When the Mexican American war ended in 1846, California became a part of America. California came a home to about 7,000 Californians (Mexican citizens), 150,000 Indians, and 900 foreigners (mostly Americans).
The California Gold Rush began January 24 1848 when James W. Marshall found gold at Sutters mill in California when he was building a sawmill and saw something shining in the water. This was not the first time gold was found in California but Mexicans found the gold earlier.
California officially became United States territory with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ends the Mexican American war by transferring nearly half of Mexico's lands to the United States.
The Californian newspaper in San Francisco reports for the first time on the gold discovery in the Sierra, but most San Franciscans remain skeptical of the report. The gold discovery spreads East when San Francisco's California Star newspaper prints a six-page special edition.
San Francisco merchant Samuel Brannan runs through the streets of the city, waving a bottle full of gold while shouting "Gold, gold, gold from the American River!" After about 2 months the entire male population of San Francisco leaves the city to work at the goldfields. More than half of the miners in the gold fields in the first months of the Gold Rush were Indians, they were treated badly and bullied by whites.
When the minors had found a lot of gold and needed to transport it they often used ships. The first gold ship was bearing $500,000 of gold for the United States Mint and sailed from San Francisco.
The Gold rush also took place in Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Canada, South Africa, the United States and smaller gold rushes. In Iceland gold has been found at the East coast but that was not so much. In August 2016 gold was found but nothing came out of it.
Ninety thousand pioneers later known as "Forty-Niners" arrive in California in 1849. About two-thirds were white Americans, but the Forty-Niners also include large numbers of Chinese, Chileans, Peruvians, Mexicans, Europeans, and Australians. 97% of the pioneers were men.
The pioneers were the first people to settle in North America. Many of the pioneers were farmers. Some of the pioneers traveled West in search of gold, others moved west hoping to get a better job and make more money.
Some of the pioneers traveled by ships and sailed down under South America and up to San Francisco harbor. The most famous way to travel was with horses that carried big wagons which went across America on the Oregon Trail. They had to face snow storms, tornadoes, hunger and overexertion. About 300.000 moved west but only 270.000 survived, one out of 10 died on the way west. If somebody broke a leg they didn't have any medicine so instead they chopped off the whole leg, if they did not take the leg off you could get a bad infection.
In 1847 was gold first found and a lot of people went West in search of gold, therefore the miners were called the forty-niners. The football team in San Francisco is called The 49'ers.
In 1848, at the start of the gold rush, were a lot of African Americans in California. Many Black miners worked with Chinese, Latin American and European miners, or miners who had come from New England. The people that came abroad were not treated as nicely as the home people. In 1845 the West was called the Wild West because there was no police or laws, only a bunch of poor people and Indians. When the gold was found the West population increased and the West grew.
Shortly after the Mexican-American war was discovered gold in California in 1848 that led to the Gold Rush, bringing great wealth to many Americans and promoting the spread of the population across North America. This new wealth was not shared with the Californios, the people from Mexico who were now American citizens.
The pioneers are referred to many songs but one of the most famous songs is ´´Clementine´´. Most of the songs are about somebody they miss or the hard work they have to do. The songs are played with a banjo and a lot of the western instruments. Here are some of the most famous songs.
http://www.folkways.si.edu/logan-english/the-days-of-49-songs-of-the-gold-rush/american-folk
Here is a video that History Channel made which explains the gold rush very well in just 3 minutes.