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In the early days of the Gold Rush, miners practiced “placer mining” along rivers and streams. Miners washed gravel and other sediments in pans and sluice boxes; though tedious, this type of mining did not require expensive equipment and could be practiced by one or two miners working together. In later years of the Gold Rush, after the…

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Item Type: Photograph
Date: Circa 1851

Many African Americans, both free born and enslaved, were part of the wave of migrants who headed toward California during the Gold Rush. While racial tensions existed, many black miners worked side by side with both immigrant and native-born white miners. Photos like this were taken by photographers who travelled around rural areas, where people…

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Item Type: Photograph
Date: 1852

Though discriminated against in California, African-American miners often shared the same prejudices as white Americans towards Chinese immigrants. At other times, immigrants and African Americans found common purpose in work and leisure. This newspaper reports on a shared encampment where both groups worked together and where black miners…

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Item Type: Newspaper/Magazine Article
Date: 1858

White Californians complained that the new American government, which took over California after the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo in May 1848, was not doing enough to control and regulate Indian labor. In the chaos of the Mexican War, many Indian laborers had abandoned the farms and ranches where they worked as low-paid or unpaid…

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Item Type: Book (excerpt)
Date: 1984

Mary Ballou and her husband ran a boarding house in a California gold mining town. Ballou’s letter to her son, written in 1852, evokes the rough housing, violence, and high prices (from which the Ballous profited) in California during the gold rush. She also describes how the few women there provided each other with companionship and…

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Item Type: Diary/Letter
Date: 1852

At least 2,000 African Americans participated in the California Gold Rush. Though some were brought as slaves by southern masters, many were free northern blacks who migrated west with other Americans. African Americans, even free citizens, however, did not enjoy the same rights as whites. In 1858, when word reached California of a new gold…

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Item Type: Newspaper/Magazine Article
Date: 1858

As this newspaper announcement indicates, the status of slaves in California was unclear and fluid. Even though California was admitted as a free state to the Union in 1850, many southerners, claiming their stay was temporary, brought their slaves as property with them to the gold fields. Enslaved people took advantage of the uncertainty, running…

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Item Type: Newspaper/Magazine Article
Date: 1854

Antonio Franco Coronel was born in Mexico, came to California as a child in 1834, and settled with his family in Los Angeles. As one of the original miners in the state’s gold fields in 1848, he found success at the Placer Seco in northern California. When he returned to the same area in 1849, he found many more miners there, and he describes…

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Item Type: Biography/Autobiography
Date: 1877

With the discovery of gold in California in 1848, men seeking to make their fortunes streamed into the area from all over the world. In 1850, the California legislature passed a Foreign Miners' Tax that required miners who were not U.S. citizens to pay $20 every month for the right to mine in the state. In reality, the tax was only collected from…

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Item Type: Artifact
Date: 1853