Talk:California gold rush

Location

Consider updating the location - the infobox suggests that this took place in a very small area around 100 yards square which is not backed up by the maps and other data within the article 90.240.165.192 (talk) 08:28, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Coordinate precision reduced per Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers WCCasey (talk) 15:14, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Remove references to genocide

The references to genocide violate WP:NOTFORUM: "Propaganda or advocacy." The conflicts described by the editor as genocide occurred on every continent in the world and throughout the period of America's existence . They were not localized to California and have no connection with the gold rush. Statements to be removed include:

"The gold rush had severe effects on Native Californians and accelerated the Native American population's decline from disease, starvation, and the California genocide." There is no reference other than a link to a page called "California genocide." The linked page condemns something called "refugeeism" without offering a definition, then moves on to a long list of massacres, few of which occurred in the goldfields. It covers a time period beginning with Spanish rule a century before the gold strike and ends with a lengthy section on the academic debate over what "genocide" is. There is no discussion of what kind of "acceleration" was caused by the gold rush.

"Whole indigenous societies were attacked and pushed off their lands by the gold-seekers" The statement has no reference of any sort.

"The Native Americans, out-gunned, were often slaughtered. Those who escaped massacres were many times unable to survive without access to their food-gathering areas, and they starved to death." The reference is to a single paragraph in a 342 page book, which is followed immediately by a discussion of violence against "foreign miners", meaning Chinese and Mexicans. The details in this sentence do not appear in the cited paragraph.

"According to demographer Russell Thornton, between 1849 and 1890, the Indigenous population of California fell below 20,000 – primarily because of the killings." The citation is to American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History Since 1492; it is unlikely that this author regarded the gold rush as something unique.

And so on. Julian in LA (talk) 03:49, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

What a ludicrous request. Because other genocides have occurred, dont talk about this one. The California genocide is well documented and sources show clear government-sponsored efforts to eradicate the indigenous population, beginning during the Gold Rush and outlasting it into later in the 19th century. In his State of the State Address, following the passing of the Act for the Government and Protection of Indians, which legalized the forced labor of Indians during the Gold Rush, Governor Burnett states "[t]hat a war of extermination will continue to be waged between the races until the Indian race becomes extinct must be expected". The Gold Rush was certainly not the only impetus behind the genocide, but it is intrinsically linked to it. Cristiano Tomás (talk) 15:14, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

If you're going to quote Burnett, quote him in context.

calls have been made upon the Executive for the aid of the Militia ... Considering the number and mere predatory character of the attacks at so many different points along our whole frontier, I had determined, in my own mind to leave the people of each neighborhood to protect themselves ...

[The causes of conflict include] the neglect of the General Government to make treaties with them for their lands. We have suddenly spread ourselves over the country in every direction, and appropriated whatever portion of it we pleased to ourselves, without their consent and without compensation. Although these small and scattered tribes have among them no regular government, they have some ideas of existence as a separate and independent people, and some conception of their right to the country acquired by long, uninterrupted, and exclusive possession. They have not only seen their country taken from them, but they see their ranks rapidly thinning from the effects of our diseases. They instinctively consider themselves a doomed race; and this idea leads to despair; and despair prevents them from providing the usual and necessary supply of provisions. This produces starvation, which knows but one law, that of gratification; and the natural result is, that these people kill the first stray animal they find. This leads to war between them and the whites; and war creates a hatred against the white man that never ceases to exist in the Indian bosom. ...

Situated as California is, we must expect a long continued and harassing irregular warfare with the Indians upon our borders and along the immigrant routes leading to the States. Although few in numbers, and unskilled in the use of fire arms, they seem to understand all the advantages of their position; and they consequently resort to that predatory warfare, most distressing to us, and secure to them.

Don't miss the part about excluding free blacks from California. Julian in LA (talk) 17:22, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

I agree. To me it rather comes off as one of those typical attempts of somebody jumping into a Wikipedia page for some American history topic and rephrasing it in a soapbox rant, instead of following Wikipedia:NPOV. WillieBlues (talk) 04:38, 16 July 2025 (UTC)

Your comment is that you agree. Do you agree with the removal of these statements or with their retention? Julian in LA (talk) 19:28, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

I disagree with the opening statements in this topic (given as reasons to remove references to genocide):

• "The conflicts described by the editor as genocide occurred on every continent in the world and throughout the period of America's existence."

That's true, and I expect to find descriptions of any such genocide in every Wikipedia article about those times and places, including this one.

• "They were not localized to California"

Descriptions of genocide not localized to California can be noted/removed, and any unsourced "soapbox rant" should be tagged .

• "and have no connection with the gold rush."

The gold rush abetted and accelerated the genocide of native Californians in at least four ways.

• First, it attracted hordes of fortune-hunters to remote areas where native settlements had not previously been disturbed, and where the sheer numbers of miners overwhelmed any attempts at law enforcement.
• Second, the lure of gold attracted many individuals with little regard for each other or for those already living in gold-field areas. The majority of them came from the United States and other countries with a history of bad behavior toward Native Americans.
• Third, many of the miners stayed in California, accelerating its move toward statehood, which brought state authority to bear on natives.
• Fourth, those same hostile-toward-Native-Americans gold-seekers became the first state leaders, who held genocidal attitudes toward the natives such as those of Peter Burnett. WCCasey (talk) 14:01, 16 July 2025 (UTC)

Totally agree @WCCasey:, thank you for sharing your arguments/comments. Cristiano Tomás (talk) 14:08, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

Removing quote taken out of context

I am removing the Russell Thornton quote, which attributes a population decline of 70,000 people to "the killings." Thornton gives no footnote for his statement, only a reference to a demographic chart showing a population decline of nomadic Indians for the entire state over a period of more than a decade. Earlier in the chapter, he says that "genocide of American Indians was probably most blatant in Northern California and southern Oregon territory"; perhaps his later statement was intended to refer to that limited region and its probability. The chapter opens, however, with a much different statement: "During the nineteenth century the total North American Indian population was not reduced nearly as much from warfare and genocide as from disease and other causes…" One of those "other causes" was firewater.

Thornton, Russell (1987). American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History Since 1492. Norman : University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 978-0-8061-2074-4.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link) Julian in LA (talk) 22:45, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

Removing unsourced and misleading statements

I am removing or changing the following statements based on WP:RELIABILITY, WP:NPOV, WP:NOTFORUM and WP:SOURCE.

The gold rush had severe effects on Native Californians and accelerated the Native American population's decline from disease, starvation, and the California genocide.

The Gold Rush didn't do any of these things; human beings did. I assume that "accelerated" is used in its accounting sense, of reporting income in an earlier fiscal year. It implies that the gold rush shouldn't have happened because it shortened the lifespan of certain Indians by 20 years. That isn't history.

The effects of the gold rush were substantial. Whole indigenous societies were attacked and pushed off their lands by the gold-seekers

I don't know what a "whole indigenous society" is. This appears to say that one or more subgroups of a band of a tribe were forced out of the canyon where they had been living, but managed to escape with their lives, but there is no reference.

The arrival of hundreds of thousands of new people in California within a few years, compared to a population of some 15,000 Europeans and Californios beforehand, had many dramatic effects.

The phrase "Europeans and Californios" is weird. Few of the "Europeans" had ever lived in Europe. I understood that Californios were the people living in Mexican California before the American takeover but, just like the Americans, they included urban Indians, free Blacks and people with European ancestry. One of their leading citizens, Andres Pico, included all three in his lineage. Another leading citizen was Don Benito Wilson, who had come from Tennessee. A large proportion of the new people came from China and South America.

Other estimates are that there were 7,000–13,000 non-Native Americans in California before January 1848.

I will replace both of these with a statement that the non-nomadic population was not more than 15,000, keeping the reference to Starr & Orsi.

Ed Allen, interpretive lead for Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park, reported that there were times when miners would kill up to 50 or more Natives in one day.

The reference is to an interview with Allen by Indian Country Today Media Network. He does not cite any sources or original research. This sounds like the punitive attacks on Indian encampments described in many other sources. There is no source that accuses the miners of indulging in thrill killings. Here is Allen's actual quote:

Miners, viewing Natives as competitors for the gold, reportedly went to their villages, raped the women and killed the men, Allen said. He cited instances where miners went on “killing sprees” and murdered 50 or more Natives in a day. Those who survived scattered and didn’t return.

Historian Benjamin Madley recorded the numbers of killings of California Indians between 1846 and 1873 and estimated that during this period at least 9,400 to 16,000 California Indians were killed by non-Indians, mostly occurring in more than 370 massacres (defined as the "intentional killing of five or more disarmed combatants or largely unarmed noncombatants, including women, children, and prisoners, whether in the context of a battle or otherwise").

The phrase "at least 9,400 to 16,000" is meaningless. It says that there is no upper limit on his estimate, but the lower limit might differ by 5,000. The part about massacres, and Madley's definition thereof, says that the Whites didn't have any interest in killing their Indians one at a time (too difficult?). I hope he has a good source for that. I will check to see what he actually said as soon as the library releases their copy.

According to the government of California, some 4,500 Native Americans suffered violent deaths between 1849 and 1870.

The reference is not to the "government of California", but to a web page copyrighted by LearnCalifornia.org, whose mailing address is in Pinedale, Wyoming. I will remove "government of California" and keep the reference, since the figure is taken from academic sources.

Furthermore, California stood in opposition of ratifying the eighteen treaties signed between tribal leaders and federal agents in 1851.

The reference describes a Federal-state fight over Indian policy. This bare sentence implies that "federal agents" were guardian angels who were trying to save the Indians from the Bad Whites. No source says such a thing. The Evil White mythology holds that Indian Agents were all corrupt and that every treaty was violated by the Federal government the day after it was signed. Thus, these 18 treaties, never ratified, are of no significance.

The state government, in support of miner activities, funded and supported death squads, appropriating over 1 million dollars towards the funding and operation of the paramilitary organizations.

The referenced page does not use the phrase "death squads." Although the reference credits someone named Chuck Smith, the page is unsigned and has no footnotes or indications of original research. The reference seems to be to this sentence:

In 1851 &1852, the California legislature passed several Acts authorizing payment of over $1.1 million to reimburse citizens for 'private military forarys [sic.].'

There is no assertion that these funds were actually paid for any particular military foray or what its purpose was.

Peter Burnett, California's first governor declared that California was a battleground between the races and that there were only two options towards California Indians, extermination or removal. "That a war of extermination will continue to be waged between the two races until the Indian race becomes extinct, must be expected. While we cannot anticipate the result with but painful regret, the inevitable destiny of the race is beyond the power and wisdom of man to avert." For Burnett, like many of his contemporaries, the genocide was part of God's plan, and it was necessary for Burnett's constituency to move forward in California.

While the reference is to Lindsay, the full speech is available online. It does not include the phrase "God's plan."

The background of this speech is very much different than what this bare quote implies. Burnett resigned his office after only two years. He was regarded by his contemporaries as a racial extremist and is better known for his hatred of Blacks than of Indians. During his time in the Oregon legislature, he promoted "Burnett’s Lash Law”, which was repealed soon after he left the state.

Lindsay and others have quoted these sentences to imply that Burnett was the leader of a conspiracy involving the Army, state government, local sheriffs and private militias to exterminate the Indians. As such, it was a colossal failure. After 20 years of effort, 25% of the Indians were still alive. Their population rebounded in the twentieth century, allowing them to establish and defend some 90 reservations and milk the Whites of their money through gambling casinos.

Burnett's use of the word "extermination" was not unique in nineteenth century politics. In the first year of the Civil War, the French envoy to Washington met with Judah P. Benjamin, the Confederate Secretary of State, in Richmond. He asked whether the war could be ended by compromise. The answer: "It has come to the point where the North must exterminate us or agree to separation." The resulting Confederate genocide was far more effective than the one against the California Indians, killing 23 percent of Southern white men of military age in four years, plus uncounted numbers of civilians in three major sieges and blockade-induced shortages of food and medicine. It utterly destroyed the antebellum culture.

Burnett's speech runs 12,000 words, of which 2,400 are devoted to relations with the Indians, ending with the quoted sentence. Most of it is a defense of his previous Indian policy. The final sentence of the message says this:

In conclusion, I would make but one other suggestion, more important than any yet made, because it concerns the virtue and honor of our community. [I recommend the restoration of civil suits for criminal conversation or for seduction], that the law may throw around the chastity of our wives and daughters that protection which ought to be afforded by the laws of every civilized country in the world.

The Act for the Government and Protection of Indians, passed on April 22, 1850, by the California Legislature, allowed settlers to capture and use Native people as bonded workers, prohibited Native peoples' testimony against settlers, and allowed the adoption of Native children by settlers, often for labor purposes.

This will be replaced by: "Some Indians avoided murder and starvation by becoming indentured servants in the towns."

The California legislature passed lots and lots of laws, but not all were enforced. An examination of actual indentures from old court records, done by the California State Library in 2002, gives a much more realistic picture the effect of this law. It also mentions that the indenture provision was repealed in 1863, but some of the indentures postdate the repeal.

The court testimony provision barred testimony by either Blacks or Indians in legal proceedings of any sort, and was similar to provisions in many other states in that era. For a fascinating story of how a judge in Los Angeles circumvented this provision, see From Enslaved to Entrepreneur.

Outcome: California genocide occurs

The reference to California Genocide will be removed from the infobox. This is a controversial theory, and presenting it as generally accepted fact violates WP:NPOV.

It should be noted that mistreatment of Indians was well-known and widely discussed in the nineteenth century without the need of words like "genocide." In A Century of Dishonor (1881), Helen Hunt Jackson described "a sickening record of murder, outrage, robbery, and wrongs" committed by settlers. Three years later, she published the romantic novel Ramona, set against backdrops describing prejudice throughout California. Its national popularity was second only to Uncle Tom’s Cabin among 19th-century novels. In 1890, historian H. H. Bancroft described the treatment of California Indians as “one of the last human hunts of civilization, and the basest and most brutal of them all.” In 1963, anthropologist John Alden Mason explained that "Only a handful of the thousands of Indians who once populated California are left, most of them having been slaughtered by the 49ers and their immediate successors." Julian in LA (talk) 04:35, 10 August 2025 (UTC)

References

Nah, those aren't magic words. You'll have to gain consensus for your positions and interpretations of site policy first. Remsense 🌈 论 04:39, 10 August 2025 (UTC)

(That is to say, I am writing up at least a partial reply, and I wanted to make clear I wholly disagree with some key points off the bat.) Remsense 🌈 论 04:47, 10 August 2025 (UTC)

Right.

I assume that "accelerated" is used in its accounting sense, of reporting income in an earlier fiscal year.

Don't make that assumption, then. What?

It implies that the gold rush shouldn't have happened because it shortened the lifespan of certain Indians by 20 years.

It states first and foremost that the death rate of a given population increased.

I don't know what a "whole indigenous society" is. This appears to say that one or more subgroups of a band of a tribe were forced out of the canyon where they had been living

It is not good rhetorically to pretend not to know know what a sentence means, and then go on trying to dismantle the point it's making while clearly having understood what the sentence means just fine.

there is no reference

We will have to read into the article itself, not just the lead which summarizes the cited material in the article body.

The phrase "Europeans and Californios" is weird ...

Imprecise perhaps, but clearly not upending the point of the phrase. Is it meant to be a revelation to me that "urban Indians" existed?

I will replace both of these with a statement that the non-nomadic population was not more than 15,000,

Eh, why? Holliday 1999 p. 26 clearly says In 1846 the towns and ranchos in the shaded areas — encompassing 26 million acres, the choicest land in all the province — had a population of only 6,900 Californios, some 700 foreigners (mostly Americans), and 6,200 Indians, most of whom worked for the "whites." [ see ] "Non-nomadic" would seem to ignore a dimension emphasized by multiple sources because it doesn't suit you. (The chapter (Chan in Starr & Orsi 2000) you do deign worth citing, what's the title of it? ETHNIC DIVERSITY, NATIVISM, AND RACISM—right.) Goes without saying it's your original spin and not what Chan (In 1848, the state's estimated population included perhaps 150,000 California Indians and between 14,000 and 15,000 non-Indians. Of the latter, slightly more than half were Americans and Europeans who had drifted into Alta California, Mexico's northernmost province, in the quarter century before the discovery of gold. The rest were mixed-blood Californios.) or Holliday plainly say.

Non-starter.

The phrase "at least 9,400 to 16,000" is meaningless.

Again, purporting there is no plain meaning in a statement you nonetheless understand perfectly well despite implausibly twisting it. Stop doing this.

learncalifornia

This is genuinely an awful source, and genuine thanks for identifying it so it can be swapped out.

Chuck Smith

Tracked down quickly he's an anthropology professor. This also isn't the best source, and should be replaced, and we should absolutely replace "death squads" with phraseology closer to said source.

While the reference is to Lindsay, the full speech is available online. It does not include the phrase "God's plan."

No one claimed Burnett said that verbatim, or even implied he did, the claim by Lindsay is that is what Burnett meant. We're going to go with his interpretation of Burnett of course, not yours. You're free to cite scholarship that paints a picture closer to your own views at any point.

The Act for the Government and Protection of Indians, passed on April 22, 1850, by the California Legislature, allowed settlers to capture and use Native people as bonded workers, prohibited Native peoples' testimony against settlers, and allowed the adoption of Native children by settlers, often for labor purposes. ... This will be replaced by: "Some Indians avoided murder and starvation by becoming indentured servants in the towns."

Like hell it will. We're very much not here to support your original analysis of 49er jurisprudence. You're pretending we're still citing fake travel agencies, but for points that matter very much, we are very much not. It comes off egregiously dishonest that you start ignoring solid sources when they appear.

genocide controversy among scholars

Did you read the section you linked? "Controversial" is being generous to those in the clear minority position.

It should be noted that mistreatment of Indians was well-known and widely discussed in the nineteenth century without the need of words like "genocide."

Too bad. Remsense 🌈 论 05:54, 10 August 2025 (UTC)

Okay. I am at the talk page. I really want to expand on the gold rush, so I can add where the settlers were from, revealed how California was bought, and even showed the problems during the mining, and even expand on the brutal treatment on Indians. I will add sources. Can you let me do this? TheHistorianEditor (talk) 19:42, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

The lead section is meant to be a brief summary of the article body, which in turn often summarizes the sources as a whole. It is not necessary to specify, e.g., the name of the treaty that ended a war this article is not about, that California was the 31st state to enter the union, and an unhelpful ethnic laundry list that is beyond the point of the statement. In the context of the lead section, these are odd tangents best kept for the body at best and totally unjustified trivia at worst. And yes, when you move other information down to make room for such tangents and trivia, it looks like a WP:NPOV violation. Remsense 🌈 论 19:48, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

@TheHistorianEditor, Wikipedia is not the right place to use articles to share your personal thoughts and opinions about historical or current events; that is what a personal blog or social media is for. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, all content must reflect a neutral point of view and be properly sourced to reliable sources. Consensus must exist for those changes to be made; you don't have consensus to make these changes. Netherzone (talk) 21:10, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

A similar objection was made in 2022 and drew the same response from Cristiano Tomás. It is now on the archive page. Talk:California gold rush/Archive 4#Please remove the far-left Marxist propaganda from the introduction. Julian in LA (talk) 20:14, 12 August 2025 (UTC)

@Julian in LA, at this time you do not have consensus to make your proposed sweeping changes.

There is a significant amount of scholarship by academics and experts, beginning in the 1960s and into the present who have used the word, "genocide" in relation to the Gold Rush era, including the archaeologist/anthropologists specializing in California the American Southwest, and Native Americans such as Robert Heizer and Theodora Kroeber; the historian of Native America, Benjamin Madley; the historian of California History and Native American History, Brendan Lindsay; historian of the American West, Patricia Nelson Limerick; historians Robert V. Hine and John Mack Faragher who authored The American West: A New Interpretive History; Richard White, historian specializing in the American West and Native American History; the historian of the American West, Stephan Aron; Susan Bernardin, T. Robert Przeklasa, also see: The Cambridge World History of Genocide: Volume 2, Genocide in the Indigenous, Early Modern and Imperial Worlds, from c.1535 to World War One that refer to the California genocide in relation to the Gold Rush. And this list goes on...

Content about the correlation between the California gold rush and the California genocide has been stable in the article since February 2017. The article and its sourcing can be improved and updated, but change is much better enacted without the use of a bulldozer to overhaul things to one's own POV en masse. It's a level-5 FA, that has been pretty stable over the years, which, at least to my way of thinking, would require a bit more delicacy, research and tact as well as a deeper and more accurate understanding of guidelines/policies before making changes like this. Netherzone (talk) 22:49, 12 August 2025 (UTC)

I fully cosign Netherzone's reply. There is not consensus for these changes. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 00:55, 13 August 2025 (UTC)

My research indicates that it dates from the late 70s, not the sixties. My reading of WP:NPOV is that Wikipedia does not decide which academic school is "in the majority." Instead, it presents both views.

I could post the revolting, racist things these "academics" have said in their publications, but there no longer seems to be any point in it. Julian in LA (talk) 01:22, 13 August 2025 (UTC)

Heizer and Kroegen are from the 60s, as were Vine and Faragher. Netherzone (talk) 01:51, 13 August 2025 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: HIST 401 Sec 2, Fall 2025

This article is currently the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 23 August 2025 and 17 December 2025. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Tylercarmona40 (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Tylercarmona40 (talk) 21:12, 6 September 2025 (UTC)