California Gold Rush
The nineteenth century was the great era of North American gold rushes. Beginning in North Carolina in 1799, gold rushes were initially a southern phenomenon, centered along the eastern piedmont of the Appalachians. A rush in the Cherokee Nation contributed to the forced removal of Cherokees in the 1830s.The western rushes began in 1848 with a gold discovery in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, just as the United States acquired California from Mexico, and they shared characteristics with those in the South. The story begins with James Marshall's accidental...
9 min