Documentary, Ken Burns The West -3 Speck of the Future
#TheWest #KenBurns #Documentary #NorthernAmerica
#America
#TheWest #KenBurns #Documentary #NorthernAmerica
#America
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00:00You
00:00:30there are all kinds of people on earth that you will meet someday they will be
00:00:36looking for a certain stone they will be people who do not get tired but who will
00:00:44keep pushing forward going going all the time these people do not follow the way
00:00:53of our great-grandfather they follow another way they will travel everywhere looking for
00:01:03this stone which our great-grandfather put on the earth in many places sweet medicine
00:01:10on the morning of january 24th 1848 a man named james marshall walked along the banks of the
00:01:26american river in california to check on the progress of a mill he was building
00:01:31and he looks down where the soil has been dug and there's a sparkle and there's a glint in the
00:01:40morning light and he reaches down and he picks it up with his stubby dirty fingers and the last
00:01:47thing in the world that he might have expected and here is this this speck of the future this tiny
00:01:54little shock that's going to reverberate right till today literally till now he picks it up and he says
00:02:02you know he says my god and he yells out he said my god i think i found gold
00:02:08head back to him
00:02:11hey
00:02:14ya
00:02:15no
00:02:15ya
00:02:18ya
00:02:19ya
00:02:20ya
00:02:21ya
00:02:23ya
00:02:25ya
00:02:35ya
00:02:36E È È È È È
00:02:39E È È È
00:02:46By 1848, the United States claimed virtually all of the West.
00:03:10The Louisiana Purchase, the annexation of Texas and Oregon,
00:03:16and the war with Mexico had stretched the nation's boundaries all the way to the Pacific.
00:03:25But the West was American in name only.
00:03:30Few people east of the Mississippi were anxious to venture into its forbidding interior.
00:03:36It still seemed too distant, too mysterious, too dangerous.
00:03:42Then, gold was discovered in California, and everything changed for the West and for the country.
00:03:57Suddenly, gold seekers rushed in from every corner of the globe.
00:04:02Chinese peasants pursuing tales of a gold mountain across the ocean.
00:04:09Mexican farmers and clerks from London.
00:04:14Tailors from Eastern Europe.
00:04:16And South American aristocrats fallen on hard times.
00:04:19The thin stream of American emigrants crossing the continent became a torrent.
00:04:32Thousands upon thousands of optimistic but inexperienced prospectors.
00:04:38Willing to leave their homes and families and set out on the long trail for California.
00:04:44Hoping to strike it rich, and return in glory.
00:04:54Because of gold, a once sleepy village on a magnificent bay would change overnight into a thriving international city.
00:05:04Where storekeepers, speculators, and scoundrels all dreamed of becoming instant millionaires.
00:05:10Because of gold, Spanish-speaking families who had lived in California for three quarters of a century would suddenly find themselves surrounded by strangers and robbed of their land.
00:05:30And because of gold, California's Indians would be overwhelmed, enslaved, and then slaughtered.
00:05:45The gold rush revolutionized America, wrote one man who had seen it all.
00:05:51It was the beginning of our national madness.
00:05:55Our insanity of greed.
00:05:57It had taken half a century for the United States to encompass the vast spaces of the West.
00:06:13Now, the lust for gold would animate the nation to begin to fill them up.
00:06:18The gold rush changed California, it changed the whole West, and it changed America's sense of itself.
00:06:29Because for the first time, the United States of America, in the minds of the American people,
00:06:37fulfilled the dream of Jefferson, which was a continental nation from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
00:06:42No one thought about America stretching from Chesapeake Bay to San Francisco Bay until fathers and sons and uncles and brothers and fiancés were out there.
00:06:53A frenzy seized my soul.
00:07:11Piles of gold rose up before me, castles of marble, thousands of slaves, myriads of fair virgins contending with each other for my love,
00:07:23were among the fancies of my fevered imagination.
00:07:27In short, I had a very violent attack of the gold fever.
00:07:32Hubert Howe Bancroft.
00:07:33The first gold had been found on the land of a Swiss-born adventurer named John Sutter,
00:07:42who had already created a 50,000-acre empire for himself in California.
00:07:48If he could keep the discovery quiet, he believed, it would make him rich beyond his wildest imaginings.
00:07:56But rumors began to spread.
00:07:58One person who heard them was a Mormon elder named Sam Brannan.
00:08:04He had been sent to California to establish a colony for the church.
00:08:08But the rumors of gold led him to Sutter's Mill.
00:08:14There, he saw an easier path to riches than working the streams.
00:08:18He opened a store next to Sutter's Sawmill,
00:08:21fully stocked with picks, pans, and shovels.
00:08:25To cater to the needs of the treasure seekers,
00:08:28he knew would rush to the gold fields once word got out.
00:08:33Sam Brannan gathered together enough gold dust from various sources to put into a vial,
00:08:40took the next boat down to San Francisco,
00:08:42landed in San Francisco, still called Yerma Buena in those days,
00:08:46and strode up and down then Montgomery Street,
00:08:50waving the vial of gold over his head and crying,
00:08:53gold, gold from the American River!
00:08:56It worked perfectly.
00:08:59People spilled out of the saloons,
00:09:01they passed the vial around, hefted in their hands,
00:09:03feel its weight, look at it,
00:09:05and it absolutely entranced them.
00:09:10The gold rush had begun.
00:09:11By the middle of June,
00:09:26three-quarters of the men living in San Francisco
00:09:29had left town to dig for gold.
00:09:33From Mexico,
00:09:34where the Spanish had been mining gold for three centuries,
00:09:38so many men headed north,
00:09:40one American reported.
00:09:41That it seems as if the entire state of Sonora is on the move.
00:09:48Thousands more set sail from every port in South America.
00:09:53As word spread across the Pacific,
00:09:56Hawaiians and Chinese came to work the streams.
00:10:03For those who got there early,
00:10:05gold seemed to be everywhere.
00:10:08Lodged among rocks,
00:10:09glittering in sandbars,
00:10:12swirling in pools and eddies,
00:10:15there for the taking.
00:10:19Some made fortunes using nothing but spoons
00:10:21or jackknives to scoop it up.
00:10:25Others hired Indians to do the work.
00:10:28Seven miners,
00:10:30employing 50 Indians,
00:10:32dug out 273 pounds of gold
00:10:35gold in just two months.
00:10:42Prospectors like to say that the name California
00:10:44came from a combination of the Indian word
00:10:47Kali,
00:10:48which meant gold,
00:10:49and Fournia,
00:10:51which meant,
00:10:52wouldn't you like some?
00:10:53That tremendous success of that summer of 1848 spread by way of letters and government reports.
00:11:04The president in his State of the Union speech announces that the astonishing news from Sacramento is true.
00:11:12So the news is coming not only from the president,
00:11:15but most of all from these people who are writing these vivid reports.
00:11:20Guy writes home and he says,
00:11:22he says,
00:11:22he says,
00:11:24you remember Dixon?
00:11:25He used to work for Ebenezer.
00:11:27He said,
00:11:28he has dug enough gold to weigh down a mule.
00:11:31Now that means something to people.
00:11:34A mule.
00:11:37The blacksmith dropped his hammer,
00:11:39the carpenter his plane,
00:11:41the mason his trowel,
00:11:43the farmer his sickle,
00:11:44the baker his loaf,
00:11:45and the tapster his bottle.
00:11:48I have only a community of women left
00:11:51and a gang of prisoners
00:11:52with here and there a soldier who will give his captain the slip at the first chance.
00:11:58I don't blame the fellow a whip.
00:11:59$7 a month
00:12:02while others are making $200 or $300 a day.
00:12:07Walter Carlton.
00:12:12Everyone knew California was valuable,
00:12:14but nobody could have imagined
00:12:16that it would be a place of such immense riches
00:12:18and riches to be harvested so quickly
00:12:20and seemingly so easily.
00:12:23It's an incredible boon,
00:12:25an incredible stroke of good fortune.
00:12:27And it just is one of those senses,
00:12:29in which to the rest of the world
00:12:30it must have seemed that everything
00:12:32was just falling in the path of Americans.
00:12:35All they had to do was stoop and pick it up.
00:12:37I have carried a heavy load on my back
00:12:46ever since I was a boy.
00:12:49I learned then that we were but few,
00:12:52while the white men were many,
00:12:54and that we could not hold our own with them.
00:12:56We had a small country.
00:12:59Their country was large.
00:13:03We were contented to let things remain
00:13:05as the Great Spirit made them.
00:13:08They were not,
00:13:09and would change the rivers and mountains
00:13:11if they did not suit them.
00:13:15We were like deer.
00:13:17They were like grizzly bears.
00:13:18We were like deer.
00:13:20Chief Joseph.
00:13:36By the beginning of 1849,
00:13:39over 50,000 American gold seekers
00:13:41had decided to head for California.
00:13:45The only question was how to get there.
00:13:47since it was impossible to go overland
00:13:52until spring thawed the prairies and mountain passes
00:13:55the most impatient prospectors started off by sea
00:13:5914,355 nautical miles
00:14:05all the way around the tip of South America
00:14:11but most of the Americans decided to wait
00:14:14and go by wagon train
00:14:16April 11, 1849
00:14:21all my things being ready last night
00:14:25I rose early and commenced packing in my trunk
00:14:28preparatory to leaving home on my long journey
00:14:32leaving for the first time my home and my dear friends
00:14:37with the prospect of absence from them for many months
00:14:40and perhaps for years
00:14:42William Swain
00:14:44William Swain was a 27-year-old farmer's son from Youngstown, New York
00:14:53utterly convinced he would find riches in the gold fields of California
00:14:57his wife Sabrina was against his going west
00:15:02she did not know if she and their infant daughter Eliza
00:15:05could bear to be apart from him
00:15:07William's older brother George was for it
00:15:12if pickings were as easy as the newspapers said they were
00:15:15he would go west too the following spring
00:15:18Swain's plan was to take the overland route to California
00:15:24make a quick $10,000 in the gold fields and return home
00:15:29he carried with him a guidebook to the overland trail
00:15:33a bible
00:15:34and his diary
00:15:36I had fortified my mind by previous reflection to suppress my emotions
00:15:43as is my custom in all cases where emotion is expected
00:15:47but this morning I learned by experience that I am not master of my feelings in all cases
00:15:53I parted from my family completely unable to restrain my emotions
00:15:58and left them all bathed in tears
00:16:01even my brother
00:16:03whose energy of mind I never saw fail before
00:16:06he is a farmer
00:16:10he lives a simple life
00:16:12he's pretty well educated
00:16:14he's read Shakespeare
00:16:15he's read Wordsworth
00:16:17his wife is a teacher
00:16:18they have a very comfortable life
00:16:21they don't have anything to complain about in 1849
00:16:23this is a key point
00:16:25he did not have anything that would cause them distress
00:16:28his expectations were perfectly comfortable expectations
00:16:31of an average family, a farming family in America
00:16:34the gold rush changed that
00:16:36suddenly he wanted more
00:16:37suddenly he wasn't satisfied
00:16:38April 12th, 1849
00:16:42at half past two o'clock
00:16:44I took passage for Detroit on the steamer Arrow
00:16:47the lake is very smooth
00:16:50and the boat shoots along like an arrow
00:16:52and as she leaves far in the distance
00:16:55objects familiar to me
00:16:57and bears me on to those that are strange
00:17:00I feel that she bears me and my destiny
00:17:04dear, dear William
00:17:20I feel as though I was alone in the world
00:17:24the night you left home
00:17:26I did not
00:17:27nor could not
00:17:28close my eyes to sleep
00:17:30William
00:17:32if I had known
00:17:34that I could not be more reconciled
00:17:36to your absence than I am
00:17:38I never could have consented to your going
00:17:40however
00:17:42I will try to reconcile myself
00:17:45as well as I can
00:17:46believing God will order all things for the best
00:17:50Sabrina
00:17:52May 6th, 1849
00:18:00Independence, Missouri
00:18:02We came up from St. Louis
00:18:04with a company from Marshall, Michigan
00:18:06They are got up on the joint stock principle
00:18:09and are going with ox teams
00:18:10They propose that we should join them
00:18:14by paying $100 each into the fund
00:18:16furnishing a wagon
00:18:18and thus becoming members of their company
00:18:20which we have done
00:18:22The members of Swain's company
00:18:27printed Wolverine Rangers
00:18:29on their wagons with axle grease
00:18:30Other companies had their own nicknames
00:18:34Wild Yankee
00:18:36Rough and Ready
00:18:38Live Hoosier
00:18:40and Never Say Die
00:18:41But in honor of the momentous year
00:18:46they believed would change their lives
00:18:48They all proudly called themselves
00:18:5149ers
00:18:5330,000 people
00:18:59That's not an exaggeration
00:19:01In the spring of 1849
00:19:03take off from Independence
00:19:04in St. Joseph, Missouri
00:19:06and travel along the Great Platt
00:19:08hundreds of miles of wagons
00:19:11You can look to the west
00:19:12and as far as you can see
00:19:14on a dusty day
00:19:15there are wagon trails
00:19:16way off into the distance
00:19:17and you turn around and look back
00:19:19and they're stretched all the way back
00:19:20as far as you can see
00:19:21The men who traveled to California
00:19:38in the Gold Rush years
00:19:39had a conscious sense
00:19:42of the need to organize
00:19:43their rules
00:19:44for instance
00:19:45no swearing
00:19:46literally
00:19:49one of the
00:19:49they have constitutions
00:19:51they have these rules and orders
00:19:52it's no swearing
00:19:53no drinking
00:19:53we will observe the Sabbath
00:19:55many a company broke up
00:19:57over the argument
00:19:58of whether or not
00:19:58to observe the Sabbath
00:19:59how can we observe the Sabbath
00:20:01here it is
00:20:02the middle of June
00:20:03we're already behind
00:20:04these people are passing us
00:20:05on Sunday
00:20:06they're rolling
00:20:06how can we sit here
00:20:08you know
00:20:08so they have arguments about it
00:20:09and the company split up
00:20:10over the moral question
00:20:12of whether to observe
00:20:13the Sabbath or not
00:20:14for 30 days
00:20:18the 49ers crossed
00:20:20rolling prairie
00:20:21in what is now
00:20:22Kansas
00:20:22and Nebraska
00:20:23it was Indian territory
00:20:26where tribes from the east
00:20:28had been relocated
00:20:29a decade earlier
00:20:30fears of Indian raids
00:20:34proved mostly groundless
00:20:35men were more likely
00:20:38to die by drowning
00:20:39at a river crossing
00:20:40or by an accident
00:20:42with their own guns
00:20:43than they were
00:20:44at the hands of Indians
00:20:45the sack and the fox
00:20:48the pawnees
00:20:49and kickapoos
00:20:50charged tolls
00:20:51at bridges and fords
00:20:53the Potawatomies
00:20:55sold the immigrants
00:20:56bacon
00:20:57beef
00:20:57and vegetables
00:20:58and charged
00:20:59from one to five dollars
00:21:01to ferry immigrants
00:21:02across the Kansas River
00:21:03the real danger
00:21:10on the plains
00:21:10was cholera
00:21:12with its soaring fevers
00:21:14chronic dysentery
00:21:15and ghastly death
00:21:17from dehydration
00:21:18cholera was rampant
00:21:22all across the United States
00:21:24in 1849
00:21:25and quickly spread
00:21:27through the wagon trains
00:21:28some 1,500 of the gold seekers
00:21:33who set out for California
00:21:34that spring
00:21:35died from it on the trail
00:21:37Youngstown, New York
00:21:41dear brother William
00:21:43we were in a perfect fever
00:21:45of anxiety about you
00:21:46we know the cholera
00:21:50will be with you
00:21:50in crossing the plains
00:21:51please write
00:21:53as soon as you get there
00:21:54George Swain
00:21:57Sabbath
00:22:01May 27th
00:22:031849
00:22:04in violation of our principle
00:22:07we travel today
00:22:08on account of the sickness
00:22:09on the route
00:22:10May 31st
00:22:13I was attacked at noon
00:22:15by dysentery
00:22:16very badly
00:22:17I got Reverend Hobart
00:22:19to make me a composition tea
00:22:20June 1st
00:22:24still taking medicine
00:22:26opium
00:22:27and astringent powders
00:22:28today I have thought much
00:22:31of home
00:22:31and of my little girl
00:22:33who was today
00:22:34one year old
00:22:35June 7th
00:22:39I am on the gain
00:22:41but very weak
00:22:42my appetite is good
00:22:45but I cannot eat hearty
00:22:46for fear of the consequences
00:22:48on June 13th
00:22:54William Swain
00:22:55and his companions
00:22:56passed Fort Kearney
00:22:57on the Platte River
00:22:58by early July
00:23:00they reached Fort Laramie
00:23:01in what is now Wyoming
00:23:03they had gone
00:23:05nearly 700 miles
00:23:06from Missouri
00:23:07but they still had
00:23:08more than 250 to go
00:23:10before they reached
00:23:11South Pass
00:23:12which would take them
00:23:14through the Rocky Mountains
00:23:15and nearly a thousand more
00:23:17before they actually
00:23:18reached the gold fields
00:23:20July 4th Independence Day
00:23:25Dear Sabrina
00:23:26I have just left
00:23:29the celebration dinner table
00:23:30where the company
00:23:31are now drinking toasts
00:23:33to everything
00:23:33and everybody
00:23:34and cheering
00:23:35at no small rate
00:23:36I enjoy myself better
00:23:39in conversing with you
00:23:40through the medium
00:23:41of the pen
00:23:42I am hearty and well
00:23:45far more so
00:23:46than when I left home
00:23:47I am also more fleshy
00:23:49notwithstanding these facts
00:23:52I would advise no man
00:23:54to come this way
00:23:55to California
00:23:56kiss my little girl
00:23:58for me
00:23:59give my love
00:24:00to George
00:24:01and mother
00:24:02and tell them
00:24:03I am determined
00:24:04to have my share
00:24:05of the rocks
00:24:05your affectionate husband
00:24:08until death
00:24:09William Swain
00:24:11As thousands of 49ers
00:24:20streamed west
00:24:20many carried with them
00:24:22the explorer
00:24:23John C. Fremont's
00:24:24official reports
00:24:26which portrayed his scout
00:24:27Kit Carson
00:24:29as fearless
00:24:30chivalrous
00:24:31and resourceful
00:24:32but these reports
00:24:36paled in comparison
00:24:38to the sensational
00:24:39dime novels
00:24:40about Carson
00:24:41written by people
00:24:42who had never been
00:24:43west themselves
00:24:44and certainly
00:24:45had never met
00:24:46the former mountain man
00:24:47he was one of the first
00:24:50legends in his own time
00:24:52a case where people
00:24:55had their image
00:24:56of what a westerner was
00:24:58but sometimes didn't square
00:24:59with the real thing
00:25:00Kit Carson was up
00:25:03at Fort Laramie
00:25:04and somebody came over
00:25:05and said
00:25:06I hear you're Kit Carson
00:25:07is that right
00:25:08and he was kind of
00:25:10a laconic man
00:25:10he said yeah I am
00:25:11and the person from the east
00:25:13looked him up and down
00:25:14and compared it
00:25:15with what he'd read
00:25:15and he goes
00:25:16no I don't think
00:25:17you really are Kit Carson
00:25:18the real Carson
00:25:20knew enough
00:25:21not to gamble
00:25:22his future
00:25:23on finding gold
00:25:24instead
00:25:25he bought
00:25:27some 6,500 sheep
00:25:28from the Navajos
00:25:29at 50 cents a head
00:25:31and began driving them
00:25:32toward the gold fields
00:25:33where he hoped
00:25:34to sell them
00:25:35for more than
00:25:3610 times that amount
00:25:37even here
00:25:40his fame preceded him
00:25:41when he drove his sheep
00:25:43onto a ferry boat
00:25:44on the Green River
00:25:45in Wyoming
00:25:46the boatman refused
00:25:47to let him pay
00:25:48they let him trail
00:25:52his 6,500 sheep
00:25:54across for free
00:25:55that's quite a savings
00:25:56in order that they
00:25:57could name it
00:25:58Kit Carson's Cutoff
00:25:59because they figured
00:26:00if people heard
00:26:01about that
00:26:02that's the one
00:26:02they would take
00:26:03and they'd make
00:26:04a lot of money
00:26:04off his name
00:26:05soon there would be
00:26:08Carson Lake
00:26:09Carson River
00:26:10Carson Pass
00:26:12Carson Sink
00:26:14Carson City
00:26:15and more
00:26:16the old scout
00:26:19was philosophical
00:26:20about it all
00:26:20someone once
00:26:22showed him
00:26:22the cover
00:26:23of a particularly
00:26:24lurid book
00:26:25about himself
00:26:25and asked about
00:26:26the story
00:26:27it contained
00:26:28it may be true
00:26:30he answered
00:26:30but I ain't got
00:26:32any recollection
00:26:32of it
00:26:40dear husband
00:26:49this is only
00:26:51the 25th of August
00:26:53what a long summer
00:26:55oh how I want
00:26:58to see you
00:26:58sometimes
00:27:00I almost imagine
00:27:02myself with you
00:27:03but alas
00:27:05it is only
00:27:05the dream of fancy
00:27:06oh William
00:27:09if I could see you
00:27:11this morning
00:27:11I would hug
00:27:13and kiss you
00:27:13till you would
00:27:14blush
00:27:15Sabrina
00:27:17beyond the north
00:27:25plat
00:27:26William Swain
00:27:27and the other
00:27:2849ers in his
00:27:29company
00:27:29endured 50 miles
00:27:31of treeless sagebrush
00:27:32dotted with pools
00:27:34of alkaline water
00:27:35fatal to oxen
00:27:37wagons and carts
00:27:42were scattered
00:27:42on all sides
00:27:43and the stench
00:27:45of dead
00:27:46and decaying cattle
00:27:47actually rendered
00:27:48the air sickening
00:27:49some idea
00:27:52can be drawn
00:27:52from the fact
00:27:53that in one spot
00:27:54could be seen
00:27:55150 dead creatures
00:27:57on July 31st
00:28:02they crossed
00:28:03the continental divide
00:28:04at South Pass
00:28:05they were now
00:28:08through the Rockies
00:28:09more than halfway
00:28:10to California
00:28:11but the hardest part
00:28:15the deserts
00:28:16and the Sierra Nevada
00:28:17still lay ahead
00:28:18everyone on the trail
00:28:24that summer
00:28:24had heard the story
00:28:26of an earlier wagon train
00:28:27that had taken
00:28:28a supposed shortcut
00:28:29called Hastings Cutoff
00:28:31only to be trapped
00:28:33in the Sierras
00:28:34near Truckee Lake
00:28:35half of the emigrants
00:28:38had died
00:28:38some of the others
00:28:40had survived
00:28:41by eating the flesh
00:28:42of their dead companions
00:28:44they were remembered
00:28:46as the Donner Party
00:28:48William Swain
00:28:53and the others
00:28:54were late too
00:28:54and they knew it
00:28:55snow would soon
00:28:57begin to fall
00:28:57in the mountains
00:28:58they also began
00:29:01to follow shortcuts
00:29:02that seemed likely
00:29:03to speed them through
00:29:04to the gold fields
00:29:05sublets cut off
00:29:08Hudspeths cut off
00:29:10and in the western
00:29:11Nevada desert
00:29:12Lassen's Cutoff
00:29:14you had heard
00:29:16by the grapevine
00:29:17that there's desert
00:29:18there's death
00:29:19there's desolation
00:29:21there's horror
00:29:22ahead
00:29:23everybody thinks
00:29:24they want to go
00:29:25due west
00:29:25Lassen's Cutoff
00:29:27presumably leads you
00:29:28due west
00:29:29across the desert
00:29:30over the northern end
00:29:31of the Sierra Nevada
00:29:32and down into the warmth
00:29:33and the rewards
00:29:34of the Sacramento Valley
00:29:36so at the point
00:29:38where you make the choice
00:29:40there is this moment
00:29:41where scores of men
00:29:43stand around
00:29:44and they debate
00:29:45and they argue
00:29:46and they discuss
00:29:46and they read little signs
00:29:48on the road
00:29:48and a barrel
00:29:49a big barrel
00:29:50full of cards
00:29:51and full of information
00:29:52you sift through it
00:29:53oh George went this way
00:29:54Sam went this way
00:29:55Louis went that way
00:29:56what am I going to do
00:29:57there's choices being made
00:29:59and they stand around
00:30:00and they debate
00:30:00and sometimes companies
00:30:02argue and they split
00:30:03and there'd be fights
00:30:04and we'll go this way
00:30:05and we'll go that way
00:30:05so it was a life
00:30:07and death choice
00:30:08everybody knew it
00:30:09to be that
00:30:09it wasn't just
00:30:10some casual matter
00:30:11of saving a few hours
00:30:12it might save your life
00:30:13on September 21st
00:30:20William Swain
00:30:21and the Wolverine Rangers
00:30:22joined the stream
00:30:23of 10,000 gold seekers
00:30:25and started down
00:30:27Lassen's Cutoff
00:30:28it too
00:30:31would prove a mistake
00:30:32they first had to struggle
00:30:36across the searing
00:30:37Black Rock Desert
00:30:38traveling by night
00:30:42to save their oxen
00:30:43then they had to face
00:30:47the mountains
00:30:47the roads were made up
00:30:52of almost equal parts
00:30:53mud and boulders
00:30:54wagons broke down
00:30:57the Wolverine Rangers
00:31:00agreed to split up
00:31:01into small groups
00:31:02it would now be
00:31:05every man for himself
00:31:06November 6th
00:31:11we commenced our way
00:31:12in 10 inches of snow
00:31:14I carried a change
00:31:16of underclothes
00:31:17both of flannel
00:31:18and of cotton
00:31:19two pairs of socks
00:31:21one coat
00:31:22one pants
00:31:23one neck handkerchief
00:31:25my journal
00:31:26pocket bible
00:31:27pocket book
00:31:28and a few days provisions
00:31:30the storm increased
00:31:35as the day advanced
00:31:36but when you get
00:31:41to the other side
00:31:41of the Sierra Nevada
00:31:42you don't see
00:31:43the green
00:31:43of the Sacramento Valley
00:31:44you see the desolation
00:31:48of the Pitt River Valley
00:31:49you see rocks
00:31:50and stunted growth
00:31:52and mountain deserts
00:31:53it's just
00:31:55it's just a pain
00:31:57it's a shock
00:31:58it's a hit in the head
00:32:00it hurts your heart
00:32:01to see what still lies ahead
00:32:03and you haven't gone
00:32:04a shortcut
00:32:05what you've done
00:32:06is you've gone north
00:32:07and you're at
00:32:08what's called Goose Lake
00:32:09so instead of going west
00:32:11you've gone north
00:32:11northwest
00:32:12now you've got to go south
00:32:13at dawn
00:32:17we arrived
00:32:17at Antelope Creek
00:32:18eight miles
00:32:20from Lassen's Ranch
00:32:21and found it
00:32:22not fordable
00:32:23the sky cleared
00:32:27we kindled
00:32:28a rousing fire
00:32:30dried
00:32:30and rested ourselves
00:32:31till noon
00:32:32when two other men
00:32:34and myself
00:32:35with our clothes
00:32:36lashed to our shoulders
00:32:37forded the stream
00:32:39it was the hardest job
00:32:42I ever had
00:32:43when I stepped
00:32:45onto the opposite shore
00:32:46I thought my flesh
00:32:47would drop from my bones
00:32:49William Swain
00:32:52had finally made it
00:32:54to California
00:32:55January 6th
00:33:001850
00:33:01dear George
00:33:03there was some talk
00:33:05between us
00:33:05of your coming
00:33:06to this country
00:33:07for God's sake
00:33:09think not of it
00:33:09tell all whom you know
00:33:12that thousands have laid
00:33:13and will lay their bones
00:33:15along the routes
00:33:16to and in this country
00:33:17and as for you
00:33:20stay at home
00:33:22for if my health is spared
00:33:24I can get enough
00:33:26for both of us
00:33:37on a buffalo robe
00:33:41he kept in his teepee
00:33:43the Lakota
00:33:44named Lone Dog
00:33:45marked the passage
00:33:47of each year
00:33:47by painting
00:33:48the single event
00:33:49his people remembered
00:33:51most vividly
00:33:52his winter count
00:33:55began in 1800
00:33:56and spiraled outward
00:33:58with the passing seasons
00:34:00the year
00:34:02the United States
00:34:03took the southwest
00:34:04and California
00:34:05from Mexico
00:34:06Lone Dog
00:34:08had noted the death
00:34:09of a warrior
00:34:09named Broken Leg
00:34:10in 1848
00:34:13the year gold
00:34:15had been discovered
00:34:16at Sutter's Mill
00:34:16a man named Humpback
00:34:19was killed
00:34:19by an enemy's lance
00:34:21and the next year
00:34:24as William Swain
00:34:25and his fellow 49ers
00:34:26reached California
00:34:28Lone Dog's record
00:34:29showed
00:34:30that the crows
00:34:31had stolen
00:34:32a great number
00:34:33of horses
00:34:33from the Lakotas
00:34:34leaving only hoofprints
00:34:37in the snow
00:34:37this California
00:34:56is a humbug place
00:34:57out in the world
00:34:59in the bushes
00:34:59where to meet
00:35:01with a poor man's fate
00:35:03many a poor devil pushes
00:35:04so haul off the overcoat
00:35:06roll up your sleeve
00:35:08mining is a hard kind of labor
00:35:09haul off the overcoat
00:35:11roll up your sleeve
00:35:13mining is a hard kind of labor
00:35:15I believe
00:35:16what they had expected
00:35:23was the image
00:35:24that they had received
00:35:25in November
00:35:25December of 1848
00:35:27the story of
00:35:28digging up gold
00:35:29and all the people succeeding
00:35:31they were stunned
00:35:33shocked
00:35:35dismayed
00:35:36the realism
00:35:37that struck them
00:35:38above all else
00:35:39was there are so
00:35:40damn many miners
00:35:41there were 40,000 miners
00:35:47in the mining camps
00:35:49in the mining regions
00:35:49of California
00:35:50by the fall of 1849
00:35:52there had only been
00:35:54six or seven thousand
00:35:55in the fall of 1848
00:35:56now you've got
00:35:5740,000 miners there
00:35:59these are people
00:35:59who've been coming
00:36:00not only on overland
00:36:01I mentioned they came
00:36:02as early as August
00:36:03they've been coming
00:36:04by ship since December
00:36:05they've been coming
00:36:07from Hawaii
00:36:07from Oregon
00:36:08from Chile
00:36:08from Sonora
00:36:09they've been pouring in
00:36:10the world rushed in
00:36:11to California
00:36:12South Fork Feather River
00:36:16we located a spot
00:36:18favorable for damming
00:36:19and draining the river
00:36:20we made our claim
00:36:22and then built a house
00:36:23as soon as possible
00:36:24to shelter our heads
00:36:25from the soaking rains
00:36:26so here we are
00:36:30snug as school marms
00:36:31working at our race
00:36:32and dam
00:36:33if there is no gold
00:36:36we shall be off
00:36:37to another place
00:36:38for there is an abundance
00:36:40of gold here
00:36:40and if we are blessed
00:36:42with health
00:36:42we are determined
00:36:44to have a share of it
00:36:45of the tens of thousands
00:36:49of men
00:36:49who swarmed into California
00:36:51in 1849
00:36:52more than half of them
00:36:54were in their twenties
00:36:55a gray beard
00:36:56was almost as rare
00:36:58as a petticoat
00:36:58one man remembered
00:36:59and most
00:37:02hurried to one
00:37:03of the small settlements
00:37:04that grew up
00:37:05almost overnight
00:37:06wherever gold was found
00:37:07coyote diggings
00:37:10in grisly flats
00:37:11and mad mule gulch
00:37:12bed bug
00:37:14shin bone peak
00:37:15poker flat
00:37:17and murderer's bar
00:37:19whiskey diggings
00:37:21delirium tremens
00:37:22slum gullion
00:37:24shirttail canyon
00:37:26cool
00:37:27and you bet
00:37:29roughly two-thirds
00:37:34of the 49ers
00:37:35came from the United States
00:37:36and two-thirds of them
00:37:38were from New England
00:37:39but the miners
00:37:41also included slaves
00:37:43free blacks
00:37:44even Cherokees
00:37:45forced out of Georgia
00:37:4720 years earlier
00:37:48when gold
00:37:49had been found
00:37:50on their land
00:37:51the rest of the miners
00:37:53one American wrote
00:37:55came from every hole
00:37:56and corner in the world
00:37:58California now had
00:38:00more immigrants
00:38:01than any other part
00:38:02of the United States
00:38:03we are a mixed lot
00:38:07in this little tower
00:38:08of battle
00:38:08Frenchmen
00:38:10Englishmen
00:38:11Germans
00:38:12Italians
00:38:13Chileans
00:38:14Nabobs
00:38:15and Beggars
00:38:16most people here
00:38:18speak English
00:38:19good or bad
00:38:20but you find
00:38:22at the side
00:38:22of a lean Yankee
00:38:23in tight pants
00:38:24others recognizable
00:38:26by their clothing
00:38:27or accent
00:38:27there is a stocky
00:38:29John Bull
00:38:30a Chinaman
00:38:31a Hindu
00:38:32a Russian
00:38:33and a native
00:38:35California
00:38:35all trying to
00:38:37converse
00:38:37Vicente Perez
00:38:40Rosales
00:38:40one of the first
00:38:44gold seekers
00:38:44was a Cantonese
00:38:46man
00:38:46named
00:38:47Chum Ming
00:38:47he struck it rich
00:38:50near Sutter's Mill
00:38:51and wrote home
00:38:52to say so
00:38:53soon
00:38:55more Chinese
00:38:56were setting sail
00:38:57for California
00:38:58in 1852
00:39:0020,000
00:39:01Chinese would come
00:39:032,000
00:39:04in a single day
00:39:06when the gold
00:39:09was first discovered
00:39:10the Chinese
00:39:11wrote back
00:39:12to their people
00:39:13in China
00:39:14and told them
00:39:16about this
00:39:17miraculous find
00:39:18that you
00:39:18go in the streams
00:39:19of California
00:39:20and pick gold up
00:39:21even today
00:39:23they call this
00:39:24California
00:39:27or San Francisco
00:39:28Jin Shang
00:39:28the gold mountain
00:39:30in the province
00:39:33of Canton
00:39:33a letter was circulated
00:39:35encouraging more men
00:39:37to come to the gold mountain
00:39:38Americans
00:39:42are very rich
00:39:43people
00:39:44it is a nice
00:39:45country
00:39:46without mandarins
00:39:48or soldiers
00:39:49money is in
00:39:50great plenty
00:39:51in America
00:39:52they want
00:39:54the Chinaman
00:39:55to come
00:39:55and make him
00:39:57very welcome
00:39:58George
00:40:09I tell you
00:40:10this mining
00:40:11among the mountains
00:40:11is a dog's life
00:40:13a man has to make
00:40:15a jackass
00:40:16of himself
00:40:16packing loads
00:40:18over mountains
00:40:18that God never
00:40:19designed man
00:40:20to climb
00:40:20a barbarian
00:40:22by foregoing
00:40:22all the comforts
00:40:23of civilized life
00:40:24and a heathen
00:40:26by depriving himself
00:40:27of all communication
00:40:28with men
00:40:29away from his
00:40:29immediate circle
00:40:30digging for gold
00:40:34was hard
00:40:35monotonous
00:40:36and mostly
00:40:37unrewarding
00:40:38it combined
00:40:40one miner said
00:40:41the various arts
00:40:43of canal digging
00:40:44ditching
00:40:45laying stone walls
00:40:46plowing
00:40:47and hoeing potatoes
00:40:49it's called
00:40:51the diggings
00:40:52that was the word
00:40:55the diggings
00:40:56why
00:40:57because that's
00:40:57what they were doing
00:40:58when we think
00:40:59of mining
00:41:00we think of a mine shaft
00:41:01but that's later
00:41:02these are river banks
00:41:04river bars
00:41:05dried creeks
00:41:06rocks
00:41:07rocks
00:41:08by the millions
00:41:09and the gold
00:41:09is beneath those rocks
00:41:11now this is
00:41:13placer gold
00:41:14that means that
00:41:14for eons of time
00:41:16the gold
00:41:16has been abraded
00:41:17has been separated
00:41:18by the action
00:41:19of water and rocks
00:41:20so that the pieces
00:41:21of gold are pure
00:41:22you pick them up
00:41:23and that is gold
00:41:23that's all there is
00:41:24but just plain gold
00:41:26you're working
00:41:27in freezing water
00:41:28up to your waist
00:41:29for hours at a time
00:41:30you're reaching down
00:41:32moving rocks
00:41:33bringing in the rock
00:41:34and the gravel
00:41:35and working it all the time
00:41:36with your hands
00:41:36with your shovels
00:41:38moving
00:41:38always this debris
00:41:40to get rid of the debris
00:41:42to pull out
00:41:43the little tiny
00:41:44little samples
00:41:46of your future
00:41:47the little tiny pieces
00:41:48that are going to make
00:41:49everything possible
00:41:50for you
00:41:50going to buy you
00:41:51the means to get rid
00:41:52of your mortgage
00:41:53that are going to
00:41:53make it possible
00:41:55to buy some more land
00:41:56in Iowa
00:41:56in order to move
00:41:58and pack up
00:41:59and go to some new place
00:42:00all of that is built
00:42:01into every effort
00:42:02that you're making
00:42:02every single day
00:42:03everything in the diggings
00:42:06cost too much
00:42:07a dollar a pound
00:42:09for potatoes
00:42:10eggs at 50 cents a piece
00:42:12$20 for a bottle of rum
00:42:15John Sutter
00:42:17peddled wheat
00:42:18to hungry miners
00:42:19at $36 a barrel
00:42:21at his store
00:42:23the Mormon
00:42:23Sam Brannan
00:42:24was clearing
00:42:25$2,000 a day
00:42:26in profits
00:42:27exchanging tools
00:42:29for gold dust
00:42:30oh the miner works
00:42:35hard with the shovel
00:42:36and the pick
00:42:37till his body
00:42:37is feeble and tender
00:42:39and then he goes
00:42:40into town
00:42:40at the end of the week
00:42:42and spends all his dust
00:42:43on a bender
00:42:43all off the overcoat
00:42:45roll up your sleeve
00:42:47mining is a hard
00:42:48kind of labor
00:42:48all off the overcoat
00:42:50roll up your sleeve
00:42:52mining is a hard
00:42:53kind of labor
00:42:54I believe
00:42:55my dear
00:43:10how often
00:43:11oh how often
00:43:13I think of various
00:43:14temptations
00:43:15you are surrounded with
00:43:16and how many men
00:43:18of good morals
00:43:18at home
00:43:19yes and professed
00:43:20Christians too
00:43:21that have been led
00:43:22into all kinds of vice
00:43:24oh my dear
00:43:28you cannot be
00:43:29too cautious
00:43:30not that I distrust you
00:43:32but rather
00:43:33on the contrary
00:43:34perhaps
00:43:36I place too much
00:43:37confidence
00:43:38knowing that we are
00:43:39all fallible creatures
00:43:41Sabrina
00:43:43California was
00:43:46the Golgotha of sin
00:43:47California
00:43:50from its earliest times
00:43:52was seen
00:43:53in homes
00:43:53in cities
00:43:54in traditional places
00:43:55of America
00:43:56as a sinful place
00:43:57in these mining camps
00:44:01there are gambling halls
00:44:02sometimes there are tents
00:44:03sometimes there are buildings
00:44:04sometimes there are just a table
00:44:06under a tree
00:44:06they are ubiquitous
00:44:08in these gambling halls
00:44:10where places where men
00:44:12by the hundreds
00:44:12and the thousands
00:44:13went to escape
00:44:14their haunting fears
00:44:15that maybe they will fail
00:44:16this is where you can
00:44:19make a fortune
00:44:20having failed
00:44:21on the turn of hundreds
00:44:23and hundreds of shovels
00:44:24maybe on the turn
00:44:26of a card
00:44:26you can make
00:44:27what you failed to make
00:44:28up there
00:44:29in those dirty canyons
00:44:30in those hot
00:44:31or cold canyons
00:44:32where you poured
00:44:33your heart out
00:44:34and they walk
00:44:36into these great big places
00:44:37and there's excitement
00:44:39and there's hope
00:44:39and there's
00:44:40there's a sense of sin
00:44:42mother wouldn't want me
00:44:43to be here
00:44:44what if Louise knew
00:44:45that I was here
00:44:46a lot of men you know
00:44:47would write home
00:44:47and talk about
00:44:48what was going on
00:44:49as if they hadn't seen it
00:44:50I've been told
00:44:52what goes on
00:44:53in these
00:44:54gambling halls
00:44:57last fall I was proud
00:45:00of the miners as a body
00:45:01both for their honesty
00:45:03and their sobriety
00:45:04but the rapidity
00:45:06with which they have
00:45:07retrograded
00:45:08only proves more clearly
00:45:09the necessity
00:45:11of religious restraint
00:45:12and the great influence
00:45:14of well organized
00:45:15and moral society
00:45:16drinking has become
00:45:19very prevalent
00:45:20swearing a habitual custom
00:45:22and gambling has no equal
00:45:24in the annals of history
00:45:25it has already reached
00:45:28as far as Feather River
00:45:29and some of the boys
00:45:31who came across
00:45:31the plains in our train
00:45:33are at it
00:45:33though they profess
00:45:35to be Christians
00:45:36when home
00:45:3749ers lined up
00:45:43to visit the prostitutes
00:45:45who appeared in the camps
00:45:46within weeks
00:45:47of every major gold strike
00:45:49they look so charming
00:45:52in the movies
00:45:53the dance hall girls
00:45:54borderline prostitutes
00:45:56wearing those
00:45:57colorful clothes
00:45:58the stories seem to be
00:46:00close to pure misery
00:46:02of miserable living conditions
00:46:04risk of physical violence
00:46:07and every working moment
00:46:09wretched rate of pay
00:46:11drug addiction
00:46:13alcoholism
00:46:14suicide was a common way
00:46:17for a prostitute's life
00:46:18to end
00:46:19when it's a very grim
00:46:21start
00:46:22push to the edge
00:46:23kind of life
00:46:23women who were not prostitutes
00:46:31were so rare
00:46:32in the gold fields
00:46:33that 49ers stood for hours
00:46:35just to gaze upon one
00:46:37miners called them
00:46:40petticoated astonishments
00:46:42got nearer to a female
00:46:46this evening
00:46:47than i have been
00:46:48for six months
00:46:49came near to fainting
00:46:51even i had men
00:46:56come over 40 miles
00:46:58over the mountains
00:46:58just to look at me
00:47:00and i never was called
00:47:02a handsome woman
00:47:03in my best days
00:47:04lucena wilson arrived
00:47:08in nevada city california
00:47:10with her husband
00:47:11and set up camp
00:47:12under some trees
00:47:13he failed to find gold
00:47:17but she found her own way
00:47:19to strike it rich
00:47:20i bought provisions
00:47:23at a neighboring store
00:47:25and when my husband
00:47:26came back at night
00:47:27he found 20 miners
00:47:29eating at my table
00:47:30each man as he rose
00:47:33put a dollar in my hand
00:47:34and said i might count on him
00:47:36as a permanent customer
00:47:37lucena stanley wilson
00:47:40soon she was serving
00:47:43200 boarders
00:47:44at 25 dollars a week each
00:47:46she built an inn
00:47:49hired a cook
00:47:50and waiters
00:47:50even became a banker
00:47:52handling gold dust
00:47:53for the men she fed
00:47:54a smart woman
00:47:57can do very well
00:47:58in this country
00:47:59true there are not
00:48:01many comforts
00:48:02and one must work
00:48:02all the time
00:48:03and work hard
00:48:04but there is plenty to do
00:48:06and good pay
00:48:08it is the only country
00:48:10i ever was in
00:48:11where a woman received
00:48:13anything like a just
00:48:14compensation for work
00:48:15since the white man
00:48:35has made a road
00:48:36across our land
00:48:37and has killed off
00:48:38our game
00:48:39we are hungry
00:48:40and there is nothing
00:48:42for us to eat
00:48:43our women
00:48:44and children
00:48:45cry for food
00:48:46and we have no food
00:48:48to give them
00:48:49wash a key
00:48:52the gold rush
00:48:56had proved a disaster
00:48:57for the indians
00:48:58of the plains
00:48:59the cholera
00:49:00brought by the wagon
00:49:01trains had killed
00:49:02half of the northern
00:49:03cheyennes
00:49:04when a group of pawnees
00:49:07went off to hunt
00:49:08buffalo
00:49:08they found that the
00:49:10herds along the main
00:49:11wagon trail
00:49:12had been driven away
00:49:13some starved to death
00:49:15on the way back
00:49:16to their villages
00:49:17and competition
00:49:20for the dwindling game
00:49:21intensified rivalries
00:49:23between tribes
00:49:24which had been going on
00:49:25for generations
00:49:26this is a period
00:49:32of incredible
00:49:34chaos
00:49:35on the plains
00:49:35the lakota
00:49:37and their allies
00:49:38are expanding
00:49:38there's warfare
00:49:40everywhere
00:49:41the americans
00:49:42are beginning
00:49:43to penetrate
00:49:43across the plains
00:49:44to california
00:49:46it's a real challenge
00:49:47for the american
00:49:48government
00:49:48to bring this situation
00:49:50under control
00:49:50what they succeed
00:49:51in doing
00:49:52is making it
00:49:52absolutely worse
00:49:53in 1851
00:49:56the united states
00:49:57government's plan
00:49:58was to convene
00:49:59all the plains tribes
00:50:00at fort laramie
00:50:01and convince them
00:50:03to stop fighting
00:50:04one another
00:50:04and endangering
00:50:05the whites
00:50:06heading through
00:50:06their lands
00:50:07on the way
00:50:08to california
00:50:08the comanches
00:50:13and kiowas
00:50:14stayed away
00:50:15we have too many
00:50:16horses
00:50:17one chief said
00:50:18to risk
00:50:19among such
00:50:19notorious horse thieves
00:50:21as the lakotas
00:50:22and crows
00:50:23the pawnees
00:50:25also refused
00:50:26to come
00:50:27they were afraid
00:50:28the lakotas
00:50:29would kill them
00:50:30still
00:50:3410,000 indians
00:50:36representing
00:50:37nearly a dozen
00:50:38tribes
00:50:38finally attended
00:50:39the government
00:50:42offered them
00:50:42$50,000
00:50:43worth of supplies
00:50:45every year
00:50:46for 50 years
00:50:47if they would agree
00:50:48not to harass
00:50:49the wagon trains
00:50:50and to grant
00:50:51the army
00:50:52the right
00:50:52to build forts
00:50:53most important
00:50:56each tribe
00:50:57was to stay
00:50:58within a territory
00:50:59reserved for it
00:51:00and stop warring
00:51:02against its neighbors
00:51:03you have naive
00:51:06American negotiators
00:51:07show up
00:51:08to try to distinguish
00:51:09tribal territories
00:51:11at this time
00:51:13there are no
00:51:14tribal territories
00:51:15in the sense
00:51:16that Americans
00:51:16believe them to be
00:51:17and so they try
00:51:18to draw lines
00:51:19on the map
00:51:19they try to get
00:51:20Indians to conform
00:51:21to those lines
00:51:22and they're going
00:51:23to fail
00:51:24furthermore
00:51:26the Indians
00:51:26themselves
00:51:27see through
00:51:27the hypocrisy
00:51:28of all this
00:51:28the Lakota
00:51:29who are also
00:51:30an expanding people
00:51:31frankly tell
00:51:32the Americans
00:51:33look
00:51:33you're expanding
00:51:34when you want
00:51:35land
00:51:36you push the Indians
00:51:37out of them
00:51:38all we're doing
00:51:40is what you do
00:51:40you have no more
00:51:43right to stop us
00:51:44than we have
00:51:45the right to stop
00:51:46you
00:51:47we moved into
00:51:50these plains
00:51:51maybe 300 years
00:51:53ago from eastern
00:51:54homelands in
00:51:55Minnesota and
00:51:55Wisconsin
00:51:56we were terrific
00:51:59warriors and we
00:52:01were very good
00:52:02at what we did
00:52:02we swept the enemy
00:52:04aside and we took
00:52:05this land for
00:52:06ourselves
00:52:07we took the Black
00:52:09Hills we chased
00:52:10other people out
00:52:11of it
00:52:11and then our
00:52:14supernatural beings
00:52:15hurt us in those
00:52:16hills
00:52:16and so we own
00:52:19those hills partly
00:52:20by right of conquest
00:52:21and Americans
00:52:22understand the right
00:52:23of conquest
00:52:24when the Lakotas
00:52:27refused to give up
00:52:28the lands they had
00:52:29taken from other
00:52:29tribes
00:52:30the Americans
00:52:31backed down
00:52:32on the map
00:52:36they finally drew
00:52:37the Black Hills
00:52:38once the Kiowas
00:52:40then the Cheyenne
00:52:41sacred ground
00:52:42now belonged
00:52:44to the Lakotas
00:52:45the Sioux were
00:52:47given rights
00:52:48to the Black Hills
00:52:49and other country
00:52:50that the Northern
00:52:51Cheyenne had claimed
00:52:52the Squalman told them
00:52:55this ground does not
00:52:56belong to you now
00:52:57John stands in timber
00:53:00to conclude the treaty
00:53:06the Americans
00:53:07insisted that each tribe
00:53:08name a head chief
00:53:10who could sign
00:53:10for his people
00:53:11but none of them
00:53:13acknowledged a single leader
00:53:15so the Americans
00:53:16picked chiefs for them
00:53:17a warrior named
00:53:20Conquering Bear
00:53:21was chosen
00:53:21to represent the Lakota
00:53:23and the Fort Laramie
00:53:24treaty was finally signed
00:53:26on September 12th
00:53:281851
00:53:29that winter
00:53:33the Lakota chronicler
00:53:35Lone Dog
00:53:36commemorated the
00:53:37Fort Laramie treaty
00:53:38with a picture of
00:53:39two Indians
00:53:40a Lakota
00:53:41and a crow
00:53:42exchanging pipes
00:53:43as a token of peace
00:53:45in 1852
00:53:48Lone Dog
00:53:49drew an Indian
00:53:49from another tribe
00:53:51approaching a Lakota
00:53:52teepee
00:53:52with a pipe
00:53:53instead of a weapon
00:53:54and in 1853
00:53:57he showed a government
00:53:59agent bringing
00:53:59a striped blanket
00:54:01part of the treaty
00:54:02payment
00:54:02the United States
00:54:03had promised
00:54:04but in August
00:54:09of 1854
00:54:11the fragile peace
00:54:12came apart
00:54:13when a calf
00:54:16strayed from
00:54:17a Mormon wagon
00:54:17train
00:54:18into a Lakota
00:54:19camp
00:54:19a warrior
00:54:20shot it
00:54:21with an arrow
00:54:2130 soldiers
00:54:24from Fort Laramie
00:54:25marched into
00:54:26the camp
00:54:26of Conquering Bear
00:54:27trained a howitzer
00:54:29on the teepees
00:54:30and demanded
00:54:31that the guilty man
00:54:32surrender
00:54:32he refused
00:54:34Conquering Bear
00:54:37apologized
00:54:37and promised
00:54:39to pay
00:54:39more than the animal
00:54:40was worth
00:54:41the two sides
00:54:44argued for 45 minutes
00:54:45suddenly
00:54:47the officer
00:54:48in charge
00:54:49ordered his men
00:54:50to fire
00:54:51Conquering Bear
00:54:54was the first
00:54:55to die
00:54:55the enraged
00:54:58Lakotas
00:54:59swarmed
00:54:59over the Americans
00:55:00only one soldier
00:55:03managed to crawl
00:55:04back to Fort Laramie
00:55:05before he too
00:55:06died
00:55:07Conquering Bear
00:55:09was supposed to be
00:55:10the person
00:55:10who would settle
00:55:11this in the appropriate
00:55:12means
00:55:12and they kill
00:55:13the agent
00:55:15of their own
00:55:15relationship
00:55:16they kill
00:55:17Conquering Bear
00:55:18and what had been
00:55:20a minor dispute
00:55:21over a cow
00:55:22instead becomes
00:55:23a sign to Lakota
00:55:24that how can you
00:55:25trust these people
00:55:27nothing between
00:55:34the Lakotas
00:55:35and the United States
00:55:36would ever be
00:55:37the same again
00:55:38the Yankees
00:55:48are a wonderful people
00:55:49wonderful
00:55:50wherever they go
00:55:52they make improvements
00:55:53if they were to
00:55:54immigrate in large numbers
00:55:55to hell itself
00:55:57they would irrigate it
00:55:58plant trees
00:55:59and flower gardens
00:56:00build reservoirs
00:56:02and fountains
00:56:03and make everything
00:56:05beautiful and pleasant
00:56:06Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo
00:56:09No one had been
00:56:14more accommodating
00:56:15to the Americans
00:56:16than Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo
00:56:18the descendant
00:56:20of Spanish soldiers
00:56:21who had conquered Mexico
00:56:22and colonized California
00:56:24he had built himself
00:56:26a vast empire
00:56:27in the fertile Sonoma Valley
00:56:29he welcomed the first wave
00:56:32of 49ers
00:56:33and hoped to profit himself
00:56:35from the gold rush
00:56:36with its wealth
00:56:39and sudden population
00:56:40of 90,000 American citizens
00:56:43California demanded
00:56:44immediate statehood
00:56:45and in 1850
00:56:48got it
00:56:49Vallejo helped draw up
00:56:53the new state constitution
00:56:54and served in the first state senate
00:56:57but in the overcrowded mining camps
00:57:03tensions rose
00:57:04as Americans began to suggest
00:57:06that there was no room
00:57:08in California
00:57:09for anyone but them
00:57:10as mining became more difficult
00:57:13as the claims
00:57:16became more difficult to find
00:57:18because there were more miners
00:57:19than there were workable claims
00:57:20everyone competing
00:57:22and fighting
00:57:23for his smaller and smaller
00:57:24opportunity
00:57:26to strike it rich
00:57:27you became therefore
00:57:29desirous of finding an excuse
00:57:33for your failure
00:57:34or desirous of finding a way
00:57:36to get an advantage
00:57:37well one of the ways was
00:57:39to say I'm an American
00:57:40what are the Mexicans doing here
00:57:42what are the Indians
00:57:44we don't need the Indians
00:57:45we can certainly get rid of them
00:57:46what are the Chinese doing here
00:57:48those people shouldn't be here
00:57:49this isn't their land
00:57:50this is my land
00:57:50this belongs to us
00:57:51in 1850
00:57:55American miners pressured
00:57:57the California legislature
00:57:58into enacting a monthly tax
00:58:01of $20
00:58:01on all miners
00:58:03who were not
00:58:04United States citizens
00:58:05thousands of foreigners
00:58:08were forced to leave
00:58:09the gold fields
00:58:10the tax was far more
00:58:12than they could pay
00:58:13the ill will of the Yankee rabble
00:58:22against sons of other nations
00:58:23was rising
00:58:24this mutual bad feeling
00:58:27explains the bloody hostilities
00:58:30and atrocities
00:58:30we witnessed every day
00:58:32in this land of gold
00:58:35and hope
00:58:35Vicente Perez Rosales
00:58:38in the mining town of Downeyville
00:58:44a Mexican woman
00:58:46remembered only as Josefa
00:58:48awoke to find a drunken American
00:58:50in her bedroom
00:58:51she reached for a knife
00:58:53and stabbed him to death
00:58:56a mob immediately seized her
00:58:58and when she failed
00:58:59to express regret
00:59:00for what she had done
00:59:02hanged her
00:59:03it was not her guilt
00:59:06which condemned
00:59:07this unfortunate woman
00:59:08one newspaperman wrote
00:59:10but her Mexican blood
00:59:12I always think
00:59:16of the Spanish girl
00:59:17standing on the plank
00:59:18of a bridge
00:59:19tossing her hat
00:59:21to a friend
00:59:21and putting the rope
00:59:23around her neck
00:59:24folding her hands
00:59:26and facing death
00:59:27with a bravery
00:59:28that shamed us men
00:59:30Franklin Buck
00:59:32The manners and habits
00:59:37of the Chinese
00:59:38are very repugnant
00:59:40to Americans
00:59:40in California
00:59:41of different language
00:59:44blood
00:59:45religion
00:59:45and character
00:59:46and inferior
00:59:47in most mental
00:59:49and bodily qualities
00:59:50the Chinaman
00:59:51is looked upon
00:59:52by some
00:59:53as only a little superior
00:59:54to the Negro
00:59:55and by others
00:59:56as somewhat inferior
00:59:58The Chinese miners
01:00:01kept to themselves
01:00:02cooked their own kind of food
01:00:05practiced their own religion
01:00:07rarely learned English
01:00:09and were denied citizenship
01:00:11They end up working the claims
01:00:14that are the least attractive
01:00:15and yet they make a success in them
01:00:18because they work harder
01:00:20because they have a technique
01:00:21and a willingness to struggle longer
01:00:23they're willing to work
01:00:24on the Sundays
01:00:25they're willing to give up
01:00:26all play and concentrate
01:00:28and so even when they've been driven out
01:00:30of the workable minds
01:00:31and they turn to the most seemingly desert-like places
01:00:36barren-like places
01:00:37they succeed
01:00:38and this aggravates and angers the Americans even more
01:00:43In 1852
01:00:48because of intense competition
01:00:50between Chinese miners
01:00:52and Anglo-American miners
01:00:53the legislature passed
01:00:55a second foreign miners tax
01:00:57This law was in effect
01:01:00from 1852 to 1870
01:01:03and the revenues
01:01:05the state revenues
01:01:06collected from Chinese miners
01:01:10constituted 50% of the income
01:01:13of the state of California
01:01:15When the Chinese paid the miners' tax
01:01:20and refused to leave their claims
01:01:22Americans resorted to intimidation
01:01:25They hacked off the Chinese miners' queues
01:01:28burned down their shacks
01:01:30beat and flogged
01:01:32and murdered them
01:01:33Even Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo
01:01:42was betrayed by his American friends
01:01:44Lawsuits
01:01:46and an invasion of squatters
01:01:48reduced his sprawling estate
01:01:50from a quarter of a million acres
01:01:52to fewer than 300
01:01:54Australia sent us a swarm of bandits
01:01:59who dedicated themselves exclusively
01:02:02to robbery and assault
01:02:03France, desiring to be rid of several thousand
01:02:07lying men and corrupt women
01:02:09embarked them on ships
01:02:11which brought them to San Francisco
01:02:13China poured upon our shores clouds
01:02:17and more clouds of Asiatics
01:02:20very harmful to the moral and material development
01:02:23of the country
01:02:23But all these evils became negligible
01:02:28with the swollen torrents of shysters
01:02:30who came from Missouri
01:02:32and other states of the Union
01:02:34These legal thieves
01:02:36clothed in the robes of the law
01:02:38took from us our lands
01:02:40and without the least scruple
01:02:43scruple and thrown themselves in our homes
01:02:45like so many powerful kings
01:02:48Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo
01:02:51You came down after a year or so in the mines
01:03:07freezing your butt off
01:03:08working like a dog
01:03:10living under absolute primitive conditions
01:03:13and here you got in San Francisco
01:03:16and here you got in San Francisco
01:03:16a boat ride away
01:03:17one of the great metropolises
01:03:19with everything available to you
01:03:20and you just went crazy
01:03:22and the people who took your money
01:03:29and the people who took your money were the ones who got rich
01:03:30it's just the way it was
01:03:32When I landed here with my little company
01:03:38there were but three families in the place
01:03:40and now the improvements are beyond all conceptions
01:03:44homes in all directions
01:03:46business brisk and money plenty
01:03:48Here will be the great emporium of the Pacific
01:03:52and eventually the world
01:03:54Sam Brennan
01:03:56In the fall of 1849
01:04:00the village of San Francisco
01:04:02had barely 2,000 residents
01:04:04Just one year later
01:04:07the population had grown to nearly 35,000
01:04:10and it had become the West's first full-fledged city
01:04:14A single house lot on Portsmouth Square
01:04:20grew in price from $16.50 to $45,000
01:04:25in just three years
01:04:26Everything was brought in by sea at first
01:04:33whiskey, shovels
01:04:35lumber all the way from the forests of Maine
01:04:38even a cargo of cats
01:04:41ferried in to take on the rats
01:04:43that ruled the waterfront
01:04:44It was one of the world's great commercial empires
01:04:51one of the world's great cities
01:04:54within a matter of four or five years
01:04:56The simple reason was gold
01:04:59There's no other way to explain it
01:05:01Half a billion dollars worth of gold
01:05:04was pulled out of California's mines and streams
01:05:08between 1849 and 1860
01:05:10half a billion dollars in 19th century money
01:05:13That's an extraordinary amount of money
01:05:16It absolutely defined what the city was
01:05:20Most of the gold the miners extracted
01:05:25from rivers, streams, and hillsides
01:05:27washed into the pockets of merchants and bankers
01:05:31cooks, lawyers, stagecoach operators
01:05:34saloon keepers, madams
01:05:36anyone who filled their needs
01:05:38Levi Strauss, a Jewish immigrant from Germany
01:05:45turned up in San Francisco
01:05:47with a bolt of cotton duck
01:05:49he thought would be perfect for making tents
01:05:51It turned out to be the wrong material
01:05:54but Strauss used it to make a miner
01:05:57a pair of durable trousers
01:05:58Soon other miners were asking for
01:06:03those pants of Levi's
01:06:04On the corner of Washington and Grant streets
01:06:10an enterprising Chinese immigrant named Wa Li
01:06:13opened California's first large hand laundry
01:06:16charged five dollars a dozen to wash shirts
01:06:20and made a killing
01:06:24Joshua Abraham Norton arrived in San Francisco
01:06:28from London with forty thousand dollars
01:06:30in his pocket and swiftly turned it into
01:06:32a quarter of a million by shrewd investments
01:06:35But when prices collapsed Norton was ruined
01:06:40His mind snapped under the strain
01:06:44At the peremptory request and desire
01:06:52of a large majority of the citizens of the United States
01:06:55I, Joshua Norton
01:06:58declare and proclaim myself
01:07:00emperor of these United States
01:07:03San Franciscans were delighted
01:07:09Norton was given a special uniform to wear
01:07:13while he wandered the streets
01:07:15bowing graciously to citizens
01:07:17he was convinced were his loyal subjects
01:07:21Bartenders gave him free drinks
01:07:24the city directory listed him as Norton, Joshua
01:07:27emperor
01:07:30and when he died
01:07:32thirty thousand of his former subjects
01:07:34turned out for his funeral
01:07:40The town had a great sense of transience
01:07:43Well, transience always carries with it
01:07:45an air of possibility
01:07:48and that is one of the great characteristics
01:07:50of San Francisco in the golden era
01:07:54It was still a time when a person
01:07:56could arrive and seek out the possible
01:07:59Everything did seem possible
01:08:01There were so many stories of people
01:08:03who had risen from nothing to complete dominance
01:08:07People who'd arrived in San Francisco
01:08:08with a hundred dollars in their pockets
01:08:10and ended up building huge business blocks
01:08:13five years later
01:08:15This was repeated over and over and over again
01:08:17so that the town took on an air of
01:08:19a kind of rarefied demonstration
01:08:23of what the American dream was all about
01:08:26Condensed, packed into a few golden years
01:08:38The Indians formerly subsisted on game, fish, acorns, etc
01:08:50But it is now impossible for them to make a living
01:08:53by hunting or fishing
01:08:55For nearly all the game has been driven
01:08:57from the mining region
01:08:59or has been killed by the thousands of our people
01:09:01who now occupy the once quiet home
01:09:04of these children of the forest
01:09:08Edward A. Stevenson
01:09:13Near the crowded gold fields
01:09:15Indians found it harder and harder to find food
01:09:19Some began to steal
01:09:22The miners despised them all as diggers
01:09:27One California law made it legal
01:09:29to declare any jobless Indian a vagrant
01:09:33Then auction his services off for up to four months
01:09:37And it permitted whites to force Indian children
01:09:40to work for them until they were 18
01:09:43Provided the permission of what the law called
01:09:45a friend was obtained first
01:09:50Whites hunted down adult Indians in the mountains
01:09:54kidnapped their children
01:09:55and sold them as apprentices for as little as $50
01:10:00If ever an Indian was fully and honestly paid for his labor
01:10:05one white settler said
01:10:06it was not my luck to hear of it
01:10:10Indians could not complain in court
01:10:13because by another California statute
01:10:15no Indian or black or mulatto person
01:10:18was permitted to give evidence in favor of
01:10:21or against a white person
01:10:27The miners are sometimes guilty
01:10:30of the most brutal acts with the Indians
01:10:34Such incidents have fallen under my notice
01:10:38that would make humanity weep
01:10:40and men disown their race
01:10:43William Swain
01:10:47We hope that the government will render such aid
01:10:50as will enable the citizens of the north
01:10:53to carry on a war of extermination
01:10:56until the last redskin of these tribes has been killed
01:10:59And let the first man that says treaty or peace
01:11:14be regarded as a traitor
01:11:17Eureka Herald, 1853
01:11:22Indians continued to die from diseases
01:11:24the white man had inadvertently introduced among them
01:11:27but now thousands more were being killed deliberately
01:11:34The bold volunteers crept on them before day
01:11:38and killed about nine men
01:11:39the balance escaping
01:11:42The women and children remained
01:11:45trusting that an American
01:11:47would not murder women and children
01:11:50In this they were mistaken
01:11:52The Americans searched around among the haystacks with a hatchet
01:11:59and split the children's heads open
01:12:02In this way there were over 40 women and children butchered
01:12:10The towns of Marysville and Honey Lake
01:12:13paid bounties for Indian scalps
01:12:17Shasta City offered five dollars for every Indian head
01:12:21brought to City Hall
01:12:23And California's state treasury
01:12:25reimbursed many of the local governments for their expenses
01:12:31It was of no unfrequent occurrence for an Indian to be shot down in cold blood
01:12:36or a squaw to be raped by some brute
01:12:40Such a thing as a white man being punished for outraging an Indian was unheard of
01:12:45It was the fable of the wolf and the lamb every time
01:12:51General George Crook
01:12:56There were some 150,000 Indians in California before the 49ers came
01:13:03By 1870 there would be fewer than 30,000
01:13:06It was the worst slaughter of Indian peoples in United States history
01:13:12And now my dear allow me to ask are your most sanguine expectations realized or at least being so
01:13:36Or do you find things very much exaggerated
01:13:41Would you advise anyone to go to California?
01:13:44There are many anxious to hear from you and learn the prospects
01:13:48Sabrina
01:13:49Everything had gone wrong for William Swain
01:13:57He'd spent the whole cold rainy winter in a claustrophobic cabin on the feather river
01:14:05In the spring he and his partners moved to Foster's Bar on the Yuba
01:14:09Only to be kept from panning by a heavy spring snow melt that turned the clear stream into a roaring brown river
01:14:20Five months rain he wrote four months high water and three months almost too hot to work
01:14:29Day after day without success taxed him
01:14:33But so did his fear of returning home a failure
01:14:36Pride is a powerful force the pride that kept so many men in California they want to go home
01:14:47But I can't go until I've got something to prove my success they've been reading about success back home
01:14:54I know says the miner how many people are failing failure is the most is the most common fact of life in California
01:15:02They don't know that how can I go home a failure when they expect me to come home a success so they stay
01:15:10Dear Sabrina
01:15:13My specific answer to your kind question is that my expectations are not realized
01:15:21We have been unlucky or rather by being inexperienced we selected a poor spot for a location and staked all on it
01:15:31And it is proved worth nothing
01:15:34I mostly regret the necessity of staying here longer
01:15:40By the summer of 1850
01:15:42William Swain had been away from home for more than a year
01:15:47All he had to show for his trek across the continent was five hundred dollars nowhere near his goal of ten thousand
01:15:54Then he got a letter from his brother
01:16:00Dear William
01:16:02Keep your courage up
01:16:04If you fail there you are not to blame
01:16:07You have tried your best to do well
01:16:10And if you can't do it there you are better off than many who have gone there with their all and left nothing behind to fall back on
01:16:16You have something and friends who will meet you just as cordially unsuccessful as successful
01:16:25To tell the plain truth
01:16:27I wish most sincerely you were out of that
01:16:30If you are alive and at home
01:16:33No matter if you haven't got a single mill
01:16:37Your brother George Swain
01:16:39Reassured by his brother's letter in November
01:16:46Swain left the diggings and headed for San Francisco
01:16:51By the time he paid for his passage home by sea
01:16:54He had no more cash in his pocket than when he'd left Youngstown 18 months earlier
01:17:03November 6th 1850 San Francisco
01:17:07Dear friends
01:17:10It is a long time since I have written home
01:17:13I have got enough of California and am coming home as fast as I can
01:17:18I remain as ever your son brother and husband William
01:17:32Of all the comrades I had then there's none left now but me
01:17:37And the only thing I'm fitting for is a senator to be
01:17:42And the people cry as I pass by there goes a traveling sign
01:17:49That's old Tom Moore a bummer sure from the days of 49
01:17:54Oh, I miss the boys and all the noise and the gold that once was mine
01:17:59In the days of old the days of gold the days of 49
01:18:03In the days of old when we dug up the gold in the days of 49
01:18:08The gold in the days of 49
01:18:10Within a few short years the surface gold in California was all but gone
01:18:25Most of what gold remained could no longer be retrieved by a single miner with a pick or shovel or pan
01:18:32No matter how hard he worked
01:18:36It lay at the bottom of rivers in veins of quartz that could only be reached by deep shafts
01:18:42Or hidden in hillsides from which it had to be blasted by powerful streams of water
01:18:49Big machinery required big money
01:18:51California's gold fields were soon controlled by investors with headquarters in san francisco
01:18:59And worked by miners who now labored for a weekly paycheck
01:19:06As discouraged 49ers headed home some paused to pan for gold in places they had bypassed in their hurry to california
01:19:14Others fanned out in every direction
01:19:18There were new strikes
01:19:21In idaho, oregon, new mexico and arizona
01:19:25Last chance gulch in montana pikes peak in colorado
01:19:30And in nevada the great comstock load
01:19:35And wherever gold and silver were discovered the pattern set in california repeated itself
01:19:41Americans rushed in
01:19:45Towns sprang up
01:19:47And indian peoples the apache and payute the shoshone and cootland
01:19:53Cheyenne and nezperce
01:19:55Found themselves outnumbered in their own lands
01:20:04Stealing began
01:20:07Land cattle horses
01:20:09Everything began to disappear
01:20:13There is a saying that men will steal everything but a milestone and a millstone
01:20:19They stole my millstones
01:20:22John augustus sutter
01:20:25John sutter had expected the gold rush to make him richer than ever
01:20:30Instead it ruined him
01:20:33Squatters took over his land
01:20:36Creditors dogged him and he began to drink heavily
01:20:40Finally someone burned down his house
01:20:45Sutter moved east and haunted washington for years seeking compensation
01:20:50He said he was owed for having owned the land on which gold was first found
01:20:55He died in pennsylvania still waiting for congress to act
01:21:02But sutter's ruin would provide an opportunity for someone else
01:21:08Nancy gooch had come west as a slave
01:21:11Was emancipated when california entered the union and got a job as a cook and washerwoman
01:21:18She managed to earn enough to buy the freedom of her son and his wife back in missouri
01:21:23They came west and eventually bought the site of sutter's sawmill on the bank of the american river
01:21:30Where the gold rush had begun
01:21:42Absence from my friends has given me a true valuation of them
01:21:47And also it has taught me to appreciate the comforts and blessings of home
01:21:55William swain had found no gold in california
01:21:58And had gone home and started farming again as if he'd never been away
01:22:03He and his wife sabrina had three more children
01:22:09And swain eventually became the biggest peach grower in niagara county new york
01:22:14But in the evenings on his farm when the work was done
01:22:22He never tired of telling his wife and his children and grandchildren
01:22:28About the great adventures he had had crossing the country
01:22:33When it and he had both been young
01:22:44I had comrades then a saucy set they were rough i must confess
01:22:55But staunch and brave and truest steel like hunters from the west
01:23:00But just like many another fish they've now run out their line
01:23:05And like good old bricks they stood the kicks of the days of 49
01:23:17Then there was new york jake the butcher boy so fond of getting tight
01:23:22Whenever jake got full of gin he went looking for a bite
01:23:26One night he ran against a knife in the hands of old bob klein
01:23:33And over jake we held awake in the days of 49
01:23:39There was kentuck bill one of the boys he was always in for a game
01:23:44Didn't matter whether he lost or won to him it was all the same
01:23:49He'd ante a slug he'd pass the buck he'd go a hat full blind
01:23:54And in the game of death bill lost his breath in the days of 49
01:24:00All the comrades i had then there's none left now but me
01:24:05And the only thing i'm fitting for is a senator to be
01:24:09And the people cry as i pass by there goes a traveling sign
01:24:18That's old tom moore a bummer sure from the days of 49
01:24:23Oh, i missed the boys and all the noise and the gold that once was mine
01:24:28in the days of old the days of gold the days of 49
01:24:33in the days of old when we dug up the gold in the days of 49
01:24:39So
Be the first to comment