USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Whole indigenous societies were attacked and pushed off their lands by the gold-seekers, called “forty-niners” (referring to 1849, the peak year for Gold Rush immigration). Outside of California, the first to arrive were from Oregon, the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) and Latin America in late 1848.

Detailed explanation-2: -Thousands of would-be gold miners, known as 49ers for the year they arrived, traveled overland across the mountains or by sea, sailing to Panama or even around Cape Horn, the southernmost point of South America.

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: -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-5: -There were a number of routes to take to California. Chinese miners sailed across the Pacific Ocean, spending up to two months making the trip in small boats. The three main routes used by American gold seekers were the Oregon-California Trail, the Cape Horn route, and the Panama shortcut.