I need to write a Historical essay about the Gold Rush. What would be a good topic about the Gold Rush.?

Question

Historiograpy essay

Answer 1

You might do an essay on Cariboo Cameron. This is a true story, no kidding.

The Cariboo was the site of a Canadian gold rush in the 1850's. It was located on the Canadian side of the border with Alaska. Cameron was one of the few to strike it rich. However, the one thing that he loved more than Gold was his wife Sophie. Sophie hated the Cariboo. It was cold and in the winter there was no sunlight. Cameron promised that as soon as they made enough, they would return to Kingston Ontario. (This is a town on Lake Ontario, just north of New York State.

Cameron had just struck it rich when winter set in. During that winter Sophie became very sick. Just before she died she made Cameron promise that he would bury her in Kingston.

As soon as she died Cameron packed her in snow to preserve the body. Next Spring he had a copper casket made, put Sophie's body in it ansealed it up. To make sure that the body did not decompose, he drilled a hole in the top of the casket and filled it with alcohol. Then he hired a team of men to transport the casket to the nearest port. This port was in Alaska. The American border guards did not believe that Sophie was in the casket. They thought that Cameron was Smuggling something. They made him open the casket. After it was resealed, it was put on a boat that took the casket down the west coast of Canada, and the USA. In a fierce storm the casket was almost swept overboard. This was before the Panama Canal was built, so the casket had to be taken overland through the steaming hot jungles to the Atlantic side. Another boat took the coffin through the Gulf of Mexico and up the Eastern coast of the USA. Cameron docked in New York, because it was the closest port to Kingston. Immediately customs officials ordered that the Coffin be opened. Reluctantly Cameron opened the coffin a second time. Sophie was still there, in the same condition as when she died.

Cameron finally got his dear Sophie to Kingston. It had taken four years and lots of money. The story goes on and on. In the end Sophie was buried four times

Im doing this from memory and its thirty years ago that i read it, so my facts may be a bit off.

Punch in John Cariboo Cameron on Yahoo for all the details.

Answer 2

The gold rush started due to response from a private press release by Sam Brannan, an entrepreneur in 1848 who foresaw that the more easterners coming to California, the more money would come into his business interests. We always hear about James Marshall and John Sutter, but almost never hear about Sam Brannan. I think my choice for an essay would revolve around this man and how his search for wealth via the economy touched so many families and their search for wealth via ore.
A great deal of settlement happened along the rivers and tributaries which brought quartz and associated ore down the waterways. Early after the initial discovery in Coloma on January 24, 1848, towns along what is Highway 49 in California were started as points of commerce available to the miners in terms of distance and the availability of transportation of goods to the towns. The changes to the settlements would also be a good topic.
The gold rush period is generally thought of as the ten years between 1848 and 1858. My ancestors during the 1850s settled in rich agricultural areas and raised food for the incoming population. The search for wealth and sustained life during the gold rush in ways other than the search for gold itself is an interesting historical investigation.

Answer 3

You could talk about the imbalance of "free states" and "pro slavery states," a controversy which eventually helped fuel the Civil War. With all these people going to California, there was this BIG debate on the Congressional floor over whether or not Cali should be pro-slaver or a free state (the population was high enough to admit it into the States mostly because of the gold rush). There's a lot of great politics to address here.

Answer 4

Try the location of several Native American Burial sites where there many stories, (ghost,and ritualistic) about the invasion of the sacred holy sites of the ancient dead ancestors of the Natives. Like the "Lost Dutchman" The Superstition mountains in Arizona and the Apache burial grounds deep in the Superstition mountains, how many died trying to find Coronado's gold? Gold stolen from the native buriel grounds and lost by Coronado when the Apache's led him into the Superstitions and left him there with all the gold he stole for Queen Isabella of Spain (Spanish Crown). So many during the Gold rush went to California but they would hear the story about the lost treasure and would go into the Superstitions and never come out.

Answer 5

the type of community that develops around a Gold Rush location..what kinds of people, how much they trust each other- what happens to those who make it and those who don't.

Answer 6

greed,madness ,it was crazy times for those people they were driven by greed ,need and pure desperation.it was so hyped people left behind everything to strike it rich just to lose everything.families were destroyed !not a good place to be people also killed each other over the gold.there are lots of stories look it up on the internet.