleans, an official message about Californian gold was heard, after which 178 Argonauts were waiting for the ship at the next port, storming the ship with weapons in their hands. A few days later, the “charter” ships Crescent City, Orus and Isthmus set off from New Orleans for the Isthmus of Panama.

On the other side of the isthmus, a thousand “Argonauts” were waiting for the steamer “California” with 250 seats, of which 100 were already occupied by the Peruvians. The scenes at the pier in Panama were reminiscent of a rush hour bus assault, except that the passengers were armed. Shipping office organizations was besieged, and out of the goodness of their hearts they simply wanted to throw the Peruvians overboard. With fighting, shooting and drawing lots, 365 passengers were loaded onto the ship. Along the way, the captain was almost killed, but on February 28, 1849, the California arrived in San Francisco. Almost the entire crew got off at the port along with the passengers.

Only Captain Marshall remained on board the ship, who spent three months recruiting new sailors. Following the California, the Oregon and Panama steamships arrived, with the help of which organization"The Pacific Mail Steamship Company"established communication between Panama and San Francisco.

Gold miners began to arrive in California regularly. But the easy time of gold mining was already in the past. Everything that could be found on the surface in the area of ​​Sutter's Fort near Coloma was sifted by the indefatigable Californians using kitchen utensils. A little later than the first find on the American River, gold was found on Mormon Island. North of these sites on July 4, 1848, John Bidwell found rich deposits gold (Bidwell's Bar), brought to one of the prospectors profit, sufficient to purchase a three-story house. In the summer of 1848, another one was discovered west of Sacramento, Webers Creek. The Murphy brothers were very lucky when, after just a few days of searching south of Webers Creek, they came across deposits gold, the development of which brought up to 1.5 million dollars by the end of 1848 (some specify that this profit in 2006 prices).

But the further gold mining unfolded, the deeper it was necessary to dig to get to the precious sand or veins. Among those who arrived, professional miners from the state of Georgia, the Republic of Chile and England, who were able to distinguish at least a dozen minerals, began to appear more and more often. And mountain work From the fun of finding shiny pebbles, they turned into ordinary mining operations with underground workers, fastening materials, ventilation and water pumping.

To mine gold on enthusiasm alone, i.e. greed was impossible. Thousands of gold miners had to be fed, provided with clothing and, finally, simply exchanged for gold. And around the gold deposits, auxiliary enterprises and institutions began to rapidly grow. At the end of 1848, on the initiative of Colonel Mason, a store was opened to serve prospectors. It was necessary to take care of storing the earnings money. On January 9, 1849, Henry Nagley and Richard Sinton opened The Exchange and Deposit Office in San Francisco. The sharks also reached out for the small fish. In 1849, an agency of the Rothschild Paris office was opened in San Francisco, headed by Benjamin Davidson and John May.

At the same time as technical and financial issues, it was necessary to understand the legal status of gold miners. The problem was that private land ownership had not yet been established in California. Vast areas were simply uninhabited or inhabited by Indians, for whom land ownership was of little importance. Therefore, it was enough for gold miners to simply capture the desired area. In the absence of American legislation, Mexican legislation was used, according to which a “claim” for a gold-bearing area was valid while the area was actively used. Often sites were abandoned almost immediately if they turned out to be unpromising. Simultaneously with the “applications,” “re-applications” (“claim-jump”) occurred, when new applicants appeared for an already occupied site. Conflicts between gold miners were resolved either through arbitration or through weapons (“personally and violently”).

It was not until 1866 and 1872 that laws regulating mining were passed. At the same time, a standard fee was established for an application per acre with ore veins ($5) and placers ($2.5). As recently as 1992, the United States had to adopt a special law on the prohibition of trading in non-working “orders”. The new application price was set at $100 per year.

Unsettled mountain works was not the only legal problem in California. Along with the growth of mines, the number of people wishing to make money by extracting gold not from underground, but from the pockets of gold miners, grew. Among the “knife and ax workers,” Joaquin Murieta especially distinguished himself, although to this day it is unknown which of the 6 criminal Joaquins bore that surname. Both individual robbers and entire gangs acted. One of these gangs called the “Hounds” operated in San Francisco.

To cope with the criminal invasion, a large police force was required, which was almost non-existent in California. In the gold-bearing country there were too many gold miners to be distracted by policing. Ultimately, more or less law-abiding citizens decided to “take law into their own hands." Law and order was even formed. In the 1850s, a movement of "vigilance committees" or "vigilants" spread across California, which for some time replaced both the police and the court. In essence, these were "lynchings" .

Simultaneously with the destruction of criminal elements, gold miners tried to liberate rich territories from the indigenous inhabitants of these places. As a result of wild massacres (combined with epidemics), the number of California Indians decreased from 150 thousand people in 1845 to 30 thousand in 1870. Most of them were destroyed in the "gold rush". California Governor Peter Burnett told the legislature that "extermination will be the order of the day until the Indian race disappears."

It is believed that American history, rich in bloody skirmishes with Indians, does not contain anything even close to the destruction of the Californian tribes, to which the physical term “annihilation” is applied. The survivors were settled on reservations and then moved to other reservations.

Gold miners of European descent were treated more tolerantly, but not always leniently. For example, one of the fathers of the “gold rush,” Sam Brannan, decided, in addition to payment for goods, to collect “tithes” from Mormons purely for church needs. It took some time for the parishioners to flatly refuse to pay these voluntary levies. It was becoming increasingly difficult for the owners of gold-bearing lands to endure the arbitrariness, and they decided to establish at least some kind of authorized civil law.

California never received the usual intermediate "territory" status in the United States, remaining a martial law zone with a military governor from 1848 to 1850. Everything depended on the number of soldiers who, during the “gold rush,” scattered in search of treasures. To replenish the dwindling troops, reinforcements were transferred to California by sea. On April 12, 1849, a brigade arrived in San Francisco under the command of General Bennett Riley, who replaced Mason (who had been promoted to brigadier general) as military governor.

On June 3, the new governor of California announced the convening of a “Constitutional Convention” (“Constituent Assembly”) in Monterey. On September 1, 1849, meetings of the convention opened, which approved the State Constitution on October 13. California's motto became one word: "Eureka." With good reason, one could say that the Californians had found a “gold mine” that allowed them to become a full-fledged state in the shortest possible time. On November 13, 1849, the state governor was elected, Peter Burnett, who replaced military governor Riley a month later.

The admission of California into the federation was accompanied by heated discussions in Congress about the fate of slavery in the new state. As a result, a compromise was reached in 1850, according to which slavery was prohibited in California. Having settled federal problems, California became the full 31st state on September 9, 1850.

The new status allowed local legislators to protect the interests of the main part of the population - gold miners. The rights of Mexican landowners stated in the US-Mexico Treaty were completely ignored. These plots of land brought profit to many miners without any rent. But new gold miners were accepted very reluctantly. A gold mining tax of $20 per month, specially introduced on April 13, 1850, began to be collected from foreign citizens. This act marked the beginning of a whole series of “anti-Chinese” laws.

The flow of gold never dried up. On May 1, 1850, the steamship Panama left San Francisco with $1.5 million in gold. According to the official report on October 26, 1850, 57 thousand people were engaged in gold mining in California. Despite increased competition and financial barriers, gold miners continued to arrive from all over the world. Among them appeared a large group of participants in the European revolutions of 1848, forced to emigrate for political reasons. Chinese and Latin Americans continued to arrive, but the main migrants were still Americans. In 1849, 81 thousand people came to California, and the next year another 90-100 thousand. From 1848 to 1852, the state's population grew 6.5 times compared to the pre-war years and amounted to 255 thousand people.

Transport connections with California became increasingly intense. By the end of 1849, the San Francisco Customs Office reported that 697 ships had arrived in California during the year, of which 401 were American. On January 27, 1855, construction of the railway across the Isthmus of Panama was completed, and the Panama Canal was already looming in the dreams of some engineers.

Land communications also improved. In 1851, fugitive slave Jim Beckwourth discovered a passage in the Sierra Nevada Mountains that allowed a shorter route to California. People still traveled in wagons, but plans were already being made in Boston to build a railroad to California. For the convenience of gold miners, regular service on the Sacramento River was opened on December 1, 1849 using 6 steamships. A ticket from San Francisco to Sacramento cost $30. It was a little expensive, but people were not traveling for the fog, but for gold.

Single miners still tried to find rich placers, but they were gradually replaced by gold mining firms. Mining increasingly turned from a handicraft industry to an industrial one. Instead of a pick and a tray for washing, in the mines, since 1853, hydraulic methods began to be used, which made it possible to wash away the layers with jets of water. Instead of manual crushing of stones, they began to use “mills” that crushed the mined rock. Gold mining increased for some time. During 1849, $10 million worth of gold was mined in California, $41 million worth in 1850, and $81 million worth in 1852. According to other data, for the years 1848-1852, prospectors mined gold worth $51,669,767.

Beginning in 1852, California's gold production growth stalled and began to decline. It’s not that there was no gold at all, but it was already much more difficult to count on easy income. Many of those who worked in the mines during the best time of gold mining were also unlucky. Historian Oscar Lewis believed that only 1 in 20 gold miners returned from California richer than they were before the gold rush. It is difficult to verify such statistics, because in California in 1848-1852 there were no reliable records of the size and income of the population. In addition, many gold miners remained in California: some richer, some poorer.

The discoveries of gold miners allowed some to earn 10-15 times more in California than on the East Coast of the United States (in six months they received a 6-year profit). Of course, for Chinese and Latin Americans, the ratio to benefits in their native places was much greater. The problem was rising prices, which forced gold miners to leave part of their income in California. A significant part of the gold was consumed by transportation costs. The US government was even forced to move the minting of gold coins to California. Ultimately, getting gold was sometimes easier than keeping it.

Not everyone managed to save their wealth. Zweig, for example, described in detail the torment of Zuter (Sutter), who tried unsuccessfully to defend his rights to gold-bearing land. Another rich man, Sam Brannan, wasn't much luckier. He became the richest man in California with a fortune of millions (he owned hundreds of hectares in Los Angeles County). But its prosperity was interrupted in 1870. Brennan's wife started a divorce and wanted her share in cash. The sale of the Californian millionaire's real estate took place under rather unfavorable conditions. As a result, Sam Brannan spent the rest of his life working on an unsuccessful trade pencils and almost got drunk. The discoverer of gold, James Marshall, after several unsuccessful attempts to create his own enterprises, was left without cent and lived on a government pension.

Along with the decline in income, the number of people willing to cross the ocean in search of gold also decreased. In addition, gold was found in Australia, where the flow of new “Argonauts” headed. A smaller silver rush began in neighboring Nevada, bringing in more treasure hunters, including Mark Twain. Californians could now look down on these “fevers.” The impetus given by the “gold rush” to the development of California was already irreversible.

There has been no shortage of gold in California since then. To this day, several dozen mines (in the form of mines and quarries) operate here. The United States produces $2 billion worth of gold, more than was mined during all the years of the California gold rush. Most of this wealth goes to jewelry needs, but about a quarter of the gold is already consumed by electronics. They receive considerable income from gold mining, but they are no longer enough to give up what they have acquired and go far away.

There are many other equally profitable businesses in California. "Golden" can offer those who wish new opportunities for earning money, more reliable than searching for shiny stones scattered throughout the mountains. If you want to compare prices and earnings in 1850 and 2005, then you need to multiply gold rush dollars by 24. Translated into today's dollars, the old finds look much more impressive.

Gold Rush in Alaska

The Alaska Gold Rush was an unorganized mass mining of gold in the Klondike region of Alaska in the late 19th century. Sometimes also called the Yukon Gold Rush.

The gold rush began in 1896-1897. News spread throughout America about the discovery of Gold in 1896 on the Klondike River, in the Canadian Yukon Territory. In Alaska, the largest veins were discovered in Nome in 1898 and near Fairbanks in 1902. In general, in more than a century since the discovery, about 12.5 million ounces (20.12 m) of gold were mined and exported from the Klondike. By data 2008 its total value is US$4.4 billion

In August 1896, three people led by Keish (Skookum Jim Mason), an Indian from the Tagish tribe, set out from the village of Carcross north, down the Yukon River, in search of relatives - their sister Kate and her husband George Carmack. In the firm were Jim Skookum, his cousin, also known as Charlie Dawson (sometimes Charlie Tagish), and his nephew Patsy Henderson. After meeting with George and Kate, who were fishing for salmon at the mouth of the Klondike River, they went to Robert Hederson, a native of Nova Scotia, who was prospecting for gold on the Indian River, north of the Klondike River. Henderson told George Carmack where he was scouting and that he did not want any contact with the Ideans.

On August 16, 1896, members of the group discovered rich gold deposits on Bonanza (Rabbit) Creek. It is not clear who the actual discoverer was. Some sources say it was Kate Carmack, others say it was Skookum Jim. George Carmack was officially recognized as the discoverer of gold, as the claim was registered in his name. The rest of the participants agreed to this because other gold miners, due to racist prejudices, were very reluctant to accept the claim made by the Indian.

Gold prospectors and miners climb the trail over Chilkoot Pass during the Klondike Gold Rush

News spread to other gold mining camps in the Yukon River Valley. Gold was first found on Rabbit Creek, which was later named Bonanza Creek because of the many people who went there to look for gold. Gold miners who had previously mined the creeks and shallow sandbars of the Fortymile and Stewart Rivers quickly staked out all the land on Bonanza Creek, Eldorado Creek, and Hunker Creek. News reached the United States in July 1897 amid a significant number of bankruptcies and the financial recession of the 1890s. The American economy was hit hard by the stock market panics of 1893 and 1896, causing widespread unemployment. Many people, who found themselves in unfavorable circumstances due to the financial crisis, were forced to go to the gold mines. The first prospectors went to San Francisco on July 15 and to Seattle on July 17, leading to the start of the Klondike Gold Rush. By 1898, the population of the Klondike could reach 40,000, threatening to cause famine.

People from all walks of life traveled to the Yukon, even from as far away as England and Australia. The most surprising thing is that these were mostly qualified workers, such as teachers and doctors. There were even one or two city mayors who left their prestigious jobs to travel. Most of them were well aware that the chances of finding a significant amount of gold were small, people simply decided to take a chance. No more than half of those who reached Dawson had the desire to continue the journey without hope of search work. Ultimately, thanks to the large number of skilled gold miners who arrived in the region, the Gold Rush contributed to the economic development of Western Canada, Alaska and the Pacific Northwest Territories of the United States and Canada.

Most of the gold miners arrived in the Alaskan communities of Skagway and Dayu, both located at the head of the Lynn Canal. From these villages they followed the Chilkoot Trail across Chilkoot Pass or up to White Pass, and from there headed to Lindeman Lake or Bennett Lake on the upper Yukon River. Here, 25 to 35 grueling miles (40 to 56 km) from their arrival point, people built rafts and boats to travel the last 500 miles (over 800 km) down the Yukon to the gold-mining town of Dawson.

Gold miners had to carry a year's supply of supplies weighing about a ton, more than half of which were food supplies, in order to obtain permission to enter Canada. At the tops of the passes, people were met by the Canadian post of the North West Mounted Police (abbreviated NWMP, then the name of the modern Royal Canadian Mounted Police), which monitored the implementation of this requirement, and also acted as a customs office. The main purposes of the mounted police posts were to prevent food shortages, which had occurred in Dawson for the previous year, and to limit the entry of weapons, especially small arms, into the territory of the British colony.