An outline for term paper on Gold Rush

With the discovery of gold in 1848 the west saw an enormous surge of migrants coming to excavate gold. Excavating gold however comes with its own risks and challenges that the prospectors would have to face if they wanted to find gold, one of these challenges being that men left their families in search of gold. “Then the people commenced rushing up from San Francisco and other parts of California, in May, 1848: in the former village only five men were left to take care of the women and

4. Slavery was so horrible that they would have to run away and hide a great distance away.

slaves uninformed. At the time Douglass was writing, many people thought that slavery was a

Many Northerners believed that if not allowed to spread, slavery would ultimately decline and die. To justify their opposition to

The question I chose to cover this week is, “Why did so few Southern whites own slaves?, and also, “Why did the non slaveholding whites not oppose the institution of slavery?” In general you could imagine that the Southern slavery would be pictures as large plantations with hundreds of slaves. In all reality, in such situations it was actually very rare for them to have a lot of slaves. Almost 3/4 of Southern whites did not even own slaves; but of those who did, 88% owned about twenty or less. Whites who did not own slaves were primarily yeoman farmers. Generally speaking, the institution of slavery did not help these people. And yet most non-slaveholding white Southerners identified with and defended the institution of slavery. Though many

3. Slaves were purposefully kept illiterate and therefore left few written records of their life on the plantations. Technology for audio and video recordings was unavailable and few travelers from the North recorded observations on slave treatment, lifestyle, or culture. *** If you were a historian trying to make conclusions about these subjects, what types of sources would you consult? Do you think an “objective” picture of southern slavery is possible to construct?

4) Slavery was justified by racial ideology. Consider three texts, including one that was written by a former slave. How do the authors either replicate or refute racial ideologies common in the nineteenth century?

One challenge in the California Gold Rush individuals faced were individuals giving many things up at home. For example from the text “The California Gold Rush” it states “...many people, mostly men left their jobs…” (Mcgill 1-2). People would leave their jobs just to go and try to get gold, mostly none of them even got rich. Mostly men again gave up on their families to get rich. Leaving the people they love for fortune of their own well being. There are really bad people to just throw away what

Poverty was a central issue during the Gilded Age. Many of the people that lived in America during this time lived in terrible conditions. During the Gilded Age many people migrated to the city in search of a better quality of life. However, many were disappointed. Unemployment was high during this period, and those who did have a job worked in atrocious conditions.

It was either jackpot or broke. The gold seekers were soon to find out. The California gold rush was the third recorded gold rush in the United States. The journey was not easy for anyone. People going to California faced many challenges, some were how tough the journey to California was, how high the crime rate was, and how some made lots of money during the gold rush and others did not.

Prompt: Douglass maintains that slavery dehumanized both the slave and the slaveholder. Quoting specific passages in the Narrative support this thesis with examples.

In early 1848, cries of gold findings flooded the West. White settlers flooded the area like a hurricane in search of riches never seen before to the common man. It was the single greatest migration of people in a shortest amount of time. The gold rush was a very dark period in American history and it shouldn’t be celebrated; the Native American’s were slaughtered in American thirst for gold Explosions of violence from both natives and settlers were common in this environment of prejudice and greed. Between 1850 and 1890 eighty percent of the total number of Native Americans in California died due to murder and massacre, disease, starvation, and forced migration from their native lands. The destruction of the culture and lives of the people native to California and the Black Hills of South Dakota. Greed changed the morals and values of the miners and Americans alike in the Gold Rush. The gold rush brought riches and highlighted racism of white Americans, while systematically destroying Native Americans in that region.

There have been many discoveries that have shaped our nation as a whole. Discoveries have allowed our country to thrive and become one of the most powerful nations in the world. When we look back at our nation's rich history, it is clear to see that there was one discovery in particular that had a vast impact on the United States; the discovery was gold in California. It was in this vastly unoccupied territory that the American dream was forever changed and California emerged as a powerful state busting at the seams. The California Gold Rush shaped California into the state that it is today. California is defined by its promise of entrepreneurial success and its acceptance and encouragement of obtaining the American Dream.

the population of the eastern U.S., the Pacific coast, instantaneously grew from an outpost to an

A flood of diversity experienced at this time compares early California to the biblical Babel. Population growth was so staggering that the availability of gold nuggets scattering the countryside to people of all stations purported a mass immigration that instantaneously grew by tens of thousands, eventually reaching hundreds of thousands. Racism and prejudice are root causes of immigrants heading west. Just as miners