The Gold Rush in California - Essay Example

For the indigenous people living in California as the Gold Rush commenced, survival was more than a matter of finding food and shelter or overcoming disease. With the influx of thousands of outsiders, all intent on carving up the earth to reveal its hidden metals, American Indians in California found their land, their lives, and their way of life actively persecuted. In the years of the Gold Rush, it is estimated that ninety per cent of California’s native population died. The survivors, who maintained their connections to their cultural practices on various levels, in general, managed to live through the Gold Rush by adapting to the new ways of life forced upon them.

The easiest way to survive was, perhaps, the most humiliating. Some Indians allowed their oppressors to “civilize” them. By adopting white styles of dress, living in modern, rather than traditional homes, and most importantly, kowtowing to the white man and embracing his religion, some native people were able to keep their own lives. In Deeper than Gold: Indian Life in the Sierra Foothills, Brian Bibby writes of a man called Billy Preacher, who, based on the stories and artefacts he left behind, had a strong belief in and connection to his religion and culture. However, Billy Preacher, “accommodating to change” (Bibby, 30), goes to work on a white man’s ranch and eventually takes on his employer’s culture. Bibby states that this ranch, “provided a haven and labour opportunities for individuals and families who had been disinherited from their former homes by the influx of miners and settlers to the region” (Bibby, 30). Billy Preacher, at the end of his life, has converted to Christianity and in appearance appears almost completely European.

Servitude was more or less expected by the white man, who saw the Native as, at best, a useful servant, and, at worst, a pest to be exterminated. For this reason, many Indians found it simpler to cater to the invaders, whoever they were. Mexican women made tortillas only “when they do not have an Indian to take care of that job” (Johnson, 119), while Indian men, following their assimilation in the Missions, where they have been taught obedience to the white man, “passed through the weekend crowds carrying buckets of iced drinks on their heads and singing” (Johnson, 120). Indians who assumed their “proper” role catering to the white man were tolerated and even appreciated for easing the Anglo’s burdens.

Those who resisted assimilation did not fare so well. Aggression against native people who interfered with the systematic destruction of their homes was not uncommon. Bibby relates the stories of Indians killed by white men, without provocation or retribution. For this reason, many Indians either converted, like Billy Preacher, or found other ways to hide, by taking to more remote areas or changing their appearance to seem black or Chinese. In this way, many traditions were lost, but some people, having survived the Gold Rush by taking on Anglicized customs, managed to remember enough of their original traditions to reinstate them when the furore died down. Bibby tells of Rose Kelly Enos, the great-great-granddaughter of a native woman who took on certain white traditions. However, the family embraces the past, and Enos teaches her children “to gather and process acorns for their use, and ceremonial occasions” (Bibby, 56). Jim Dick, descended from those who had been forced to abandon their ancestral home, probably because white men built a railroad through it, also helped maintain native traditions, despite the interruptions. He “presided over a variety of social and ceremonial gatherings” (Bibby, 67), fought the disease with fire, and rebuilt his roundhouse in a new location, inspiring the next generation with his powerful speaking voice.

The ways of life enjoyed by the indigenous people of California were greatly disrupted by the Gold Rush. However, those that survived did so through intelligence and perseverance, as they determined to fight for their survival. These people overcame racism, sexism, religious prosecution, and the destruction of their homes and ways of life to save their lives.