The American Gold Rush

About this episode

This episode explores the darker realities of the American Gold Rush, including its impact on Native populations and the legal injustices faced by miners.

Most of us learned a version of the Gold Rush that was cheerful, portable, and mostly wrong. In this episode we set that version aside and go looking for what actually happened — the history that didn't make it onto the plaques.On 1/24/1848, James Marshall found gold at Sutter's Mill on the American River. California was still technically Mexican territory at the time; the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which formally transferred the region to the United States, wasn't signed until 2/2/1848 — nine days later. What followed was one of the most consequential and destructive episodes in American history, compressed into less than a decade.This episode covers the near-total collapse of California's Native population, from an estimated 150,000 people at the time of the discovery to fewer than 50,000 by 1870. We examine the California legislature's Act for the Government and Protection of Indians, passed in 1850, which functioned as a slavery statute for thirteen years. We look at Governor Peter Burnett's 1851 declaration that a "war of extermination" between the races was inevitable, and at the state-funded militia campaigns that historian Benjamin Madley has documented in his research…

Topics covered

• Gold Rush
• California history
• Native American population
• California genocide
• racial violence
• mining laws
• historical inaccuracies

Keywords

• Gold Rush
• California
• Native Americans
• mining
• genocide
• history
• racial violence
• laws
• James Marshall
• Peter Burnett

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: California legislature, California Supreme Court

Places: California, Mexico

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