When gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill, people came from all over the world to get rich. Most did not succeed. A few people found large amounts of gold and grew wealthy almost overnight. Some found enough to make a living, especially in the first few years when the gold was easier to find. But prospecting was hard work, and even if you worked hard, you had to be lucky, too. The people who reliably made money were the ones who sold the things the miners needed. They charged extremely high prices, and the prospectors had no choice but to pay them. Many people who had spent all their money to come to California did not find much gold. They couldn’t afford to go home. Some starved or died of diseases. Others kept on trying for years to find gold. Some did go home, but many others stayed, sent for their families, and settled in other parts of California.
Most of the people who came to California to search for gold were men. A few women and a few families came as well. There is no record of children coming from China, but we imagined that a strong boy, big for his age, might come to help his family.
Chinese Immigration and Racism in the California Gold Rush
Sheng’s family is fictional, but we based his father and uncle on the thousands of Chinese men who came to Gum San (Gold Mountain) to try to find gold. Most were from southeastern China and were escaping war and famine. The Chinese miners would sometimes work claims that white miners had given up on. At first, the Chinese prospectors were left alone by the white miners. But as more and more people came to California, and less and less gold was easily available, that changed.
The white miners began to resent people who had come from other countries. They thought the gold should belong to them. The Chinese immigrants looked different, ate different food, and spoke a language that seemed strange to the white miners. White prospectors stole their claims and threatened them. Sometimes they harassed and attacked them for “fun.” The tax on foreign miners we write about in the book was another way to stop the Chinese prospectors from competing for gold.
Chinese workers also came to the United States to earn money building the railroad that connected the eastern part of the nation to the western part. They were paid much less than other workers and given the most dangerous jobs. For example, at one point Chinese workers were paid 24 to 31 dollars per month while European American workers were paid 35 dollars per day.
In 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act banned anyone from China from coming to the United States. The act was not repealed (canceled) until 1943. Even then, Congress only allowed 105 Chinese immigrants per year to enter the country. This kind of quota only ended with the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965.
The Foreign Miner’s Taxes
The tax that Sheng’s family has to pay was the second foreign miner’s tax. The first one, the Foreign Miner’s Tax Act, began in 1850 and was $20 per month (about $400–$500 today). That tax was meant to discourage anyone from a different country from prospecting. It was quickly repealed. Then, in 1852, a new tax was created, the Foreign Miner’s License Tax Act. This one was specifically aimed at Chinese prospectors. It was the beginning of a long series of laws that discriminated against them. Many prospectors left, like Sheng’s family does, and built lives elsewhere. But even after the tax was repealed, and even in cities away from the goldfields and the railroads, Chinese immigrants were subject to racist laws. For example, they could not testify against a white man in court, and they were not eligible to become citizens.
The California Gold Rush and Native Americans
The Gold Rush was a catastrophe for the indigenous people of California.
Native Americans had lived in what is now California for thousands of years before the gold-seekers came. Some of the tribes who were there for generations were the Maidu, Nisenan, Konkow, Miwok, Pomo, and Yokuts. They lived by hunting, fishing, and gathering the rich resources the land provided. When the miners came, there was competition for the land. The miners also saw the Native Americans as cheap labor.
The 1850 Act for the Government and Protection of Indians allowed Native Americans in California to be arrested and forced into slavery if they were not living on a reservation or working for a white person. Sutter’s Mill is known as the place where gold was discovered, but John Sutter enslaved Native Americans even before gold was discovered.
Before the Gold Rush the Native American population was about 150,000. By 1880 it was about 30,000.
African Americans in the Gold Rush
Some African American prospectors came to California. Early in the Gold Rush, some were slaves brought to work by gold-seekers from the southern slave states. One reason that California became a free state (one that didn’t allow slavery) was because the white miners who were there first didn’t want southern miners using slaves and getting more gold. But that didn’t mean the African American prospectors were protected. They were subjected to harassment and racist treatment. They were denied the right to vote and to testify in court. California had its own version of the Fugitive Slave Act. It allowed white slave owners to capture escaped slaves who had made it to California. Many fought against the discrimination. A man named William Sugg bought his freedom in 1854. He was part of a group of black Californians who fought for civil rights years before the Civil War started. You can visit his house in Sonora, California.
Bo-Bo’s Pack
There would have been many dogs in California during the Gold Rush. Some were brought with the people who came to look for gold. There are several stories of dogs traveling on the ships that came around Cape Horn from the East Coast (a trip that could take five to eight months!). Others came over land on wagons. Many of these dogs stayed with their families, but some were abandoned when times got hard. We decided Thunder’s pack would be made up of dogs left behind by prospectors.
Other Books to Read about the Chinese in California
Coolies by Yin. Illustrated by Chris Soentpiet. Puffin Books, 2003.
Oranges on Golden Mountain by Elizabeth Partridge. Illustrated by Aki Sogabe. Dutton, 2001.
Staking a Claim: The Journal of Wong Ming-Chung, A Chinese Miner, California, 1852 by Laurence Yep. Scholastic, 2013.