The Gold Rushes:

The gold rush that became most popular was the one that occurred in California during 1848. Previously, there was a smaller scale gold rush that occurred in Georgia during 1828 to 1830 which attracted an astoundingly large and multi-ethnic crowd. However, the gold rush that occurred in California was immense compared to the one that occurred in Georgia. Men abandoned all that they had including there family and business in order to search for gold even though they knew little about the land that they were traveling to.

The majority of men that traveled to California and “El Dorado” during the gold rush were Americans but there were other prospectors from around the world including China. Around a quarter of a million men traveled to “El Dorado” from 1848 to 1853 during the five years of the gold rush and produced around $200 million dollars worth of gold.

Nothing of this proportion had been seen before. The “rush” created an improvement in communication and also improved transportation. For instance there was an improvement in the circulation of newspapers.

Life in the Californian Gold Rush:

To understand the gold rush in California one must recognize that the gold rush was an unplanned as well as uncoordinated movement of a large group of people who were neither surfs nor slaves. Before leaving their homes many “forty-niners” organized into “companies” but upon arriving to California, many of these groups fell apart. Individuals were left to fend for themselves in a new strange land which was unprepared for the population boom.

An assortment of industries such as merchants and ship owners adjusted their operations to deal with the increase in populations. Despite these changes, food and supplies were scare as well as expensive and subject to sudden price changes. The cost of living dramatically increased even though wages were high. Many prospectors were forced to pitch tents since housing was primitive or even non-existent at the mines. They were also constantly on the move searching for mining localities that were rumored to contain new sources of gold. Government agencies were ineffective and minimal during the gold rush period. Criminals were often dealt with by lynching or vigilante proceedings.

Australia:

In 1851 Edward Hargraves a former forty-niner from Australia returned to his home country while the California gold rush was still at its peak and made the discovery of gold. The discovery of gold in Australia lead to the second gold rush of the 19th century. Around half a million people just from the British Isles sailed to Australia in search of gold beginning in 1851. A worldwide growth in commerce, shipping as well as manufacturing followed as the gold rush in both the United States and Australia continued. Currency inflation continued to be a problem as more gold was produced in the 25 years after 1850 than in the 358 years since the arrival of Columbus to the New World.

Social conditions in Australia mirrored that of California. There where towns and camps that sprung up overnight, men laboring with pick and shovel, brawling in saloons as well as extremes of goods. Australia gold districts were much more orderly compared to those of California. There was a lot less vigilantism and lynching due to a more effective central government.

Canada:

Canada experienced a similar gold rush when news of gold on Fraser River, British Columbia, Canada reached the public in 1858. For several months around 25,000 people headed to the northern wilderness in search of gold. The confusion that followed mirrored the situation in California but like Australia the provincial government set down a higher standard of law and order than what was present in California.

Additional North American Gold Rushes:

Referred to as “Old Californians”, prospectors who had previous experience from the California gold rush paved the way to finding new sources of gold in North America. The “Old Californians” went to Colorado’s steep canyons in 1859, the interior of Nevada in the 1860’s, the Black Hills region of South Dakota in the 1870s, Tombstone Arizona, south Alaska and northern British Columbia.

Gold Rushes Elsewhere:

In the 1860s New Zealand had its first mining boom. As the century neared a close advances in communications and transportation allowed prospectors to travel to places such as the Rand in South Africa, the Yukon River and it’s tributary the Klondike, and Cape Nome on the Bering Sea.