Gold Rush Research Paper

In 1848 gold was found in California and that started the Gold Rush of 1849. At this time there were no railways to move west so when people started to go west for the gold they had to go by wagons. These people would normally use Oxen instead of horse for their strength to pull the wagons. To save the animals for when they arrive to west they would walk, this trip would normally take three to four months. The Gold Rush would attract settlers for decades, hoping to find gold or silver and become rich. Gold miners would run gravel from a stream bed over a device called a sluice. Water from a stream washes the gravel and gold particles across the sluice. The heavy gold particles get caught on a rough sheet of metal along the bottom of the sluice. After the gold in

Mining required heavy equipment and crews of underground miners. People would also go west because of the Homestead Act of 1862. The Homestead Act passed by the U.S. Congress in 1862 offered plots of land in the West to anyone who would go and live there. By 1869 there were already a lot of people but when the Transcontinental railroad was built the population of the West sky rocketed. The Transcontinental railroad made it a lot easier to bring supplies and people from East to West. To build this railroad a lot of land had to be used, because of this most indians that lived in this area would lose their land. Indians relied on buffalo so when the railroad was being built the buffalo left because were they ate was gone, because of this the indians lost their food, clothes, and weapons. The promise of adventure was another big reason people moved to the West. For many people, the West seemed to hold the promise of unlimited possibilities. It gave a chance to live an independent life, far from the crowded cities and factories of the East. Formerly enslaved African Americans often saw the West as a place to make a new beginning. So many headed to Kansas in 1879 and 1880 that they came to be called