When the miners moved in, they replaced the American-Indians and took everything. What once were landscapes willed with game and fish in the rivers, the miners replaced with gold fields and mining camps (The West: A Ken Burns Documentary). The American-Indians were forced to move away from the miners with the game. The new settlers brought diseases from their origin with them (The Gold Rush of 1849, Hisory.com). An estimated 80% of American-Indians died from the new diseases brought in by the settlers (Thorton, Stuart: After the Gold Rush). When the miners were working in water all day, the risk for Cholera grew as well.
While the miners hit the trails and traveled from the east, different trails were used. Getting across the desert and through the mountains depended on the seasons, during the spring, hopeful miners flooded through the known trails. Debates among caravans caused them to break up and choose different trails (The West: A Ken Burns Documentary). William Swaim split up from his caravan and crossed the desert and made it through the mountains that were near impossible (Swaim, William: Archives of the West, William Swaim Letter).
The first discovery of gold was at Sutter’s Mill, not far from Sacramento. And Sacramento grew into a “boomtown”. It gained enough people and attention to later become the capital of the state. And San Francisco grew from as estimated population of 1000 persons to 25,000 in just two years (Hitell, Theodore Henry: History of California Vol. III 1897). As well as other settlements that had reported gold findings, the miners migrated there too. Well after the gold rush had ended, people had still inhabited San Francisco and Sacramento, so in 1869 the railroad was built and connected the country (Calliope: Golf Rushes of North America). Travel across the continent was far less dangerous.
The geography from when the first nugget was discovered at Sutter’s Mill had drastically changed since after the gold rush. Travel was easier and the destination was a city with more options than just mining. |