FAN FAVORITE: California Gold Rush | The First Strike | 1

0:28Hello, American History Tellers listeners. That's AmericanHistoryLive.com. Come see my Days That Made America tour live on stage. Go to AmericanHistoryLive.com. We're excited to bring you new seasons on Great Escapes, Legendary Shootouts, and maybe the most famous rock in America. But until they're ready, we're revisiting a fan favorite, our series on the California Gold Rush. In May 1848, Sam Brannan walked the streets of San Francisco waving a bottle of glittering dust and shouting about the discovery of gold in the American River. From the moment the first nugget was discovered at Sutter's Mill to the rush that would follow, here is the story of how gold fever changed America forever.

1:18Imagine it's January 1848. You're a construction worker building a timber mill in the western foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California. Lush pine trees surround you on all sides. It's a bright winter day, but cold. You can smell frying sausages nearby as the cook prepares lunch. Your team is digging a canal to divert water from a local river to power this new mill, and it's nearly complete. You're eager to get the work done. So you continue thrusting your shovel back into the dirt when a strange sight catches your eye. Your boss is about 20 yards away, splashing around frantically in the water running through the canal.

1:58At first, it looks like he's lost something important. But when he finally stops splashing, all he's holding is a handful of pebbles. Next thing you know, he's down on his knees, pounding on one of the pebbles with a large rock. This gets you too curious. You put down your shovel and walk over. Uh, you need help with anything, boss? He looks up at you, smiling, and opens his palm. Hey, what do you think these are? He holds several yellow nuggets, each about the size of a pea. You study them, frowning. Well, to me, it looks like iron pyrite. Fool's gold, you know? Well, that's what I thought, too.

2:35But look at this one. Your boss points, and you see that he's pounded one of the nuggets into a crude coin shape. Well, what does that mean? Oh, well, most minerals shatter when they're pounded. Only certain ones flatten out like this. Certain ones like gold. Oh, I don't know. We could compare. You got anything we know is gold? Your boss reaches into his pocket and pulls out a$5 gold piece. You admit it seems to be the same color, but you're not convinced. And then you remember a supposedly surefire test you heard about once. Well, hold on. Wait here. There's a laundry shed nearby. You go inside and pour some pellets of lye into a tin cup.

3:18You crush them with a spoon, pour in a little water, and stir. You bring the cup outside where your boss is eyeing you. Now what are you doing? This is concentrated lye. It tarnishes or dissolves most minerals, but it makes gold shinier, I hear. Dump the nuggets in, let's see. Your boss drops the yellow pebbles, and you take them and the cup over to a nearby cooking fire. Wrap your handkerchief around the handle and hold the cup over the flames. Soon the water and lye is simmering and a noxious steam rises up. You try to scoop the nuggets out with a spoon. Oh God, that stinks. Burning my eyes.

3:57Your eyes flush with tears. The nuggets keep slipping off the spoon, but you finally get a few out and peer down. You blink hard, trying to get rid of the tears. But even with your blurry vision, you can see the nuggets sparkling. A shiver runs up your spine. You're convinced your boss has just discovered gold.

4:41Best in the world take the hype and pressure head on. Your football fix starts here with the personalities and challenges that define a championship team. Bonds will be built. Bloopers will be captured. Hard Knocks training camp with the Seattle Seahawks, Tuesdays at 9 p.m. on HBO Max. Police in Irvine, California are investigating the double murder of a young couple in the parking lot of their apartment complex. A double homicide grabs the public's attention by the throat. We have identified Christopher Dorner as a suspect in this double homicide. A former cop and still on the loose. Considered armed and extremely dangerous.

5:20And scariest of all, he left something behind. A particular interest is a multi-page manifesto. This manifesto on Facebook is 11 pages long. Trace, this manifesto from this suspect who's targeting cops, it's stunning. Listen to the show The New Yorker calls one of the best podcasts of the summer. Dan Taberski's Manifesto. And I tell you, this manifesto, it scares the hell out of me. Listen to Dan Taberski's Manifesto wherever you get your podcasts or binge the entire series right now, only with Audible.

6:02From Wondery, I'm Lindsey Graham, and this is American History Tellers. Our history, your story.

6:23On our show, we take you to the events, the times, and the people that shaped America and Americans. Our values, our struggles, and our dreams. We'll put you in the shoes of everyday citizens as history was being made. and we'll show you how the events of the times affected them, their families, and affects you now. In the 1840s, the discovery of gold in Northern California attracted hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world to the rugged Sierra Nevada mountains east of Sacramento. Travelers to the gold fields braved harsh conditions to get there, and once they arrived, they had to contend with con artists, claim jumpers, and primitive lawless camps.

7:02But nothing would deter them. They were driven by a common desire, a lust for unimaginable wealth. Some would later describe their obsession as gold fever, their hunger for gold practically driving them mad, pushing them to risk everything, even their lives, to get their hands on it. Thousands of people did strike it rich in California, but many thousands more ended up even poorer than when they started. Most never found much gold, if any. Among those who did, many gambled or drank away their fortunes almost as quickly as they made them. The California Gold Rush accelerated the nation's expansion west and transformed the geography of America.

7:41It established California as a place for grand ambitions and big dreams, a reputation the state retains to this day. This is episode one in our four-part series on the California Gold Rush, The First Strike.

7:58Gold was discovered in California in January 1848, in the forested foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, 40 miles east of modern-day Sacramento. It was found near a mill that belonged to John Sutter, a plump, balding rancher and farmer with a thick black mustache. As a young man, Sutter had abandoned a wife and children to move from his native Switzerland to North America to seek his fortune. He eventually landed in California in 1839, when he was part of a vast territory called Alta California, held by the young nation of Mexico. California was home to more than 150 ,000 Native Americans.

8:36But newly arriving Europeans like Sutter merely saw a vast wilderness ripe for cultivation and exploitation. Since gaining independence from Spain in 1820, Mexico had done little to develop or populate the land. So when Sutter arrived, Native Americans outnumbered European, American, and Mexican settlers 10 to 1. Because of that sparse population, Mexican authorities welcomed Europeans like Sutter. By 1839, American settlers had already begun encroaching on the region, and Sutter could act as a bulwark against their land grabs. So when Sutter petitioned the Mexican governor of Alta, California, for land, he received a grant of 48 ,000 acres, or 75 square miles.

9:19In exchange, Sutter only needed to promise to occupy the land for at least a year and to become a Mexican citizen. Sutter's land was in a remote area at the junction of the Sacramento and American Rivers. At first, he cultivated friendly relations with the local Nisanan and Miwok tribes that were his only neighbors. He dressed Native men in military uniforms and taught them to drill, march, and shoot in exchange for food and other goods. Apart from maintaining this private military force, he mostly left the Nisanan and Miwok to themselves. But as Sutter's ambitions grew, his treatment of the Native Americans became more abusive.

9:55Sutter needed a large workforce to construct a fort and other buildings, grow crops, and clear land for his main source of income, cattle ranching. To maintain that workforce, he held hundreds of Nisanan and Miwok against their will in primitive barracks. An American settler who visited Sutter's fort in 1846 wrote, Sutter keeps 600 to 800 Indians in a complete state of slavery. That same year, growing tension between the U.S. and Mexico over disputed territory broke out into war. By the following year, American forces had driven Mexican troops out of Northern California and secured the territory for themselves.

10:33Sutter suddenly found himself in a tricky position. As a Mexican citizen who enjoyed warm relations with the Mexican government, he could lose everything in the takeover by the Americans. But Sutter was a savvy businessman and worked hard to ingratiate himself with the incoming American officials who allowed him to hold on to his vast estate and captive workforce. In 1847, many of Sutter's Native American laborers died in a measles epidemic, which forced him to find another business venture to keep his expensive estate afloat. He decided to open a timber mill. And to oversee its construction, he hired James Marshall, a 37-year-old carpenter and veteran of the Mexican-American War.

11:15Marshall scouted for a suitable place to build the mill and eventually settled on a plot of land 40 miles northeast of Sutter's Fort. It was located in the Coloma Valley, near the South Fork of the American River. Marshall hired workers and began construction. Their first task was to dig a water channel to power the mill's wheel. But their digging led to an unexpected discovery. In January 1848, Marshall found several nuggets of gold in the channel. Initially, most of the workers figured Marshall had simply gotten lucky and that these few nuggets were all there was to find. But a few of the men suspected there might be more.

11:52They started faking illnesses or sneaking off during the workday to search for this gold. They panned the surrounding creeks and rivers using willow baskets woven by local Native women to sift through the gravelly soil in the riverbeds. They soon found that Marshall's discovery was no fluke. Sometimes they didn't even need to use their baskets. They could just jab the rocks in the river and creek beds with their knives, and flakes of gold would crumble out. Precious metal was all around them. Soon, rumors about the discovery of gold began leaking out to nearby towns, like the tiny seaport of San Francisco.

12:27At first, most people who heard the rumors scoffed at them. Since the earliest days of European colonization of the Americas, there have been stories of unimaginable troves of gold yet to be discovered. But none of those stories had proven to be true. So to the skeptical residents of San Francisco, rumors of gold in the Sierra Nevada foothills were no more credible than stories of El Dorado, the fabled city of gold that Spanish conquistadors had tried and failed to find. But any skepticism would soon disappear, thanks to the promotional genius of one man.

13:03Imagine it's a gorgeous spring day in May 1848. You're a doctor, walking through downtown San Francisco. Cheap wooden buildings line the hilly streets, adorned with crudely painted signs for saloons, a blacksmith, and several tailors. As you walk, you try to keep your shoes and pants clean, but it isn't easy. The dirt roads are piled with horse dung and muddy from recent rains. There's filth everywhere, which is frustrating. You've been down on your luck lately, and this is your last decent suit. The city is so isolated, it's hard to get new clothes. But as you carefully pick your way through the muddy streets, your concentration is broken by a booming voice shouting from across the street.

13:45Gather round, everyone. I've got an exciting tale to tell about gleaming nuggets of gold right here in California. You look over and see a young man with wavy brown hair and thick cibern. He's standing on an apple crate, calling out like a carnival barker. You don't even need to dig for the stuff. Just the other day, I saw a man trip over a 10-pound nugget. When he got up to brush himself off, he was covered in gold dust. People sneeze this stuff up there, I tell you. A used handkerchief is worth$100. You roll your eyes. Rumors about gold or hogwash, but you see a few young fellows gather around the man.

14:25They stare up at him wide-eyed, soaking in every word. So you push your way through the growing crowd to get a closer look at this man. Excuse me, what's your name, young man? Samuel Brannon at your service. Well, Samuel Brannon, what's your angle? You own land where this so-called gold was found? I do, in a general store up that way, too. Brannon's Dry Goods, the best prices in California. But before Brannon can get going again, you turn to the crowd. No, no, this is an obvious scam. He admits he owns land up there and a store, so he's starting these gold rumors for his own benefit. He's just trying to drum up business, drive up the price of his land.

15:04I tell you, there's no gold. This man's a grifter, plain and simple. They're gratified to see the change on people's faces. Their wide-eyed looks of wonder harden into anger. But to your surprise, Brannon doesn't look upset. He's actually smiling. Well, ladies and gentlemen, what does this look like to you? Brannon reaches into his coat pocket and produces a jar, which he holds up to the sun. Squinting through one eye, you notice the contents glint in the sunlight. Now you feel your own eyes go wide. The jar is packed with gold dust. Brannon gives it a shake, and you can see the flakes dancing up and down.

15:43There must be a thousand dollars worth right in the palm of his hand. The crowd around you is totally silent. People stare, their mouths hanging open. where once you held contempt for this man, suddenly there's now only one thought coursing through your brain. You've got to get some of that gold for yourself.

16:07Sam Brannan was a merchant, land speculator, and part-time con artist. As soon as he learned the discovery at Sutter's Mill, he had a vision of how big a gold rush could be, and he was determined to capitalize on it. Brannan was born in Maine and had converted to Mormonism, although he drank so much that he was later excommunicated. He had dabbled in journalism before drifting to California in the mid-1840s. There, he bought some land and opened up a general store near Sutter's Fort. At first, Brannon was torn over the news of James Marshall's discovery. Part of him thought the smart thing to do would be to keep quiet and go gold prospecting for himself.

16:45But eventually, he decided that he could make more money by broadcasting the discovery and drawing crowds of would-be miners out to his store. So Brannon set out to convince people in San Francisco that the gold rumors were real. He knew it would be no easy task. Many people had heard such rumors before, and word of mouth alone was not going to be enough to convince them. So in May 1848, Brannon purchased enough gold dust to fill a jar and made the 90-mile journey to San Francisco. There he began waving his hat around to gather a crowd, shouting about the newly discovered gold. When people scoffed, he simply held up the jar and let the gold glisten in the sun.

17:27That sight convinced even hardcore skeptics. After seeing Brannon's gold dust, many people rushed off to the local hardware stores to buy picks and shovels. But they soon discovered that all the mining tools in town had been purchased the day before by Brannon himself. Brannon was willing to sell the equipment to anyone who asked at several times the original cost. Brannan's hype act worked better than even he expected. Hundreds of people left San Francisco to start hunting for gold, nearly emptying the city overnight. As word trickled down the coast, crowds of gold seekers streamed in from other California towns, like Monterey and Los Angeles.

18:06Farmers deserted their fields, laborers their tools. Sailors arriving at San Francisco Bay forfeited years of back pay to desert their ships and try their luck in the gold fields. One ship captain, upon reaching San Francisco, put his crew in chains to keep them from running off. James Marshall and his workers eventually finished Sutter's Mill, but it never saw much timber. Anyone who might have worked at the mill was too busy searching for gold. And it wasn't just common laborers who caught gold fever. Doctors and lawyers also cast off their old lives to go prospecting. Before the discovery of gold, the economy of California was difficult, even for highly skilled or educated workers.

18:47There were far fewer clients for their services, and many of those clients could barely pay their bills. And compared to most any other profession, gold mining looked like easy pickings. With a shovel, tin pan, and a sturdy back, you could make a fortune in a few days. So by the summer of 1848, word of gold began to spread beyond California. Brannon's tales of easy riches made it to China, Australia, Hawaii, and South America. and people far and wide would prove every bit as eager as those in California to risk everything for a chance to strike it rich.

19:27During World War II, New York communist Julius Rosenberg began spying for the Soviet Union. Soon he was persuading other Americans to betray their country as well. But when his wife's brother joined the Manhattan Project, Julius targeted him as a valuable new recruit and inadvertently set the stage for the ultimate betrayal. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, host of Audible's original show, American Scandal. We bring to life some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history. Presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, two young New Yorkers meet and fall in love. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg's commitment to each other is matched only by their commitment to communism.

20:07and the couple risks everything to help the Soviet Union develop an atomic bomb. But when they're uncovered, they have to make an impossible choice about where their loyalty truly lies. Follow American Scandal wherever you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can listen to all episodes of American Scandal, the Rosenbergs, ad-free right now. Join Audible today by downloading the Audible app. I'm Alice Levine. And I'm Matt Ford, and we're the hosts of British Scandal. Yes, indeed. In this series, a Derbyshire couple are bored of their curtain-twitching, lawn-mowing suburban life. So they sell their house, build a yacht and sail off around the world.

20:43Which sort of sounds idyllic until a sperm whale sinks their boat and they begin to starve. Oh yes, and they didn't bring a radio because real sailors don't use radios. Right? This is the story of Marilyn and Maurice Bailey. And the 117 days they spent lost at sea. Follow British Scandal wherever you get your podcasts, or listen early and ad-free on Audible.

21:14In the early days of the gold rush, entrepreneurs like Sam Brannan faced little competition, mainly because there was hardly anyone in California to compete with him. Only about 15 ,000 non-Native Americans lived in California in 1848. and most of them were from Mexico. Americans like James Marshall and Sam Brannan were in the minority. To most Americans, and even most Mexicans, California was a remote frontier. Before the Mexican-American War, Mexico had been so desperate for people to move to California that they briefly sent convicts there. The gold rush changed all that. Suddenly, California was a land of opportunity, a place you could strike it rich.

21:58As a result, during the latter half of 1848, outsiders began streaming in. But even though California was under U.S. military control in 1848, few of the new arrivals were Americans. The vast majority of the U.S. population lived east of the Mississippi, especially along the Atlantic coast. Travel to the west was difficult and dangerous. The distance from Washington, D.C. to San Francisco was 2 ,500 miles overland, a trip that had to be made in ox-drawn wagons through deserts and over mountains. The main sea route involved sailing all the way around the tip of South America. It was far easier to travel from Washington to London or Paris than from Washington to California.

22:41As a result, the early stages of the gold rush drew people not from the population centers of the U.S., but from places around the Pacific Rim that could reach California by ship, places like Chile, Hawaii, Australia, and China. Chinese immigrants would play a central role in California's development. But before word of gold got out, few Chinese had traveled to California. One of the first was a man named Chung Ming, who hailed from Guangdong in southern China, then known to English speakers as Canton. Ton. Chum immigrated to California in 1847 and was the first documented Chinese person to live in San Francisco.

23:19He opened up a shop there and settled into a comfortable life. But in the spring of 1848, he saw Sam Brannon's jar of gold dust glinting in the sunlight. Chum dashed off a letter to a cousin in China, telling him about the discovery, then hurried up into the mountains to start prospecting himself. It's not known how much gold Chum found, but it was enough to write a second letter home bragging about his riches. The letter was passed around his home region, and before long, more than 300 young Chinese men had poured into California, each with dreams of striking it rich. They called California Gomsan, or Golden Mountain.

23:58But for many Chinese immigrants, the reality of life in cutthroat northern California was hardly golden.

24:09Imagine it's September 1848. You've recently arrived in San Francisco from Hong Kong, where you worked as an office clerk. But now you're ready to try your luck at a new profession, gold miner. Today you're standing in line in a crowded hardware store to buy tools and supplies. While you wait, you study the silver American coins you acquired this morning in exchange for Chinese currency. Based on your work in Hong Kong, a British colony, you can read and speak English. But the pictures and words on the coin still seem so strange. Ahead of you in line, you see two other Chinese men at the counter.

24:46When they try to order, it's obvious they don't speak much English. The store's owner grows frustrated and finally growls at them. What do you want already? The two men try to mime what they're looking for, a tent and some food. The store owner watches them and turns to a clerk. Okay, go fetch that torn tent in back. No spoiled barrels of pork. Just make sure the lids are on tight, right? The clerk snickers and disappears. Then the owner turns to the Chinese men. Twenty dollars. Two, zero. Twenty dollars. Watching this, you are shocked. Not only is the store owner selling them a torn tent and rotten pork, but he's doubling the price.