Australian gold rushes offered rewards by the Colony of New South Wales and the Colony of Victoria. Before the end of the year, the gold rush had spread to many other parts of the state where gold had been found, not just to the west, but also to the south and north of Sydney. The Australian gold rushes changed the convict colonies into more progressive cities with the influx of free immigrants. These hopefuls, termed diggers, brought new skills and professions, contributing to a burgeoning economy. The mateship that evolved between these diggers and their collective resistance to authority led to the emergence
Women in the California Gold Rush number of women in the mining communities and mining camps can be estimated by subtracting the roughly 2,000 females who lived in predominately Californio (Hispanics born in California before 1848) communities and were not part of the gold rush community. About 3.0% of the gold rush Argonauts before 1850 were female or about 3,500 female Gold Rushers compared of about 115,000 male California Gold Rushers. By California’s 1852 State Census the population has already increased to about 200,000 of which about 10% or 20,000 are female. Competition by 1852 had decreased the steam ship fare via Panama to about $200