Broadside poster advertising an overland stage from Oregon to Sacramento, with connecting stages to Southern Oregon and Northern California mining towns, 1866; courtesy the Bancroft Library, U.C. Berkeley

Conflict and Discrimination in the Goldfields

Suddenly Northern California was home to people from all over the world, each of them hoping to strike it rich. Every prospector arrived with his or her own language and customs, and conflict soon followed. Anglo-American miners, fueled by a misguided sense of racial superiority, challenged the Mexicans and Chileans in particular. Once Chinese immigrants began arriving in large numbers in the 1850s, they were the targets of even greater discrimination.

Some historians argue that Anglo miners disliked the Latin American system of mining labor, in which a patron oversaw the work of a group of peons, or slaves. In the context of the raging national controversy over slave labor in the years leading up to the Civil War, it's easy to see how tensions among different groups could be further inflamed.

The conflicts between gold prospectors and California Indians were violent and ongoing. Indians, pushed off their lands, sometimes reacted with force to protect their way of life. The encroaching settlers would respond with greater force, often massacring entire Indian villages in a single raid. One newspaper editor argued at the time, “It is a mercy to the Red Devils to exterminate them.” And this is what happened. Many tribes, such as the Yahi, were entirely eradicated by the end of the 19th century.

The American government gave its support to the U.S. miners, and many prospectors who came from other countries such as Mexico, Chile, or China returned home with little to show for their efforts.