In what year did the California gold rush start?
Women in the California Gold Rush Gold Rush, bounties were offered for "Indian hunters" who could prove they had killed a Native by bringing in a body part. The Indian population of California fell from 150,000 in 1848 when gold was discovered to 30,000 in 1870. Some Natives were able to escape extermination by passing as Mexicans. Stories of massacres, forced relocation, and kidnappings have been passed down through the generations, often by women, and are still remembered by California Native people today. Women in the California Gold Rush Women in the California Gold Rush, which began in Northern California in 1848, initially included Spanish descendants,
Women in the California Gold Rush lines were up and running by late 1849. In Ireland, the Great Potato Famine was a period of mass starvation, disease and emigration between 1845 and 1852 that drove many desperate women to the United States and on to California. Women of many different continents, statuses, classes, and races were involved in the California Gold Rush. The fast increasing population had very few women in it and what women there were found myriads of opportunities. As word of the gold rush spread so did the word of opportunities for women to work in the women poor gold fields and communities.