My apologies for not getting these located here sooner.
HIST 240 Lecture Notes
Date: 10/2/12
By Valerie Slitor
Topics broached at top of class: John Sutter promises the
Mexican government that his fort will serve as a border between Ca and Mexico.
Fremont -- Smear campaign and eventual court marshal… continuing a discussion
about the Bear Flag Rebels. The war ends, Capitulation of Cahuenga in 1847, and
the Treaty of Guadalupe.
The Donner Party is discussed again… as the public
understanding of their plight was that they screwed up. The survivors are
viewed as savages and sub-human… celebrities for the worst possible reason.
Sutter, however, continues to believe that Americans are
coming to his paradise. He builds a mill because then, as they come, he’ll be
an industrial force to be reckoned with. He hires James Marshall to build his
mill which he does, stupidly, up-river and as close as possible to the trees..
·
- Down River is preferable as the resources are better used and thus allows for more labor.
The mill is never fully constructed, though, as GOLD is
found. A second hand account of this accidental first gold finding was read in
class… ultimately revealing that Sutter wanted to keep the gold on the DL so
that the mill would get finished.
Doesn’t stay quiet for long though, as Sam Brannan, a Mormon
like James Marshaall, fills a milk bottle with gold and runs through town with
it in San Francisco. People then drop what they’re doing and go where the gold
is.
·
- Brannan, it’s argued, was motivated as he was a merchant and luring more people to his area would greatly benefit him.
A “Golden tea Cozy” is shipped to the President and with
that, oddly, the Gold Rush becomes an official thing. A steamship routed from the East Coast to CA
via Panema leaves before the announcement is made but quickly sells out as
people leave their homes for California.
·
- If there is the PULL OF GOLD in California, if could be argued that there is a PUSH FROM HOME.
What results is the largest mass migration up to that point.
There was a recission… pushing people towards what seemed to be limitless, easy
wealth.
Americans are convinced that in coming to California,
they’re taking part in the biggest historical event yet. They buy into the epic mythological
adventure, calling themselves Argonauts (seeking, like Jason, the Golden
Fleece).
A satiric drawing of an Argonaut is shown, depicting a
foolish man with a variety of silly objects. There’s a great deal of art
generated, showing a variety of versions of the Gold Rush experience, including
images of Sutters Fort and a very solitary indigenous figure looking over the
mill… there was some in class discussion as the the symbolism of this and what
was concluded was that the man is an outsider, watching over his changing home
but not a participant in the evolution. What’s revealed in this was that it was
a primarily MALE society… there weren’t many women at all in the Gold Rush. The
question is raised what happens in a mostly male environment like that… and the
answer is violence and a skewed vision of gender and gender dynamics.
A woman named Louise Amelia Knapp Smith or “Dame Shirley”
wrote an account of what life was like, “in the mines.” These “Shirley
Letters,” were meant as a means for those back home to get an idea of what was
happening in California. She meant the letters to be published.
The advantages of being a woman were that skills that were
at that time strictly gendered in society were highly profitable. Men didn’t
know how to sew or cook or launder clothes because they’d never had to do it.
So for a woman, what would have been unpaid expected work at home would now
have the potential of making her the
wealthiest person in a camp.
Women too were symbolic of home. Men would pay women jus to
LOOK at them… allowing them to see, in a way, someone they miss at home.
Also prostitution was a thing. Obviously. They weren’t all
just gazing innocently.
Gambling is an issue, raising the larger question of the
morality of being a 49er at all as the ENTIRE enterprise was a gamble.
Eliza Farnham wrote that the problem in California is that
there are no women and that the place will remain uncivilized until they are
there in force. The solution, she argued, was to ship unwanted spinsters from
eastern states because it would be win-win; the men in the mines wouldn’t be so
picky and those poor spinsters would FINALLY get married to somebody and in the
process they’d, by virtue of their sex, civilized the state.
Then there was Grizzly Adams, or James Capen Adams.
He left his New Hampshire home in the 1850’s to make his
fortune. Mining, however, was a very hard lifestyle and people are dying all
over the place. Malaria’s a big problem and very poor, insufficient diets
aren’t helping anyone’s immune system. So, Adams says, “nuts to this!” and
figures out a way to make a living off of the gold miners rather than trying to
make a living off the gold. By 1853 he was no longer a miner. He becomes a professional hunter and makes WAY more
money doing that.
Then he specializes and becomes a bear hunter.
He hunts them and then eventually really starts to respect
them, especially the grizzly bear. He wrote a lot of his love affair and
symbiotic existence with nature and bears. He refered to bears as the “Monarch
of Nature,” comparing their size and strength to the size and scope of the
native trees of California… stating that the grizzly is not like a lion, but
rather overwhelming like the snowy hard mountains of the native terrain. Being attacked by a bear gave his life
purpose.
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