1. CALIFORNIA
STRIKING IT RICH:
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF AN AMERICAN
STATE

2. STRIKING IT RICH
 Feb 2, 1848: the U.S. and Mexico signed the Treaty of
Guadalupe Hidalgo, ceding to the U.S. all Mexican
territories north of the Rio Grande.
 Monterey: Navy Lieutenants Walter Colton and
Washington Bartlett would make important changes that
would affect the progression of California at this unstable
time
 The goal was to develop California as a "forward-looking,
money-making American place."

3. STRIKING IT RICH
 James Wilson Marshall and a sawmill that would change
the course of California's history forever: gold.
 December 5, 1848, Polk makes it official to Congress: gold
had been discovered in California.
 Within a year, California had grown from 10,000 to
100,000
 The goldfields were under federal
jurisdiction; they were freely available
for prospecting and mining as long as
certain filings and protocols were
observed.

4. STRIKING IT RICH
 The Gold Rush of 1849, like the Revolutionary War,
the Louisiana Purchase, or the Civil War, constitutes
a defining moment in the development of the United
States
 $595 million in gold - $10 billion in today's money –
left the goldfields over the course of a decade.
 life could be brutish and nasty; accidents were
frequent; disease ran rampant because of the fast
expansion of people in close quarters

5. STRIKING IT RICH
 California state legislature imposed a tax on all foreigners
in the goldfields; this from jealousy over the more-skilled
Hispanics who were better at mining than the Anglos.
 Foreigners were reviled by Americans, and there were
hangings and horrific deaths associated with this bias
 Urbanization was another direct
result of the Gold Rush; it meant the
near-spontaneous organization of
California into a state, something that
might have taken decades otherwise