SETTLING IN CALIFORNIA and UTAH

1. forty-niners – people who went to California during the gold rush of 1849

2. boomtown – a community that has a sudden growth in population

3. vigilante – a person who takes the law into his own hands

CALIFORNIA

• In January 1848 in a sawmill called Sutter’s Mill in Coloma, California, a worker found a small piece of gold shining in a ditch

• When word of this discovery got out, people from all over the world flocked to California. This was the beginning of the California Gold Rush

• Those who arrived in 1849 were called forty-niners

• Boomtowns developed quickly, and cities like San Francisco flourished

• The California Gold Rush more than doubled the world’s supply of gold

• Though few of the forty-niners gained much wealth, merchants thrived in the new communities

• One, an immigrant named Levi Strauss, sold sturdy denim pants to the miners; these “Levi’s” made him rich

• The mining towns were populated mostly by men. There were no police or prisons, so lawbreaking was common

• Citizens formed vigilantecommittees to protect themselves

• The Gold Rush had a lasting effect on California’s economy and growth.

• People who went there looking for gold often stayed to run a farm or a business

• FYI: The Sydney Ducks was the name given to a gang of criminal immigrants from Australia in San Francisco, during the mid-19th century. the rampant crime in the city at the time. The Sydney Ducks were criminals who operated as a gang, in a community that also included sailors, longshoremen, teamsters, wheelwrights, shipwrights, bartenders, saloon keepers, washerwomen, domestic servants, and dressmakers. Most were born in Ireland and migrated during the Great Irish Famine, first to Australia as laborers and then to California as part of the Gold Rush.

• The criminal acts of the Sydney Ducks was the reason for the formation of the first Committee of Vigilance of 1851. The vigilantes took political power from the corrupt or incompetent officials in the city, and conducted secret trials, lynchings, and deportations

• When Zachary Taylor became president in 1849, he urged California to apply for statehood.

• Taylor died of an illness in July 1850; his vice president Millard Fillmore took office

• After a compromise was worked out between slave states and free states (called the Compromise of 1850), California was made a state in 1850

UTAH

• In the 1850s members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, called Mormons, went to Utah Territory to fulfill their vision of living a “godly life”

• The Mormon Church had been founded in New York State in 1830 by Joseph Smith

• The Church was met with some controversy

• Finding little support in New York, the Mormons went to Ohio, then Missouri, then Illinois

• Smith was killed in 1844, and Brigham Young took over as head of the Mormon Church

• The group moved to Utah, near the Great Salt Lake, where Young founded Salt Lake City

• A great Mormon migration to the area began in 1846. The Mormons set up flourishing communities

• In 1848 the U.S. acquired the Salt Lake City area as part of the settlement after the war with Mexico.

• Congress established the Utah Territory in 1850

• President Millard Fillmore made Brigham Young governor of the Territory

• Utah did not become a state until 1896

FYI: Why did it take so long for Utah to become a state?

• The Mormon leaders wanted to name the state Deseret, and it would have included Utah, most of Nevada and Arizona, and parts of southern California, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Oregon, and Idaho.

• The Mormons also elected all-Mormon leaders for this “state,” with Brigham Young as governor.

• Congress didn’t want to create such a huge state. Besides, southern states and northern states had been fighting about whether slavery would be allowed in new states. Under the Compromise of 1850, Congress formed the Utah Territory and New Mexico Territory. Each could vote for themselves whether to allow slavery.

• In 1852, church authorities announced in public that some Mormons were practicing “plural marriage”. During the next 38 years, this practice pretty much kept Utah from gaining statehood.

FYI:

Franklin Pierce was the 14th president of the United States. During his term (1853-1857), his greatest accomplishment was the Gadsden Purchase (1853)

James Buchanan was the 15th President of the USA (1857-1861) Buchanan fought to preserve the Union (the North and the South were heading towards war over the issue of slavery).

Abraham Lincoln was the 16th president of the United States of America (1861-1865) and one of the greatest presidents. He was President during most of the Civil War; Lincoln helped abolish slavery in the United States. Lincoln was assassinated shortly before the end of the Civil War.