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Racial Intolerance During The California Gold Rush, Raul David Lopez

Theses and Dissertations

The California Gold Rush started in 1848 and lasted to the mid-1850s. Though short in duration, the impact the Gold Rush had in the United States, along with populations from many areas in the rest of the world, proved detrimental to many different ethnic groups that arrived to the mines and came into contact with various cultures, principally the white Anglo-American culture. This thesis focuses on themes such as race, gender roles, free labor versus unfree labor, extra-legal violence, and informal laws passed in the mines to exclude foreigners. It addresses why certain nationalities were taxed and targeted as foes, …