The Gold Rush: Consequences and Contingencies
Author(s): Richard White
Source: California History, Vol. 77, No. 1, National Gold Rush Symposium (Spring, 1998), pp.
42-55
Published by: California Historical Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25462461
Accessed: 23/06/2010 16:42
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Although
Mark
Twain
arrived
in California
fifteen
years
after
the gold
discovery,
the
humor and irony of his literary style has long been associated with the Gold Rush.
This drawing by F. Strothmann of Jim Smiley shaking buckshot out of his famous
frog first appeared in a 1903 edition of Twain's "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calav
eras
Twain's
County/'
in 1865, touched
annual
of
re-creation
Press
famous
off his
the
story,
literary
jumping-frog
in the New
York
originally
published
Saturday
career
an
and in the twentieth
century
inspired
in
contest
From The
Angel's
Camp.
Jumping
Frog, Dover Publications, New York (1971).
CALIFORNIA HISTORY
The
Consequences
Historical
Rush:
Gold
and
Contingencies
byRichardWhite
anniversaries
and commemorations
to demand
writ
Editorialists,
hyperbole.
in soberer moments
ers, and speakers, who
exercise a certain caution in drawing
causal con
seem
might
nections
and present
between
circum
past events
are on historical
act as if
The
stances,
they
holiday
usual rules are suspended.
No connection
between
the
seems
and contemporary
Gold
Rush
California
consideration.
beyond
Since even in their quieter moments,
Californians
are not a
inclined
toward
it
understatement,
people
isnot surprising that telling them that theGold Rush
was
their
their common
collective
opened
and that 1998 represents
nativity
one-hundred-fiftieth
has
birthday
a deep vein of credulity. It is as if
"good
natured
and garrulous"
Simon Wheeler,
the narrator
of Mark
Twain's
of
Calaveras
"Jumping
Frog
had
somehow
himself
into the
County,"
transported
an
late twentieth
and
found
audience
cred
century
ulous beyond
In the story, a trav
his wildest
dreams.
eler asked Wheeler
about the Reverend
Le?nidas W.
and
to
his
connection
the
Gold
and
Rush,
Smiley
to
a
Wheeler
tell
them
about
Jim
proceeded
Smiley
and his famous
of the modern
frog. The audiences
Wheelers
have no curiosity
about the Reverend
Smi
's
to
connection
the
want
Gold
to
know
Rush;
ley
they
their connection
about
to the Gold Rush. The mod
ern Wheelers
are
to
happy
oblige. Most
everything
in California,
or so it sometimes
is the prod
seems,
uct of theGold Rush. The Gold Rush produced great
and so the Silicon
is a direct descen
wealth,
Valley
dant of the Gold Rush. By the same
logic, since the
Gold Rush produced
the
six-dollar
beers
high prices,
in
are
a
bars
of
the
Gold
Rush.
airport
legacy
But if all of modern California is the legacy of the
Gold
Rush,
anniversary,
what
are we
the next
to do when
the next
going
commemoration
rolls around?
What will be left to credit to the completion of the
or World
War
railroad
II, to cite
that historians
have thought, perhaps
on the state.
had a passing
influence
mistakenly,
same editorialists
Most
and
the
writers
who
likely,
and modern,
attribute
Silicon Valley
diverse
Cali
transcontinental
only two events
fornia to the Gold Rush will
attribute
fornia to
II.
If
only
perhaps,
Silicon
then just as happily
and modern,
Valley
the transcontinental
railroads
diverse
or World
Cali
War
to be perverse,
Iwould
like to suggest
that,
we should be more
careful about claiming
and consequences.
modern
Cali
legacies
Perhaps,
are not in any
fornians
the
descen
way
meaningful
dants of the Forty-niners.
the Silicon Valley
Perhaps,
is not, even metaphorically,
the equivalent
of the Gold
Rush. Most miners
after all, used low technology,
not
high technology. They produced a simple basic prod
uct
that they found in the ground.
They did not pro
a
and
complicated
sophisticated
product
they
Education
up in their heads.
gave a miner
thought
duce
little advantage.
Idon't think that this is true for the
of Silicon Valley.
The miners
computer
specialists
were
of
the
nineteenth
Their
values,
people
century.
and beliefs were very different
from the
expectations,
who
inhabit
con
the state today We have
people
nections
with
the past, but they are difficult
and tan
The past is another
gled connections.
country.
me
Don't
I am not
cel
get
wrong.
against
public
and the claims that
ebrations
makes;
public memory
I just want
to
such claims
from those of
distinguish
SPRING 1998 43
Iwould
be the first
history.
is not the only way
history
come from a
I, for example,
a
I have
past.
just finished
to admit
that academic
to understand
the past.
with
obsessed
the
family
book about my mother,
and writing
it has reminded
Remembering
Ahanagran,
me
that my mother,
brothers,
sister, my
my
my
all mobilize,
aunts, and my uncles
use, and claim the
that mark my own
past. In one of those idiot insights
intellectual
that in a family obsessed
life, I realized
with
the past, I am the only historian.
My attitudes,
not theirs, are peculiar.
are
attitudes
because
academic
his
My
peculiar
torians
look at the past in distinctive
and lit
ways,
I say will make
sense unless
tle of what
I
much
explain this.When
I think about the Gold Rush and
its consequences,
about history
assumptions
question
I am
certain
making
I need
to defend
my
skepticism.
Idefinitely think theGold Rush had consequences,
but
are all
the claims made
for those consequences
we think
in
our
what
is
and
with
up
tangled
history
own
are
in
the
not
world.
We
the
present
position
first ones to claim that certain consequences
flowed
from the Gold Rush. We can learn
about
something
the difficulties
of claiming
and
consequences
legacies
we now
the consequences
by realizing how different
claim from the Gold Rush are from the consequences
one hundred
claimed
years ago. One hundred
years
Californians,
ago, two prominent
nineteenth-century
and Hubert
were
Howe
Bancroft,
Henry
George
both rather confident
about the legacies
of the Gold
Rush. That one reached
conclusions
quite opposite
from the other did not shake the confidence
of either.
In the late nineteenth
Howe
Ban
Hubert
century,
croft was
most
the country's
successful
historical
He was aman who quite
entrepreneur.
literally made
and
that
not a par
is
often
pay,
pays
history
history
to
It
critical
tends
celebrate
whatever
ticularly
history.
at the moment.
values are ascendant
Bancroft was not
a man
to alienate
Kevin
subscribers.
Starr
potential
a set of authors who
in
con
with
Bancroft
lumps
cluded that theGold Rush produced
Hubert Howe
Bancroft
over
advantage
fornia historians?he
firsthand.
Born
(1832-1918) had at least one
other
Cali
late-nineteenth-century
had
the Gold
Rush
experienced
in Ohio,
to San Francisco
he came
in
1852 to test his luck at mining and to sell books. His
book and stationery store expanded in the 1870s into
a
house
publishing
tories
of Mexico,
United
States.
that cranked
Central
Bancroft's
out
America,
immense
thick,
and
personal
his
detailed
the western
library
of
65,000 books and 100,000 newspapers pertaining to
California history was acquired by the University of
in 1905 and, much expanded,
California
is today
located
Library.
inCalifornia "a
44 CALIFORNIA HISTORY
at its
Berkeley
campus.
Courtesy
California
State
an
of flush
internationalization
times,
permanent
and swagger
and competitive
attitude of recklessness
The Californian,
against
democracy."
they asserted,
to the contrary, was merely
the
their own evidence
on. The
became
who
Forty-niner
stayed
Forty-niner
and all that
became
the Capitalist,
the Pioneer, who
was
was
and modern
about California
prosperous
their
legacy1
one side of Ban
that this was
is no doubt
There
a
man
was
to hesitate when
not
croft. He, too,
hyper
"The full and permanent
effects of
bole beckoned.
cannot be estimated,"
the California
gold discovery
was
"All over
the world
he concluded.
impulse
and commerce,
to industry,
values
given
changed
and finance were
revolutionized.
social economy,
new
and
activities
New
succeeded
enlightenment
and
and yet again
followed
these changes,
higher
. . .There had been
broader
developments
nothing
like it since the inpouring of gold and silver to
Europe following the discovery of the New World
Although
that
the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
guaranteed
the Mexican
of Califor
the property
of
residents
nia
would
be "inviolaby
(Californios)
and
other
icans
immigrants?with
support?systematically
lands. This
ifornio
overran
respected/7
Amer
governmental
and
Cal
appropriated
a His
of
daguerreotype
gold-rush
woman
is entitled
Woman,"
although
"Spanish
panic
immi
Latin American
her actual ancestry?Californio,
or
uncertain.
Courtesy
grant,
actually
Spanish?is
OaklandMuseum ofCalifornia, gift ofDr. Stanley B. Burns.
by Columbus."2
a world
event
For Bancroft
the Gold
Rush was
one
sense
were
in
whose
incalculable,
consequences
sense could pretty much
but in another
be summed
as
Bancroft
California.
late nineteenth-century
up
was
that
the Gold
of
enamored
everything
hardly
to California.
He saw greed, violence,
Rush brought
He often saw, and only par
and all kinds of baseness.
violence
Indians
genocidal
against
tially justified,
was
san
But Bancroft
and robbery
of Californios.
the incredible mix
guine. The Gold Rush had created
had fil
and out of it later events
of evil and good,
as the
and
tered what Bancroft
pro
regarded
benign
of the late nineteenth
California
century.
gressive
of con
of one way
Bancroft
is a handy
example
structing
consequences.
Bancroft
that California did not begin with
knew,
of
course,
theGold Rush; he
a book about
But when
he
early California.
about the Gold Rush, he acted as if, for all prac
in 1848.
modern
California
tical purposes,
began
we
is not an ori
Where
History
begin stories matters.
some
secular Book
gin story, and the Gold Rush is not
wrote
wrote
SPRING 1998 45
of Genesis
occurred
for the state of California. The Gold Rush
after
some
events
and
before
others.
It
doesn't explain all that follows, but neither is it
likely that it has nothing to do with what followed.
The Gold Rush had consequences, but specifying
not overplaying
them?
those consequences?and
that is the trick.
Bancroft
To specify
the Gold Rush's
consequences,
to an evolutionary
amounts
created what
history.
and
eliminated
traits
Later events
good
preserved
bad, but theGold Rush provided the basic genotype.
is never
clear. Ban
all this happened
entirely
as if
in the
remained
croft often wrote
Forty-niners
to those who never actually par
state and bequeathed
How
ticipated in the Gold Rush a set of attitudes suppos
the event. The newcomers
seemingly
typical of
them. The fact that most
Forty-nin
accepted
gladly
in the 1880s and
ers went home and most Californians
with
the Gold Rush is incon
1890s had no experience
for
Rush
but not fatal. The Gold
could,
venient,
that
structures
and
set
institutions
have
up
example,
to shape events
continued
long after the Forty-nin
insti
ers
in the long run, California's
But
departed.
American
mimicked
much
tutions
larger
pretty
as did exist had
and such differences
institutions,
edly
more
to do with
Spanish
and Mexican
precedents
than the Gold Rush.
In the actual history of California and the United
the
and
the genetic
both
metaphors
A past event, or a set of past
fail.
of
legacy
metaphors
DNA
does not act as some sort of historical
events,
to generation,
on from generation
producing
passed
of hair or skin color or pre
the collective
equivalent
does not in this
to cancer. The present
disposition
a read
the
from
sense develop
past. Such
inexorably
the
as a
code
the
of
has,
ironically,
genetic
past
ing
what
most
of
of
actually
rendering
consequence
in the past utterly meaningless.
Every
happened
then and now becomes
between
thing that happens
or refining
of
as Bancroft
had it, a filtering
merely,
the original material.
an
because
claims have
Still, Bancroft's
appeal,
States,
Bancroft's
idea that the Gold
Rush
had
consequences
in the sense that modern
is deeply historical
assertion
histo
of a set of
rians understand
history. Any
from a particular
historical
consequences
springing
or
to the
is inextricably
attached
event
set of events
more
This sounds
idea of contingency.
basic historical
in the
Imean
to be. Contingency,
it
than
complicated
means
sense that I am using
that
it, simply
something
on
else hap
is dependent
that happens
something
is
neither
else
and
that the something
pening,
nor
even
that
The
old
inevitable
saying
predictable.
was
a
a
want
want
for
shoe
of
"For
lost,
nail,
begins
of a horse a bat
of a shoe a horse was
lost, for want
. .," and
a whole
lost.
tle was
goes on until
king
an
The
of
dom has been lost, is
contingency.
example
revolves
which
around
It's a Wonderful
movie
Life,
the difference that the life of a single man (played
by Jimmy Stewart) makes and how different his town
have been without
would
him, is about contingency.
in which
models
There are historical
contingency
is only the
does not matter.
If, for example,
history
steer it in a cer
that inevitably
meta-forces
of
product
events
do not much
tain direction,
then particular
If a
at work.
as
matter
except
signs of the forces
or a Chris
or aMarxist
class
struggle,
spirit,
Hegelian
then
the eventual
determines
tian God
outcome,
no
with
are
events
important
epiphenomena
merely
of their own. Such teleological
history
consequences
insofar as they are signs of
cares about events
only
a
or History
with
the spirit or God's
capital
purpose
H.
events matter.
means
that particular
Contingency
conse
had
Rush
To say that the Gold
important
fol
events
that
some
the
of
to
that
is
say
quences
lowed the Gold Rush would not have happened if
the Gold Rush had not happened in theway that it
did. The consequences of the Gold Rush were in the
most
obvious
happening.
As much
sense
on
the Gold
Rush
as Ihate to admit it, the flip side of the
idea of historical
tory. Counterfactual
46 CALIFORNIA HISTORY
contingent
contingency
history
his
is counterfactual
if"
"what
is essentially
history. And "what if" history
tory at all. "What if" the Gold
pened? How would
is in one sense not his
had never hap
Rush
be different? The
California
answer
and
obvious
is, the Gold Rush did happen,
The problem with
this answer
this is a silly question.
it?historians
is that the same historians
who
give
are also
to
assert
that
the
Gold Rush
like me?
likely
in the statement
that
But implicit
had consequences.
the Gold Rush had consequences
there had not been
not have
would
Gold Rush. They
that
emphasizes
a Gold
^Ha?^^|a?^HHPI^B?^B?H*>^^B
.
, 'flilEllPS?Pig
iiflnnilli
sBu^^^mmmmWtH?^lFK^lipWtP^ ^t:
is the idea that if
those
Rush,
consequences
on the
occurred.
They
depended
were
not inevitable.
Such a view
in
there were multiple
possibilities
and what
fol
Gold
Rush
the past. The California
But things
lowed are a set of realized
possibilities.
to turn out the way
that they did. And
did not have
to say this, to admit unrealized
is to
possibilities,
a
in
endorse
counterfactual
sense,
which,
history,
to specifying
those unrealized
possi
only amounts
^
Hp'-'-J'^^i^ia^BB^BB^BB^BB^BB^BB^BBBn
?^ia^BB^BB^BB^BB^HteP'
bilities: what the town would have been like if Jimmy
con
jumped off the bridge. To talk about
to
enter
is
counterfactual
sequences
history
through
the back door rather than the front door.
me
to Henry
who
entered
Which
brings
George,
neither
the
front
door
counterfactual
history
through
nor the back door, but rather a side door. For George,
the Gold Rush was what
the important
thing about
to happen,
but
did not happen, or rather what
started
we
in
too
was,
ways
George
easily
Henry
stopped.
foremost
late-nineteenth-century
forget, America's
social critic, and the society he knew best was Cali
of the key exam
fornia. California
many
provides
in
best
selling Progress and Poverty, and
ples
George's
saw the Gold
as con
Rush
like
Bancroft,
George,
it was
For
Bancroft,
taining multiple
possibilities.
a
like
later history,
acting
suspiciously
gold miner,
out the gravel and dirt and left the gold.
that washed
But for George,
the opposite
The best pos
happened.
The
of the Gold
Rush went
unrealized.
sibilities
was
The
about
the
Gold
lost.
critical
thing
"gold"
that did not flow out of it. The
Rush was
the changes
was not how much
it changed
Cal
thing
important
Stewart
had
V'^'^a^a^a^BB^aHtl^B^BBla^BHi^:^??f"
"-'aHa^HaVa^a^Baala^B^Ka^BBl
^~~'^rirfala^a^a^a^a^a^a^a^Bl?^aa^a^a^HBV'';^Sfv-v
^^^^^V%|^H
Henry
came
(1839-1897),
George
to California
in 1857
and
printer,
the first and
itinerant
loudest
social
and
critic
found
He
newspaperman.
of railroad
opponents
cities,
builds
and
made
by
in the
up
great
a
leading
George moved
same
ones."
SPRING 1998 47
was
one
of
expansion,
San
to New
and
little businesses
kills
way
in a
Shown
here
photograph
Francisco
photography
Progress
studio,
York in 1880 just as his best
and Poverty
propelled
Photograph
by Vance's
Gallery,
Historical
son, Proprietors.
California
fame.
economist,
as a miner,
that it "kills little towns and builds up great
arguing
seller
and
work
him
Bradley
Society,
to national
and
Rulof
FN-21526.
ifornia
and the nation
a
after
little,
promising
can
speak for himself:
and
the world,
but instead how
it
them. George
start,
changed
The discovery
of gold in California brought together
in a new country men who had been used to look on
land as the rightful subject of individual property,
a thousand had
and of whom
probably not one in
ever dreamed
of drawing
between
distinction
any
in
and
in
land
else.
But,
property
property
anything
for the first time in the history of the Anglo-Saxon
race, these men were brought into contact with land
from which
gold could be obtained by the simple
it out.3
of
operation
washing
For George,
of the case "broke through
the novelty
men
and
back upon
first prin
habitual
threw
ideas,
was
common
consent
it
that
and
declared
by
ciples,
common
land
remain
should
this gold-bearing
prop
no one
than he could
take more
erty, of which
might
use, or hold for a longer time than he con
reasonably
was
use
it. This perception
of natural
tinued to
justice
and
in by the General
the
Government
acquiesced
remained
of impor
courts, and while
placer mining
to overrule
this rever
tance, no attempt was made
no one was allowed
sion to primitive
ideas_Thus
resources.
Labor was
to forestall or to lock up natural
was given a
as the creator of wealth,
acknowledged
in its reward."4
For George,
free field, and secured
of lais
the Gold Rush, rather than being a celebration
a bullet
was
at its heart.
aimed
sez-faire
capitalism,
and capital.
This
It exalted
labor over property
was
in
land
thrown
moment
when
property
private
of possibil
for him, the moment
into question
was,
ity. It revealed the injustice and harm of allowing
in land and
property
private
largely unrestricted
rent: the unearned
to collect
allowing
speculators
rose. But, George
when
increment
regretted,
prices
in California,
the
with
"the decline
of placer mining
idea of private
accustomed
pre
property
finally
the patent
in the passage
of a law permitting
vailed
1872
the infamous
lands." This was
ing of mineral
Act.
Mining
recent
has reinforced
scholarship
Interestingly,
era in California
to which
the gold-rush
a
and
attack on the
very serious,
strong,
represented
norms of
law.
The Biddle
property
Anglo-American
on
access
on
to
which
centered
minerals
case,
Boggs
an
was
C.
Fremont's
John
grant,
attempt
Mariposa
to put use before ownership.
The powerful
squatter's
to land that came
stressed
rights movement
rights
use and
than purchase
rather
through
improvement
or
in
statutes
and
did
of
limitations
grant,
changes
some
on
But
in
limits
any
property
impose
rights.5
was
the moment
the
for George,
case,
lost, and,
was
most
the
of
Gold Rush
consequence
important
its lost possibilties.6
It is
is in a sense counterfactual.
George's
legacy
a realized event. But pre
of
the unrealized
possibility
in George's
view, the Gold Rush only
cisely because,
and
the American
diverted
temporarily
partially
the extent
to private property in land, the Gold Rush
devotion
ceased
to be a determinative
event.
in
By bringing
it simply speeded the imposition of the
Americans,
That system
land system over California.
American
Itwas
that land system,
would
have come anyway.
as
that ensured,
rather than the Gold Rush,
George
in
that
and
be
there
would
Poverty
Progress,
argued
or without
in
With
the
the
midst
riches.
of
poverty
have been pretty much
the world would
Gold Rush,
the
same.
in virtually
the same
the conse
assessed
in an almost
of the Gold Rush
the legacies,
quences,
was
manner.
with
satisfied
Bancroft
largely
opposite
was
to
He
California.
Gilded
recognize
willing
Age
in the past, but saw them as
evil and immorality
see in the
He could
removed.
being
progressively
and Bancroft
stood
same
time and
George
at
place
the
Gold Rush what he regarded as the best qualities of
and he regarded
the
and his contemporaries,
himself
that his
bad qualities
of the Gold Rush as something
critical of
eliminated.
George,
tory itself gradually
Gilded Age
saw
society and its growing disparities
the Gold
Rush
as a moment
wealth,
his major
male
egalitarianism?and
best qualities were
with whites?whose
48 CALIFORNIA HISTORY
of
of white,
was
concern
quickly
lost.
Itwas
an event
but
that revealed
other possibilities,
see
lost possibilities.
historians
Today,
as
than
law
less
property
threatening
and Indians, peo
the actual property
of Californios
con
ple who hardly
figure in George's
analysis. And
see
Californians
temporary
might
George's
emphasis
on the
use in any claim on prop
of
human
priority
than as a threat to public
lands,
erty as less liberation
are to some
natural processes
where
degree protected
from the harshest
of human use. Times
consequences
they remained
the Forty-niners
evaluations
change;
change.
We now stand a hundred
and fifty years after the
Rush
and more
than a hundred
Gold
after
years
some
and Bancroft.
Their legacies?whether
George
distinctive
California
type or the idea that
personality
of distributing
methods
property
rights
amodel
for
all American
provided
solving virtually
more distant
social problems?seem
and dated
than
are time-bound.
the Gold Rush
itself. Legacies
The
traces of past events
that we pick up and emphasize
as much
on our present
concerns
as on the
depend
event
itself.
assess
We see the limits of George's
and Bancroft's
our own assessments
of the
ments,
but, of course,
are as time-bound
of the Gold Rush
consequences
as Bancroft's
and George's.
Our only hope
is in rec
we do not stand outside
that
ognizing
history when
we make
assessments
of the past. We have no God's
are
the very historical
eye view. We
fully within
movement
that we observe. Assessing
the past must
an assessment
own mod
our
involve
of
necessarily
ern condition
we stand within
and where
it, but to
Forty-niners'
itmust
be useful,
than that. Itmust
do more
refine
the nature of the claims
that we make. We can never
our views
make
but we might make
them
complete,
less partial.
Thus I recognize that the things that strike me
about theGold Rush, the things I try to connect with
in the modern
a
United
States, are as much
product
of my own position
as were
within
modern
society
the conclusions
of Bancroft
and George.
I see the
Gold Rush as a period
of intense cultural
and racial
I see the Gold Rush as bringing
and
capital?
in a way
it power?to
it a
California
that gave
start over the rest of the West.
I see the gold
head
as
rush as a laboratory
of power
and resistance
access
out
to
Americans
carved
Anglo
privileged
see
I
to Mac
thanks
California,
gold.
gold-rush
as a
the
values
of
where
emerg
Rohrbough,
place
contact.
with
ing capitalism
and the values
a domestic,
that resonate
of what might
be
in
America
kin-based
clashed
to the present.
down
Such con
ways
cerns are, however,
not the only connections
with
the
are
me are the most
to
Gold Rush;
what
they
only
cen
in the late twentieth
visible part of the spectrum
much more
there.
is, admittedly,
tury. There
in my society
I
constrains
my concerns.
My place
can live with
that. History
is so broad and contains
so many
some constraint.
But that
things that it needs
I am constrained
in what
I see does not mean
that I
can't find better
and more
of
ways
sophisticated
connections
between
the
and
the
past
establishing
I can hope
for a more
refined gauge of con
present.
sequences.
are connected
If consequences
with
contingency
a counterfactual
assumes
and contingency
always
to refine our thinking
then we can begin
alternative,
at
con
what
it
is
that we make
by looking
closely
the contingency
of the
tingent when we emphasize
Gold Rush. The interesting
counterfactual
question
if there were no gold in California.
is not what
Elim
the material
fact of gold is silly and not very
inating
The interesting
if the
is, what
profitable.
question
as an event, had not taken
a cer
Gold Rush,
in
place
tain way at a certain time? What
if, for example,
gold
had been discovered
and exploited
when
California
was
still safely Mexican?
What
if, for example,
gold
had been discovered
or Idaho or
first in Colorado
Alaska?
Or what
if another
had passed
generation
called
before gold was discovered
inCalifornia? What dif
ference would
this have made? How
the
you phrase
in many ways
determines
the answer.
question
the timing of the event, and other
Change
possi
bilities
that the timing
change. We need to remember
SPRING 1998 49
""W^?*ff/
?If
M?,
jy?
not uncommon
it was
Ameri
for Californios,
Indians,
Rush,
as
in the mines,
in this
to
work
side-by-side
suggested
European
immigrants
at
1849. But increased
cul
of the Walter
competition,
daguerreotype
Taylor mine
Taylorsville,
soon
and the arrival
of less tolerant
racial hostilities,
tural differences,
inflamed
lead
people
In the
and
ing
to claim
Courtesy
50
first months
cans,
jumping,
Huntington
of
the Gold
mob
violence,
and
the eventual
enactment
Library.
CALIFORNIA HISTORY
of
the Foreign
Miners'
Tax.
of the event not only enabled some things to happen
but cut off other possibilities. If, for example, theGold
1900, one out of every five people living from the
Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Coast lived in the San
would
Rush had come a decade
sooner, California
rather than American.
California
have been Mexican
have shared the fate of Texas?a
lightly popu
might
overrun
lated area of northern Mexico
by American
But if it had not, ifMexico
had, for exam
immigrants.
Francisco-Oakland
area.8 This
extended
impact
the West.
Let's take as an easy example
the
beyond
of the Gold Rush for American
consequences
power
ple, found away towed itself to the British fleet, the
wealth that poured out of California might have
fueled
Mexican
development.
Proportionately,
a greater
would
of California
have made
wealth
than to the United
ference to Mexico
the
dif
States. John
Coatsworth
has given an indication
of what
the loss
of the northern
territories
of Mexico
and the devel
in them meant
toMexican
of mining
opment
history.
out of Cal
The wealth
alone that flowed
from mining
ifornia and the rest of the Mexican
cession before 1900
the total Gross National
Product
of Mexico
that
Seen
from
the Gold
Mexico,
period.7
during
Rush was only a sign of what might
have been.
in assessing
what
did hap
too, is critical
Timing,
exceeded
pen in California. With or without
California
would
have
eventually
population. With or without
the Gold Rush,
attracted
a
large
the Gold Rush, Indian
have been dispossessed,
but perhaps
people would
or without
not so brutally. With
the Gold Rush, Cal
ifornios would
have been stripped
of land, but per
We can guess
this, because
haps not so thoroughly.
similar things happened
With or without
elsewhere.
the Gold Rush,
railroads would
have
reached Cali
the Gold Rush,
these rail
fornia, and with or without
roads would
have monopolized
vast tracts of land.
In their broad outlines all of these things and more
would most likely have happened, but the critical
question is: did their happening at the time and in the
way they didmake a difference? Clearly in the short
term,
all of this made
wealth,
population,
for all practical
was,
a
In terms of
huge difference.
and political
California
power,
theWest between
1850
purposes,
and 1880. San Francisco in 1880 held 233,959 people.
All of Oregon,
Washington,
a
contained
population
and Idaho added together
late as
282,494. As
of only
in the Pacific. Did theGold Rush begin American pen
etration
into the Pacific?
No.
There was
an American
presence prior to the Gold Rush. Did the Gold Rush
have
consequences
there?
There
is strong
evidence
that it did. JeanHeffer in his recent U?tats Unis et Le
Pacifique speaks of the golden age of the American
in the Pacific.
marine
He
that
argues
commerce
amount
in
the
of
American
the
although
cen
in
Pacific
increased
the
nineteenth
greatly
early
remained marginal
until the dis
tury, the commerce
merchant
covery
commerce
of gold
in California.
In the 1850s the
rose to represent
and leaving
entering
10 percent
of the
roughly
At
American
the
ships
ports.
in
of
the
all
American
the
century,
beginning
ships
Pacific
from
the
Northeastern
and
departed
ports
returned there.All this changed in theGold Rush. In
1856, the first year forwhich there are statistics on San
commerce
Pacific
accounted
for nearly
Francisco,
half of the entering
and
of the
ships
three-quarters
zone
It
made
Panama
the
of
departures.
principle
transit between
coasts. With
the East and West
San
the United
States gained an entrep?t on the
Francisco,
that gave it a great
over America's
Pacific
advantage
rivals.9
European
after the Gold Rush,
its con
Thirty years and more
remained
it gave Cali
clear in the boost
sequences
fornia,
but
something
of
pond
draws
it is possible
that ripple
time
and
as
to imagine
consequences
from an event
into some
fainter and fainter as one
grow
the site of the event. The conse
out
from
away
of the Gold Rush
less clear, and the
quences
grew
a modern
lines of causality
between
event or situa
tion and an event in the past became more
and more
complicated.
consequences
other events.
that seemed
SPRING 1998 51
As
into time, the
they extended
deeper
the Gold
Rush
with
intersected
the
Gold
Rush
given by
Advantages
in the late nineteenth
insurmountable
of
in fact, surmounted.
over
the Pacific,
for
hegemony
seems evident
in the 1990s.
were,
century
San Francisco's
example,
hardly
The advantages that the Gold Rush bestowed
could dwindle unless supplemented
by other
a differ
Does
the Gold Rush make
developments.
as I have asserted
ence in
California
as,
establishing
we
in other places,
the capital
of the West?
Again,
in
to specify
have
the time in question.
Certainly,
the short run it did. The Gold Rush not only cre
it did so in a place distant
from exist
capital,
of
and
where
concentrations
ing
ownership
capital
non
resources
was
of existing
largely by
originally
In the
thus open to violent
seizure.
and was
whites
ated
"Cali
of the geographer
Richard
Walker,
comes
with
into modern
fornia
history
shining
creation
with
The
blood."10
and
promise
dripping
asso
and also technological
of capital,
knowledge
alone
with
allowed
ciated
California,
mining,
it men who
to have within
states,
among western
men
and
had
finance
who
could
large enterprises
to run them. That capital
skills
the technological
from Nevada's
mines
much
of the wealth
allowed
the knowledge
to flow
into California;
allowed
to export
its mining
Califor
California
engineers.
railroads?first
transcontinental
nians
controlled
and then the Southern
Pacific.
the Central
Pacific
words
The Gold Rush created wealth
fornia,
of capital
the West.
Washington
go on.
that allowed Cali
to be a source
states,
among
in
elsewhere
for commodity
production
into
of
control
translated
California
gold
could
timber and Hawaiian
sugar.111
alone
Similarly,
western
markets
with
limits. They become
entangled
was
in
California
important
capital
as time went
but
the
less
West,
important
developing
on than
and eastern
Even mid
European
capital.
western
cut
into
what
had
could
been sec
capitalists
tors dominated by California since the Gold Rush.
Two
St. Paul neighbors,
Weyerhaeuser
and
itwas midwestern
tim
Frederick
James J.Hill, could cut deeply into the California pie.
By the early
twentieth
century
ber barons who displaced California producers in that
railroad oper
and E. H. Harriman's
industry. Hill's
not
in
dominated
those
centered
ations,
California,
in any case, J.P.Morgan's
New
much
of theWest. And
York dominated all of them. The Gold Rush gave Cal
ifornia
century
By
a valuable
advantage,
was
that advantage
1910,
California's
but
by
the
dissipating.
after
population,
twentieth
the dol
drums of the 1890s, had resumed its rapid growth, but
the state was
than the rest of the
less rapidly
growing
In
the Pacific North
Pacific Coast.
1890, for example,
was
of that of Cal
west's
only 63 percent
population
had
ifornia alone, but by 1910 the Pacific Northwest
as many
California.
percent?as
nearly
people?90
no longer was
even more
And,
critically, California
which
Francisco.
Los
with
San
synonymous
Angeles,
the Bay
owed little to the Gold Rush, was outstripping
a
Area. The Gold Rush had given California
good run,
that there
its end. This hardly means
but itwas nearing
to California's
weren't
gold
advantages
lingering
rush head start or that California's
power dissipated.
of Califor
It only means
that historical
explanations
than the
far more
nia's success become
complicated
Rush.13
The most
today?pol
easily traced consequences
lution from old mine
sites, the location and small size
The
reservations?are
of Indian
largely negative.
not
do
modern
California
of
many
aspects
positive
trace so easily back to the Gold Rush.
As the twentieth
on, what had once
century wore
in the
a thick rope of consequences
anchored
seemed
a mere
that
and
had become
Rush
Gold
thread,
Gold
the Gold Rush, by creating
the first
to
in the West,
allowed
Californians
San
in
West
because
the
elsewhere
shape production
lucrative market.
became
the West's most
Francisco
to capital,
and the size of that mar
And
the access
to develop
the West's
California
ket, allowed
only
center.12
non-extractive
manufacturing
significant
I could go on and on, but we need to be care
Again,
but the conse
events had consequences,
ful. These
urban
had
quences
events.
other
thread was
52 CALIFORNIA HISTORY
intertwined
with
many
others.
The Gold
This
vas
1849 daguerreotype,
looks east from
tents,
abandoned
vessels.
showing
a
hodge-podge
downtown
San
today's
Historical
California
Society,
erected
of recently
housing,
a waterfront
Francisco
toward
including
clogged
can
with
FN-1311.
SPRING 1998
53
its importance,
but that importance
Rush
retained
was more
and more metaphorical.
it is simplest
Here,
to quote Kevin
Starr:
never lose this
connec
California would
symbolic
tion with an intensified pursuit of human happiness.
As a hope in defiance of facts, as a longing which
could also
could ennoble and encourage but which
turn and devour
itself, the symbolic value of Cali
fornia endured?a
legacy of the Gold Rush.14
Iwould
advise patience before you buy all the
for the Gold Rush's
proffered
legacy. At the
or bicen
next
wait
until
centennial
the
least
very
of a famous California
tennial or sesquicentennial
event comes along. My guess
is that most
of the lega
claims
cies now so cavalierly claimed for theGold Rush will
of the
then be claimed
for, let's say, the completion
at celebrations
railroad.
transcontinental
Speakers
are
to claim connections
between
their audi
quick
Itmay be
and heroic events.
lives and distant
ence's
the point of the celebration; itmay be how public
us to the past.
It is an important
connects
memory
use of the past, but it is often poor history.
Ichs]
NOTES
1. Kevin
Starr, Americans
York: Oxford
2. Hubert
of California,
23:110.
3. Henry George,
the Cause of Industrial
Richard White will join the history faculty
Ahanagran
Dream,
1850-1915
(New
and Poverty, The Remedy: An Inquiry Into
and of Increase of Want with Increase of
Depressions
Progress
Foundation,
(New York: Robert Schalkenbach
1942), 385-86.
4. Ibid., 386.
Law in California,
5. Donald
1850-58," Western
J. Pisani,
"Squatter
24 (Autumn
Historical Quarterly
304; see also
1994): 277-310, particularly
Paul Kens, JusticeStephenField: Shaping Justicefrom theGold Rush to the
Gilded Age (Lawrence: University
of Kansas
Press,
1997), 55-69, 80-92.
6. George,
Progress and Poverty, 386-87.
to Economic
in Nineteenth
7. John Coatsworth,
Growth
"Obstacles
Review 83 (Feb. 1978): 97.
American Historical
Century Mexico,"
"Another
Round
of Globalization
8. Richard Walker,
17 (1996): 64.
cisco," Urban Geography
et le Pacificque: Histoire
9. Jean Heffer,
Les ?tats-Unis
(Paris: Editions Albin Michel,
1995), 54-55.
10. Walker,
in San Fran
d'une fronti?re
"Another
61.
Round,"
11. Ibid., 65.
1865-1932:
Pol
San Francisco,
12.William
Issel and Robert W. Cherny,
Univer
and
Los
itics, Power, and Urban Development
(Berkeley
Angeles:
Press,
sity of California
13. Walker,
"Another
at Stan
ford University beginning in thefall of 1998.His latestbook
is Remembering
the California
Wealth
14. Starr, Americans
Historian
and
Press, 1973), 50.
University
Howe
The Works ofHubert Howe Bancroft: History
Bancroft,
v. 6,1848-59
The History
1888),
(San Francisco:
Company,
(1998).
54 CALIFORNIA HISTORY
1986),
24-25.
60-94.
Round,"
and the California Dream,
68.
IPillfiilP^'^
and
"Temporary
1868, by Andrew
Permanent
J. Russell,
is considered
Bridge,
Green
River
Citadel
[Wyoming],
for the Union
Pacific
company
photographer
one of the
artifacts
of the building
great visual
photograph
like the Gold
also
tinental
transformed
California
railroad,
which,
Rush,
West.
Oakland Museum
Andrew
Collection.
J. Russell
Courtesy
of California,
SPRING 1998
Rock
ca.
in Distance/'
This famous
Railroad.
of
the first
and
transcon
the American
55