Gold Rush: Conflicts, Disease, and Disasters
The large-scale influx of people into California over a short period of time created many problems and issues. People from all around the world, speaking many different languages, and having different cultural norms, lead to instances of xenophobia and bigotry. Some of this xenophobia would be codified into law, at other times it triggered acts of violence. Large numbers of people living together in unsanitary conditions created the perfect opportunities for diseases to spread. Towns and cities, practically built overnight, created conditions ripe for fires and floods.
Foreign Miner’s License
While people from all around the world flocked to the gold fields, not all were welcome. The first foreign miner’s tax was passed by the California legislature in 1850. It required all miners who were not U.S. citizens to pay $20 per month for the right to mine in the state—the equivalent of approximately $700 per month in today’s money. The tax was mainly collected from Chinese and Latino miners; European miners were rarely forced to pay. This image of a license from 1850, issued to a German man, Charles Hage, is a rare example of the tax being applied to a European. In 1853, the amount was lowered to $4 per month.
Act for the Government and Protection of Indians
This image shows the first page of An Act for the Government and Protection of Indians, signed into law April 1850. Contrary to its euphemistic title, this act stripped California Indians of any legal rights, allowing their enslavement or forced servitude if white people declared them to be vagrants or, in the case of children, orphans. The law also prohibited California Indians from testifying against white people and voting while also legalizing corporal punishment.
Fugitive Slave Act of 1852
In 1852, California legislators passed a fugitive slave law, “An Act Respecting Fugitives from Labor, and Slaves Brought to This State Prior to Her Admission into the Union.” This law meant that enslaved people living in California who had arrived prior to California joining the Union as a free state, could be forcibly returned to their enslavers and deported back to slaveholding states in the South. This was more pro-slavery than the federal fugitive slave law which applied to enslaved people who crossed state lines. It also put free men and women at risk if they could not prove their free status.
Proclamation of the Vigilance Committee
The first Vigilance Committee was formed in San Francisco in 1851, to, as they claimed, protect citizens from villainy. This group of men operated their own justice system, made arrests, staged trials and handed out punishments including lynching, whipping, and deportation, all without the sanction or approval of the government. This image is of the Proclamations of the second Vigilance Committee, formed in 1856.
California Vigilantes
This illustration shows a group of men carrying out the orders of “Judge Lynch.” Many people did not approve of the vigilance committee, as this illustration indicates. Disapproval seems to be indicated by referring to the judge as “lynch” and a law book open with a dagger on top. The sign nailed to the tree says, “hung for contempt of court,” which implies they are being executed for defying the vigilance committee rather than for a crime.
Hanging of a Mexican Woman
This illustration was drawn in 1893 and depicts the hanging of Josefa Segovia, also known as Juanita, in Downieville in 1851. Not much is known about Segovia, and what little is known has been debated by historians and scholars. What is known is that on July 5, 1851, she stabbed and killed Frederick Cannon. According to Cannon’s friends, he had gone to Josefa’s home to apologize for his behavior the previous day. He entered her house, shouting was heard, and then she stabbed him. Josefa stated she was defending herself, but the enraged mob of miners did not care. They staged a mock trial that very day, declared her guilty, and executed her immediately after. Many believe her execution was a result of the strong anti-Mexican bias held by many miners during this time period.
Medical Voyage
This image of the title page of “Voyage Medical en Californie,” was written by the physician Pierre Garnier. This volume documents his two-year travels through the gold regions, and his reflections on the common diseases and ailments of the time. Many people who traveled to California died from diseases such as cholera along the way, and many would die from the same diseases while mining for gold.
Hardin Bigelow and the Cholera Epidemic
Hardin Bigelow became the first mayor of Sacramento in February 1850. His appointment was cut short after 8 months, when he died of cholera during the 1850 epidemic that swept through San Francisco, Sacramento, and other mining towns. In Sacramento, with a population of approximately 8,000 people, over a thousand would die before the disease receded.
Great Conflagration of Sacramento
This artist’s rendering shows the massive fire that occurred in Sacramento on November 2, 1852, when more than 80 percent of the city burned down. Many early mining towns and cities were at an increased risk of fire due to being constructed primarily out of wood and canvas. People began rebuilding almost immediately and, this time, many of the new structures were built with brick.
1850 Sacramento Flood
This image depicts the massive flooding that occurred in Sacramento in January 1850. The city was established right next to the American and Sacramento Rivers. When the rivers flooded during the 10-day long storm, the streets filled with water, and many tents and buildings were washed away. This was not the last time the city would flood, and Sacramento would build several levees to control flood waters in the future.