On August 9, 1848, a report appeared in the American newspaper The New York Herald. It stated that gold was discovered in California. This news provoked the famous gold rush: thousands of people rushed west to look for the precious metal. However, reserves of readily available gold quickly dried up - only a few of the tens of thousands of people managed to get rich. Nevertheless, the romanticized short-term pursuit of gold has become one of the foundations of the cultural heritage of the United States.
Thousands of fortune hunters rushed to California from the eastern states and from abroad. This led to a sharp deterioration in relations between the Americans and the Indians. The war that began in the middle of the century lasted about 40 years and ended with the complete defeat of the Indians and the seizure of their land.
The population of California began to grow sharply. If in 1848 only a few hundred people lived in San Francisco, then, in 1855, the population of the city reached 36 thousand inhabitants. In just a few years, about 300 thousand immigrants from the US East Coast, as well as immigrants from Europe, Latin America and Asia arrived in California.
Today, California is the most populated (over 39 million people) and the richest state of America, producing 13% of US GNP.
Although the gold rush did not last long, it became an important part of the history of the state and the whole country. The race for gold in California created the myths about the American dream, about the first earned dollar or million, the echoes of which today sound in popular culture.In the mass consciousness of Americans, this is a special phenomenon.
In the USA, they film westerns, play country music, referring to a sort of rural idyll in which cowboys and gold miners built modern America. Industrialization has fundamentally changed the country, and hypertrophied memories of liberties from the time of the conquest of the Far West became something like memories of a lost paradise. People now emigrate to the United States in order to gain freedom and prosperity. Romantic myths, including the gold rush, became a kind of outlet for them.
Now take a look at the rich Australia of today. Only 200 years ago it was a forgotten land, where states would send only the most dangerous criminals. It is difficult to say how this country would have looked like if it weren't for the gold rush that shook it more than once in the last two centuries. Few people know that now there still are many gold hunters that search the coveted yellow metal.
The dusty and deserted village of Pine Creek looks like the most boring place on earth. Did you know it appeared thanks to the gold found here by chance? In 1871, a telegraph cable was being pulled from Adelaide to Darwin in these places. When the bridge was being built across a local small river, one of the workers decided to try to wash some gold for fun. The result was so impressive that most of the brigade instantly quit work and rushed to the river. The news about the gold instantly spread throughout Australia. So Pine Creek appeared.
Four years later, the new, rapidly growing village had its own police station, two hotels and a post office. 14 years later, a railway was laid between Adelaide and Darwin, which, of course, did not pass Pine Creek. Expensive English equipment for the industrial mining of gold began to be imported there. Only these innovations did not bring wealth to their owners. It was very much possible to get rich and burn out there very quickly.
At that time, more than four thousand people lived and worked in the town, but half of them were cheap Chinese almost-slaves. In the vicinity of the mines lived the tribes of the Wagiman people. The harmless local aborigines were not suitable for even the simplest jobs, but these guys survived all the hardships, and are still an important part of the culture of this place.
No one counted how many people perished in the local mines. The main thing was gold, which, from year to year, was less and less to be found. At the beginning of the 20th century, the mine was almost abandoned, and, recently, this busy town became empty.
Now you know what gold does to people, and how the effects of its discovery can lead to long-term consequences for the economy of that „lucky country”.
