California Gold Rush Research Paper

The California Gold Rush was an event that became prominent in 1849. The event consisted of the discovery of gold in the United States territory of California. That year, over 89,000 people from many countries moved to the territory to try to find gold for themselves. This resulted in the territory eventually having enough people to become a state. The event also brought 81 million dollars in gold production to California.

In 1794, Eli Whitney was granted a patent on his invention, the cotton gin. This machine was mostly used on plantations by slaves to separate seeds and cotton fibers on short-staple plants. Without the machine, short-staple cotton was difficult to use, and mostly long-staple cotton was utilized, which did not grow as

However, later in 1845, under newly inaugurated president James K. Polk and with great support from believers of Manifest Destiny, Congress voted to annex Texas into the United States. Texas’s borders were also later expanded to the Nueces River and Rio Grande, a previously disputed territory.

In 1859, on October 16, John Brown, a white abolitionist, organized an armed band of men and captured a federal armory at Harpers Ferry, now in West Virginia. Brown took 60 men in the area as hostages, and hoped his actions would cause escaped slaves to join him in a rebellion to free other slaves. Brown kept control of the armory, and fought off militias until a brigade of U.S. Marines forced him to surrender. Brown was convicted of murder, slave insurrection, and treason, and was hung as punishment.

In 1803, Thomas Jefferson sent men to France to make an offer to buy New Orleans and West Florida, which could keep the French from controlling the region. However, Napoleon was willing to sell the entirety of the Louisiana Territory, to avoid conflict with America and Britain, who he was about to declare war on, at the same time. United States ambassadors purchased the territory for $15 million, with a treaty signed on May 2. Later that year, on October 20, the purchase treaty was approved by the