CALIFORNIA IN 1858:
THE STORY OF THE PAST, THE ISSUES OF TODAY, THE CHOCES OF TOMORROW
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It has been ten years since James W. Marchall made his discovery in 1848 – ten years since the United States and the world found out about the enormous wealth that the state of California had in stock. Back then, California was nothing but a distant mysterious land – a province recently taken from Mexico and virtually unknown to American public. Yet even a decade later, when the Gold Rush has persisted for ten years in a row, many Americans know very little of the land except the occasional tale of immense wealth acquired by somebody's relative. The correspondent of "The New York Newspaper" came all the way to California to replenish this woeful lack of knowledge and inform American public about the peculiarities and problems of this vast land and the ways these may be solved.
The state of California in the year of 1858 represents a spectacle probably not unlike the first British colonies in the Chesapeake Bay. Hundreds of thousands of people – estimations for the first seven years only exceed three hundred souls – came through San Francisco, this Jamestown of our days, and left a profound mark on the land. Just as in the seventeenth century Chesapeake, one will have a hard time finding ladies in California: approximately nine out of ten inhabitants of the state are male . Just as the early colonies of American South, California attracts those willing to trade great risks for the possibility of great profits, be that tobacco or gold that holds the promise. Just as the early Chesapeake settlers, the prospectors have to deal with the local Indians, and the force of arms is frequently invoked as an argument . Yet, for all this similarities, differences are significant as well: even after the introduction of African slaves American South had never seen such a multitude of races. Mexicans are being overwhelmed by the arriving Anglo-Saxons, but still retain their presence . Chinese arrive in great numbers and may, as of now, number around thirty thousand . Thus, today's California represents a land as diverse in language and culture as one may ever meet in the whole of the USA.
To give the reader a better idea of this curious composition of population it would be useful to provide a concise overview of Californian developments during the last few years and explain how the waves of immigrants overflew one another. The Mexicans, naturally, were the first significant group to answer the call of Californian gold, and Sonoran miners came in numbers since 1849 . Yet their presence soon provoked reaction on the part of Anglo-Saxon population, who began discriminating them legally and extralegally . By 1854 Mexican immigration was stopped at its tracks, so the number of Mexicans is slowly diminishing during the last years . Chinese, one the other hand, are the newcomers: until 1850, there were mere hundreds of them, but after the political turbulence in China in the early 1850s they began coming in great numbers, and the influx of Asian prospectors is the current tendency . Yet the most important and numerous group is, or course, the white Anglo-Saxon miners, who come both from Oregon and the East Coast . Though the first boom of the "forty-niners" is already a thing of the past, the new prospectors continue coming. As a result, the ethnic and racial composition of California is as fluid as it is diverse.
Naturally, a community so diverse faces a great number of problems between its many groups, and, as painful it may be for a New Yorker to admit, many of the conflicts are provoked by the arrogance of Anglo-Saxons. Whether it is a legacy of the Mexican War or any other sort of prejudice, white prospectors tend to view Mexicans as lazy and inferior people lacking self-discipline and enterprise . I have to raise my voice in defense of our southern neighbors: as far as I have seen it here, a Mexican miner may work as well as the white man, and I heard stories of a simple Mexican servant earning several thousand dollars in several weeks with nothing but his wits, labor, and a bit of luck . Chinese were initially welcomed in California – as I have learned, they have even been given an honorable place at the Statehood Parade of October 23, 1850, in San Francisco . Yet as the numbers of white prospectors grew, they started viewing Chinese as competitors rather than help, and now Asians only work the claims that white consider worthless . The Indians are now largely subdued and do not pose much danger, yet are often subjected to arbitrary punishments, such as the confiscations of their cattle . Thus, the Anglo-Saxon's dominion over California is founded to on the unjust oppression of his fellow humans, which virtually mirrors the one currently occurring in the states of the South.
Yet since, under the terms of the Compromise of 1850, California was spared the dreadful fate of living under the slaveholder's heel, one can hope that a better and freer society may be built there. Of course, it would be futile to push toward genuine racial tolerance in the country where a person may be enslaved on no more grounds than the color of one's skin, but one can ease the discrimination against the free people, if nothing else. It is hardly possible to convince a proud Anglo-Saxon to leave the pedestal of his supposed racial superiority, but one can at least demand that all free people ought to be treated equally before the law. Local discriminative laws that drove thousands of hard-working Mexicans out of California or arbitrary taxes – such as the foreign miners tax of 1850, which was exclusively aimed at Chinese – should not be tolerated in a country that is founded on the notion that all men are created equal. Such measures would hardly produce genuine equality, but they would make California a place subjected to rule of impartial law. Granted, it may take away California's rough charm in the manner of the early Chesapeake. Yet if making San Francisco less of a Jamestown will reshape it into something more of the USA as envisaged by the Founding Fathers, the choice should be obvious.
As for the Indians, one should strive to preserve their rights while not offending the interests of the prospectors. Naturally, the prospectors have the right to defend themselves, and they also need land to settle in, so the Indians have to share their ancestral territories. Under present circumstances, there can hardly be a better realistic decision than putting Indians into reservations where they can be left to themselves. However, no such atrocities as killing the natives instead or removing them or forcing native women into prostitution, may be tolerated in a civilized country . The Indians may have to be constrained in the interests of American newcomers, but under no circumstances should they be abused.
After the ten years of the Gold Rush, one thing is quite certain: California has a great future ahead. Yet it is yet unclear as of now what exactly this future is going to be. California may be a prospering land where the rights of all men are respected and protected under the law. Alternatively, it may become a dreadful impersonation of the slave states and reduce dozens of thousands of people to misery and servitude on no other grounds than their race and language. It depends on the Californians whether they will live up to the testament of the Founding Fathers on the other side of American continent.
Bibliography
Rohrbough, Malcolm J. "The California Gold Rush as a National Experience." California History 77, no. 1 (1998): 16-29.
Roske, Ralph J. "The World Impact of the California Gold Rush 1849-1857," Arizona and the West 5, no. 3 (1963): 187-232.
Stillson, Richard T. Spreading the Word: A History of Information in the California Gold Rush. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2006.
Travzer, Clifford E. Exterminate Them: Written Accounts of the Murder, Rape, and Slavery of Native Americans During the California Gold Rush, 1848-1868. East Lancing: Michigan State UP, 1999.