Life During the Gold Rush: The Way People Live, Victoria Sherrow, Lucent Books, San Diego, CA 1998.
This
book gives a good description of the California gold rush. It starts
with the “forty-eighters” who arrived at the mines earlier than the
rest. The author does not do a good job describing the Mormon
involvement. She mostly said the Mormons in California left Utah and
Brigham Young to come and look for gold; while in fact, the Mormons who
were in California were here for other reasons, having immigrated with
Sam Brannan, or been members of the Mormon Battalion, or having come on
other overland journeys to California. The opposite was mostly true.
The majority of the Mormons left California after mining that first
year, and relocated to Utah and with the Mormons.
The
author describes the sea route, and the land route. She then does an
adequate job of describing camp life. She also talks about treatment of
minority minors—including those coming from other countries, as well as
the treatment of Native Americans. In both this areas, the people in
California were less than honorable. Thinking only of themselves the
murdered many native Americans, often with government support and
encouragement. Also they were able to have enacted a foreign worker tax
of $20 a month. It did not matter that the Californios were here
before the Americans. They too were considered outsiders.
The
author describes the growth of San Francisco; again without mentioning
the Mormons, Sam Brannan or the members of the Ship Brooklyn company who
had a significant role in 1846. What is impressive is the rapid growth
which came to California as a result of the rush. The population
growth was 400 percent in 10 years, and caused some significant growing
pains.
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