The Gold Rush: A Never Ending Pursuit

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In the mid-nineteenth century one single word had the power to pull men from homes and families: gold. After John Marshall found nuggets in a California stream in 1848, tens of thousands crossed continents and oceans in a scramble for wealth. A few years later Edward Hargraves's discovery of gold near Bathurst prompted a similar rush to the Australian colonies of New South Wales and Victoria.(Boisserry 11) Scenarios of lawlessness in the Californian and Australian goldfields became numerous. Men shot and murdered each other to secure their gold, as well as their positions. This was the first sign of trouble; their pursuit of gold was slowly causing them to loosen moral and lawful standards. Destructive effects came with the American dream men were chasing; wanting gold and high social status, which very few could ever achieve. Their pursuit of this dream didn't result in richness for most of the men; and although both gold rushes saw extraordinary movements of peoples and produced breathtaking stories of incredible fortunes made overnight, by the mid-1850s these goldfields began to run dry. Miners abandoned their posts and new prospectors stopped arriving. Then, in 1858, the gold rush in the valley of the Fraser river began. “Gold! There is gold on the Fraser!” the cry rang out across the harbour, through the streets of San Francisco and out to the dried out goldfields of California. (Neilson Bonikowsky) Many people packed up and headed North; even business people sold out and headed for British Columbia, hoping to get rich. This hope was similar to their hope of prosperity in gold in California and Australia, ironically, and both of those attempts didn't work out very well. However, the miners wanted to give it another try. Th...

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...://www.cariboogoldrush.com/barker/>.

Lindsay, F.W. “The Cariboo Story.” Quesnel: The Quesnel Advertiser 1963. Print.
The Journey. British Columbia Archives, Royal BC Museum. n.d. Web. 14 February 2014.
Patenaude, Branwen Christine. Trails to Gold: Volume 1. Touchwood Editions, 1 May 1995. Print.
Downs, Art. Cariboo Gold Rush: The Stampede That Made BC. Heritage House Publishing Co, 15 May 2013. Print.
Patenaude, Branwen Christine. Golden Nuggets: Roadhouse Portraits along the Cariboo's Gold Rush Trail. Heritage House Publishing Co, 1998. Print.

Gold Rush History. n.d. Web. 14 February 2014.

Cariboo Gold Rush. n.d. Web. 14 February 2014.

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