what came to be called as the gold rush in USA? enlist it's consequences
Answers
On January 8, 1848, James W. Marshall, overseeing the construction of a sawmill at Sutter’s Mill in the territory of California, literally struck gold. His discovery of trace flecks of the precious metal in the soil at the bottom of the American River sparked a massive migration of settlers and miners into California in search of gold. The Gold Rush, as it became known, transformed the landscape and population of California.
Arriving in covered wagons, clipper ships, and on horseback, some 300,000 migrants, known as “forty-niners” (named for the year they began to arrive in California, 1849), staked claims to spots of land around the river, where they used pans to extract gold from silt deposits.
Prospectors came not just from the eastern and southern United States, but from Asia, Latin America, Europe, and Australia as well. Improvements in steamship and railroad technology facilitated this migration, which dramatically reshaped the demographics of California. In 1849, California established a state constitution and government, and formally entered the union in 1850.
The 1848 discovery of gold in California set off a frenzied Gold Rush to the state the next year as hopeful prospectors, called “forty-niners,” poured into the state.
This massive migration to California transformed the state’s landscape and population.
The Gold Rush was characterized by violent clashes among settlers, miners, and Native Americans over access to the land and its natural resources.