1. Money, Cattle Hides and William A Leidesdorff: California before the Gold Rush
- Author:
- Jonathan Tiemann, Oenone Kubie, and Christopher McKenna
- Publication Date:
- 08-2020
- Content Type:
- Case Study
- Institution:
- Oxford Centre for Global History
- Abstract:
- The discovery of gold in January 1848, at Nueva Helvetia, John Sutter’s property in the Sacramento Valley, changed the course of Californian history. By the end of March, San Francisco had emptied as its population swarmed to the gold fields that had opened up around Sutter’s lumbermills and by August, the East Coast newspapers were reporting the discovery of Californian gold. In December of that year, President James K Polk confirmed the find in front of Congress and in 1849, one of America’s largest migrations ever took place as hundreds of thousands of gold prospectors, the ‘Forty-niners’, descended on ‘Gold Country’.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Economics, History, Natural Resources, Capitalism, Economic Development, Cattle, and Farming
- Political Geography:
- United States