USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Arriving in covered wagons, clipper ships, and on horseback, some 300, 000 migrants, known as “forty-niners” (named for the year they began to arrive in California, 1849), staked claims to spots of land around the river, where they used pans to extract gold from silt deposits.

Detailed explanation-2: -"Forty-niners” flocked to California during the Gold Rush. Pioneers came to California by land and by sea from other parts of America and the world. The result was new wealth and a dramatically increased and diverse population. Small settlements grew into cities, business boomed, and California became a state in 1850.

Detailed explanation-3: -The forty-niners definition encompasses anyone who left their lives, property, and homes to travel to California in 1848-1849 in search of gold. Gold prospectors, most of them men, had the plan to go to California, find gold, become rich from selling the gold, then return home.

Detailed explanation-4: -Gold Discovered in California. Many people in California figured gold was there, but it was James W. Marshall on January 24, 1848, who saw something shiny in Sutter Creek near Coloma, California. He had discovered gold unexpectedly while overseeing construction of a sawmill on the American River.

Detailed explanation-5: -The 49ers, most of whom were men, came from the eastern United States as well as other parts of the globe, including Europe, China, Mexico and South America. By the mid-1850s, more than 300, 000 people had poured into California.