As they mingle with the gold miners in their parents' dining hall, eleven-year-old David and his younger sister are caught up in the debate about California statehood and slavery.
January 24, 1848, was a day that changed everything. The flecks of yellow metal, found in the American River by James Marshall, proved to be the foundation of modern California. Fortune hunters succumbed to gold fever and flocked to the Sierra Nevada foothills in search of unlimited wealth. The myths of California's gold rush are the subject of legendary songs and tales. Fortunes were won and lost almost daily. The realities behind the popular images were hard and often bloody. Gold Rush tells the story as it really happened in words and pictures.
Chronicles the history of colonial California from the arrival of Spanish explorers in the mid-1500s to 1850 when California became the thirty-first state, focusing on the experiences of people from all walks of life who lived and worked in the rugged region.
Based on the diary of a goldseeker named William Swain and over 500 other diaries and letter collections, this book reveals the life and times of the forty-niners and their families.
Presents a study of California and the Southwest, and discusses Spanish and Mexican occupation of the territory, the Gold Rush, and statehood for California, Nevada, Oklahoma, Arizona, and New Mexico.
a primary source history of the search for gold in California
O'Donnell, Kerri
2003
Uses primary source documents, narrative, and illustrations to recount how the mid-nineteenth century California gold rush affected Americans and immigrants and how it shaped history.
