Gold Rush Economy
Gold was discovered here in 1848.
What is Sutter’s Mill?
This immigrant group was targeted by the Foreign Miners’ Tax.
Who were Chinese miners?
These citizen groups claimed to fight corruption outside formal legal authority.
What were Vigilance Committees?
This 1861 system connected California instantly to the East Coast.
What is the Transcontinental Telegraph?
This author, who later wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, worked in California as a journalist during the Gold Rush era.
Who is Mark Twain?
This city rapidly transformed into a commercial port during the Gold Rush.
What is San Francisco?
By 1852, fewer than 10% of California’s population were______?
Who were women?
This 1884 ruling restricted hydraulic mining debris.
What is the Sawyer Decision?
California stayed in the Union during the Civil War but sent troops mostly to this part of the country.
What are the western territories?
Miners and city dwellers alike could watch boxing, prizefighting, and horse racing during the Gold Rush era, forms of this type of popular leisure activity.
What is gambling/sports entertainment?
As surface gold declined, mining shifted toward this capital-intensive method.
What is hydraulic mining?
Many Chinese immigrants arrived in California in the 1850s; they often worked on this massive infrastructure project in addition to mining.
What was the transcontinental railroad?
This reform allowed married women to retain control of property.
What is the Married Women’s Property Act?
Approximately this many Californians served in the Union effort.
What is 15,000?
What term describes the coexistence of many different religions in early California society, including Catholicism, Protestantism, and Judaism?
What is religious pluralism?
What did most hand-miners earn per week during the Gold Rush?
$20–$50 per week
This 1850 California law allowed the forced “apprenticeship” of Indigenous people and was part of early state efforts to control and exploit Native labor.
What is the Act for the Government and Protection of Indians (Indian Indenture Act)?
California’s first state legislature, established in 1850, was bicameral and consisted of these two houses.
What are the Senate and the Assembly?
Besides troops, California’s most important contribution to the Union war was_________?
What is gold and financial support?
This magazine promoted Western literary identity in the late 19th century.
What is the Overland Monthly?
Which tax targeted non-U.S. miners, especially Chinese and Latin American immigrants, during the Gold Rush?
The Foreign Miners’ Tax
Miners from this region were often forced out of California by law and violence, despite arriving before the Gold Rush began.
Who were Latin American miners (especially Mexicans)?
How many delegates were at the Constitutional Convention of 1849?
What is 48?
Elected governor of California in 1862, this politician was a strong supporter of the Union during the Civil War and later became a railroad tycoon.
Who is Leland Stanford?
Founded in the 1850s, this company became the main handler of gold and mail across California, using stagecoaches to connect cities and mining towns.
What is Wells Fargo?