Part 18

"_There is nothing in the world so sound as American society._"—GOLDWIN SMITH.

I.

THE GREAT EMIGRATION.

EL DORADO FOUND AT LAST.

"_It is always the unexpected that happens._"

What El Dorado[1] had been to the active imaginings of De Soto's Spaniards, was now to become a reality that would startle the world from its long forgetfulness. The world believed they had been chasing a phantom which lured them to their death. One seeks in vain to know why Nature at last revealed the secret she had so long kept hid from those who had sought but not found, to disclose it to others who had found without seeking.

The war was scarcely ended[2] which gave us California, when a scene took place there of far-reaching moment to mankind. Words can hardly describe it. For a time it seemed the overturning of all laws governing the acquisition and distribution of wealth, if it were not to put the common laborer on a level with the millionaire, and so revolutionize society itself. When we consider what has followed in its train, the story itself seems tame indeed.

Captain Sutter had been having a saw-mill built for him fifty miles above his fort, on the south fork of the American River, which is here a swift mountain stream. One evening, when all within the fort wore its usual quiet, a horseman rode up in hot haste, and asked to see Sutter alone. This was James W. Marshall, one of Sutter's men, who had charge of the mill above. Seeing by his manner that something unusual was the matter, Sutter led the way into his private room, and turned the key in the lock. With much show of mystery, Marshall then handed his employer a packet, which being opened, was found to contain a handful of yellow metal, in flakes or kernels, which he said he had taken from the mill-race, and asserted to be gold. By the light of a candle the two men bent over the little heap of shining particles in eager scrutiny. Sutter would not believe it was gold. Marshall was sure it could be nothing else. Aquafortis was then tried without effect. The metal was next weighed with silver, in water. All doubt was removed. It was indeed gold, yellow gold, that Marshall had found.

His story, briefly told, was to this effect. They had started the mill, when the tail-race was found too small to carry off the water. In order to deepen it the whole head of water was then let into the race, thus washing it out to the required depth. It was while looking at the work the water had done, that Marshall saw many shining particles lodged in crevices of the rocks, or among the dirt the water had carried down before it. All at once it flashed upon him that this might be gold. Gathering up what he could without risk of detection, he had started off for the fort without making his discovery known to any one.

Sutter saw his happy pastoral life of the past on the point of vanishing. He made an idle effort to keep the discovery secret, at least till he could set his house in order. It was soon known in the household and at the mill. From this little mountain nook it was borne on the wings of the wind to the sea-coast, and from the sea-coast to the four quarters of the globe.

Captain Sutter's men[3] deserted him in a body. The American settlers and Indians of the neighborhood next caught the infection. Gold was quickly found at a point midway between Sutter's Fort and Mill, called the Mormon Diggings,[4] on Feather River, and in the gulches above the mill site. From these districts the first miners began to straggle down to San Francisco with pouches of gold-dust in their possession. Men who had hardly known what it was to have a dollar of their own suddenly lived

"Like an emperor in their expense."

The effect was magical. Within a short three months most of the houses in San Francisco and Monterey were shut up. Blacksmiths left their anvils, carpenters their benches, sailors their ships. Soldiers were every day deserting from the garrisons of San Francisco, Sonoma, and Monterey. The two newspapers[5] then printed in the country suspended their issue indefinitely. Everybody was off for the mines, and nothing else was talked of but gold.

Consul Larkin thus describes the scene at the Mormon Diggings in June, 1848: "At my camping-place I found forty or fifty tents, mostly occupied by Americans, strewn about the hillsides next the river. I spent two nights in company with eight Americans, two of whom were sailors, two carpenters, one a clerk, and three common laborers. With two machines called cradles, these men made fifty dollars each per day. Another miner had washed out, with a common tin pan, gold to the value of eighty-two dollars in a single day."

Mr. Larkin thought there were then about one thousand people, mostly foreigners, actually working in the mines, whose daily gains would amount to at least ten thousand dollars. And he even ventured to hint that at this rate gold enough would be produced in a single year to repay what California had cost the nation.

Colonel Mason, the military governor, adds what he saw while making a tour of inspection to the new placers: "Along the whole route mills were lying idle, fields of wheat were open to cattle and horses, houses vacant, and farms going to waste. At Sutter's there was more life and business. Launches were discharging their cargoes at the river, and carts were hauling goods to the fort, where were already established several stores, a hotel, etc. Captain Sutter had only two mechanics in his employ, whom he was then paying ten dollars a day. Merchants pay him a monthly rent of one hundred dollars per room; and while I was there a two-story house in the fort was rented as a hotel for five hundred dollars a month."

FOOTNOTES

[1] EL DORADO. Refer to p. 14 for the origin of this name.

[2] THE WAR HARDLY ENDED. Confusion exists as to the precise date of the gold discovery. Larkin says, on the spot, January or February. Hittell, a well-informed writer, says January 19. Royce, January. Bancroft is not accessible as I pen this note.

[3] CAPTAIN SUTTER'S MEN. Some of those who were either in his employ or under his military command, became wealthy and influential citizens of the State. Among them John Bidwell, Pearson B. Reading, Samuel J. Hensley, and Charles M. Weber may be named.

[4] MORMON DIGGINGS. The Mormons who were found here by Mr. Larkin in June, probably came into California overland with Colonel Cooke, or with Samuel Brannan by sea in July, 1846. Governor Mason reports them as preparing to go to Salt Lake. See Note 5.

[5] THE TWO NEWSPAPERS. The "Californian" (later "Alta California"), first published in Monterey, then in San Francisco; founded 1846 by Walter Colton and Robert Semple; edited by Semple after its removal to San Francisco. The "California Star," founded by Samuel Brannan early in 1847, was merged with the "California." See Note 4.

SWARMING THROUGH THE GOLDEN GATE.[1]

Meanwhile the area of the gold-fields was being rapidly enlarged on all sides by new discoveries. Each day had its story of the finding of some richer placer for which a general rush was made. As time wore on, gold was found in all the streams which cut their way through the foothills of the great Sierra.[2] By midsummer four thousand people, half of whom were Indians, were washing for gold as if it had been the only employment of their lives.

By this time too the first guarded statements made about the extent and richness of the gold-fields gave place to predictions as bold as they were hard to believe. For instance, Governor Mason, who had been over-cautious at first, soon had no hesitation in saying that there was more gold in the country than would pay the cost of the war a hundred times over.

It is true that flour was worth fifty dollars a barrel, at the mines, and a common spade ten dollars, but when even the poor and degraded Indians of the rancherias[3] could afford the luxuries of life, the cost of necessaries was of little account to men who thought four golden ounces only a fair return for a day's labor.

This is the story of only a few short months,—the preface, as one might say, to the larger history. It was yet too soon for the discovery to be known in the United States, but the time was drawing near when it would be the one all-engrossing topic in every hamlet from Maine to Florida. Meanwhile it spread to all the shores and isles of the Pacific. Dark-visaged Kanakas from the Sandwich Islands, swarthy Peruvians and Chilenos, added their thousands to the already composite character of the population of the land of gold. From the Russian Possessions in the north, from the Sandwich Islands in the midst of the Pacific, the wondrous tale was speeding on to China and the Australian Isles. Then with the autumnal rains the first chapter of this history of marvels was closed for a brief season.

Authentic reports of the gold discovery first appeared in the public prints of the Atlantic States in the autumn. In December, President Polk gave Governor Mason's and Consul Larkin's reports to the country. From these sources the story was taken up and multiplied through the myriad channels of public and private intelligence, until the name of California became a household word throughout all the length and breadth of the land. Talismanic word! It was soon to entice a million men from their homes to seek their fortunes among the gulches of the wild Sierra.

Rarely in the history of the world has society been so deeply stirred to its centre. It was like an electric shock that is felt throughout the whole social organization. First there was the numbness of wonder, then the fever of unwonted excitement. How to get to this land of gold, was now the one absorbing question of the hour. Near a thousand leagues of barren plains and desert mountains lay between it and the settled frontier. These could only be crossed after grass had grown in the spring. A still longer ocean journey must be made by crossing the Isthmus of Darien, over the trail struck out by the viceroys when Spain held the keys of the East; or, if the voyage were to be made round Cape Horn, the distance would be more than quadrupled. But the thought of these vast distances to be traversed seemed only to add to the general impatience to surmount them. The temper of the public mind was such that it would bear any thing but delay. Soon ships were fitting out in every port[4] of the Union for Tampico or Vera Cruz, for Chagres, and for the long voyage round Cape Horn. In the seaports nothing was heard but the note of preparation. On the frontier caravans were everywhere forming to go forward with the appearance of the first blade of grass above ground. "Ho for California!" was the cry borne on every breeze that wafted ship after ship out over the wide ocean with her little colony of gold-seekers. "Ho for California!" was the watchword of those who were braving the perils of a winter journey across the Sierras. And "California!" was still the answer of other bands that were wending their way across the Cordilleras, in paths first traced by Cortez and his comrades, to Acapulco, San Blas or Mazatlan on the Pacific. All roads seemed leading to the Golden Gate. El Dorado was found at last.

FOOTNOTES

[1] THE GOLDEN GATE. "Approaching from the sea, the coast presents a bold outline. On the south the bordering mountains come down in a narrow ridge of broken hills, terminating in a precipitous point, against which the sea breaks heavily. On the northern side, the mountain presents a bold promontory, rising in a few miles to a height of two or three thousand feet. Between these points is the strait—about one mile broad in its narrowest part, and five miles long from the sea to the bay. To this gate I gave the name of _Chrysopylae_, or Golden Gate, for the same reason that the harbor of Byzantium was called _Chrysoceras_, or Golden Horn."—_Fremont._ This was prior to the gold discovery. The old Presidio was at the end of the southerly point.

[2] ONE VAST GOLD-FIELD. Most of the tributaries of the Sacramento and San Joaquin were soon tapped, and search was even made among the sources of these rivers in the belief that gold existed there in virgin masses, from which the particles found lower down had been worn by water. Eager prospectors soon carried exploration from the Trinity in the north, to King's River in the south.

[3] INDIANS OF THE RANCHERIAS were employed in large numbers by the whites to wash gold for them. With willow baskets fifty Indians washed out in one week fourteen pounds (avoirdupois) of gold.

[4] IN EVERT PORT. "A resident of New York coming back after an absence of three months (this was in January) would be puzzled at seeing the word 'California' everywhere staring him in the face, and at the columns of vessels advertised to sail for San Francisco."—_New York Tribune._

THE CALIFORNIA PIONEERS.

Although we have seen much doing there in the previous year, and the earliest comers were the true pioneers, the great rush to the gold region took place in 1849, upon the first news being spread throughout the States. It is therefore from that year that the history of the gold fever is usually dated.

So great was the demand for shipping, that even old whale-ships were fitted up to carry three or four hundred passengers round Cape Horn. Even these were quickly crowded with emigrants. But ere long the demand for vessels that would show greater speed gave rise to new models in ship-building; and to this cause we owe the fast clipper ships which sometimes sailed from New York to San Francisco in eighty-seven days.

At first it was much the fashion for men to go in companies formed in their own neighborhoods. Those who could not go themselves would club together and send a substitute, as men may own shares in a ship or a machine, the substitute being allowed to keep a certain share of the profits of his own labor.

Then, again, a novel appearance was given to the streets of our seaport towns by the daily presence in them of men dressed in red woollen shirts, slouch hats, and cowhide boots,—men wearing pistols and dirks, or carrying rifles,—whom it was not easy to know for peaceful citizens just turned out of their farms or workshops or counting-houses. Nor was the emigration confined to the bone and sinew of society only. Men of every walk in life were drawn into it. A scholar might have a day-laborer for his companion. Larkin has told us how this worked in the mines. The one purpose to dig for gold quickly put all on an equal footing, for in making labor the sole means of wealth, as in the beginning it was, the common laborer had become the peer of the most learned scholar in the land. Hence every ship and every caravan carried its little republic of equality. And hence society seemed going back into its original elements, as if gold were the magnet attracting all else to itself.

The sailing of many ships, full freighted with eager gold-seekers, was followed in the early spring by the march of thousands across the plains. Like colonies of migratory ants the long line of wagons crept along the roads leading to the South Pass and Rio Grande. At Salt Lake City, which we have just seen founded, the weary emigrants tarried a while to recruit their failing animals for the dreaded passage of the desert; then to the road again to struggle ever on through the parched valleys, where their gaunt beasts died of thirst, or up the granite sides of the Sierras, where they dropped from exhaustion, till the Sacramento Valley was reached at last, and Shasta Peak burst on their enraptured sight. Hundreds perished by the way, and long after the march for gold in 1849 might be traced by the abandoned wagons or dead animals that strewed its path.

Many reached Panama by way of the Chagres River, whose course led up to the mountain chain dividing the waters of the Atlantic from those of the Pacific. Day by day a motley fleet of dug-out canoes might have been seen toiling with pole and oar against the swift current of this mountain stream. At the head of boat navigation, in an open spot, under the high mountains, a few cocoanut palms lifted tufts of graceful foliage above a clump of miserable huts, whose owners were of mixed Spanish and Indian blood. This was on the route the Spaniards had discovered in 1513. This was Gorgona.

Taking mules at Gorgona the emigrants crossed the mountains to the Pacific, which they here closely approach. At the ancient city of Panama, interesting only as a specimen of that older civilization which had run its course, several thousand Americans[1] were soon waiting for vessels to take them on to California. Every crazy hulk that would float had been taken up by earlier comers. So these people had to stay at Panama through the sickly season, though the deadly fever of the country was daily thinning their ranks of the bravest and best. Thus months of weary waiting must pass before these people could set foot in the land of gold.

When they did reach it[2] they found San Francisco[3] a city of tents and shanties scattered about a group of barren, wind-swept sand-hills. In the basin below, formed by the curving shore, a fleet of deserted ships rode at anchor. Farther off rose the little island of Yerba Buena,[4] and still farther, beyond the leagues of glittering water, the rugged wall of the Coast Range grandly enclosed the bay in its encircling arm.

To this picture now add the hurry and confusion which the beach showed at all hours of the day, and we shall get a rapid glimpse at the humble beginnings of the destined mart of the Pacific. Those tents on the beach were the warehouses of the future metropolis; those on the hills were the abodes of its wealthiest citizens.

Should we follow the swarm of boats seen every hour pushing off from the beach for the mines, they would lead us to the two great inland waterways of the country. On the spot where Sutter had made his landing-place another city had sprung into being. This was Sacramento. On the San Joaquin, where Weber had made a home in 1844, Stockton was growing up. These were the two great depots for the mines north and south.

By the beginning of the new year (1849) the population of California had run up to twenty-five thousand. The winter months, or, as we should say of this region, the rainy season, everywhere brought great suffering to the badly-housed and ill-fed emigrants, many of whom reached the mines in a state of destitution. There were many things even gold could not buy or wealth command. Men who had both were glad to get acorns to live on. Many died this first winter. With the coming of spring the depleted ranks were more than filled by new arrivals, and when January came round again the pioneers of 1849 were a hundred thousand.

FOOTNOTES

[1] TWO THOUSAND AMERICANS. "In settling an island the first building erected by a Spaniard will be a church; by a Frenchman, a fort; by a Dutchman, a warehouse; and by an Englishman, an alehouse." To this it should be added that an American would start a newspaper. The detained Americans having found at Panama an unused printing-office started a paper called the "Star," of which John A. Lewis of Boston was editor.

[2] WHEN THEY DID REACH IT. The schooner Phœnix was a hundred and fifteen days making the passage; the Two Friends, five and a half months going from Panama to San Francisco.

[3] SAN FRANCISCO: named for St. Francis of Assisi, founder of the Franciscan order, which founded the California missions. See legend of his preaching to the birds. The Mission of San Francisco was situated two miles from the landing-place on the bay, where the present city of the name was begun. At this landing a custom-house was established, and the place called Yerba Buena (see Note 4). The missionaries chose the little Dolores Valley because it was the sunniest and warmest part of the peninsula.

[4] YERBA BUENA; first name of San Francisco (see Note 3); meaning good herb: now continued in the island. A vine with a small white flower, common to California.

CALIFORNIA A FREE STATE.

The United States did not set up a Territorial government in California at once, but put military governors over it, who continued the old laws of Mexico in force. What these were, only the native people could know. They had not yet been translated into English. Many, indeed, derided the idea of being governed by laws made for Spaniards. Instead, then, of being clothed with power to enact laws suited to the new and strange conditions growing out of the gold discovery, with society unformed, or breaking to pieces about them, the people of California found themselves living almost without law, except such as imperative need compelled them to make and enforce for themselves. This state of things could have but one result among a people hastily thrown together from all parts of the earth, most of whom were law-abiding, but many the outcasts of society. It led to confusion, lawlessness, and crime. In the annals of the State it is usually called the interregnum, from the Latin word signifying a suspension of the regular functions of government.

Therefore, as the actual laws remained either mostly unknown, or were held in little esteem, the people conformed to them only so far as to give the officers or courts they chose among themselves Spanish names. They everywhere took the law into their own hands, establishing such local laws, or usages having the force of laws, as their situation would seem to give warrant for.

Thus, the miners determined for themselves how much room each man should have to dig in; and they established in their camps rude codes of justice by which the worst crimes usually met with prompt punishment. If, for instance, a man committed murder, he would be tried on the spot by a miners' court, hastily summoned for the purpose. Trials of this sort were generally conducted in an orderly manner, and seldom failed of doing justice, but they were always felt to be a departure from the usages of civilized people, and in so far a going-back toward barbarism.

Much disorder brings with it much order. Informed of all the evils to which this state of affairs gave rise, Governor Riley, in 1849, called the people to meet in convention for the forming of a State government. The delegates accordingly assembled in September at Monterey. They framed a constitution, on the plan of the free States, prohibiting slavery; for as labor was to be the corner-stone of the State, the men of 1849 would not degrade free labor by competition with slave-labor. In November the constitution was ratified by the people; and in December the officers elected under it met at San José to fully organize the State government.