Due to the flood of people that went west, California became a diversity hot spot
-Many different cultures from around the globe came to the goldfields
- Chinese - Mexican - English - Eastern European - South American - Hawaiian -Native Americans and Chinese were hired by others to do work for low wages With so many immigrants, new cultures were easily accepted "All classes, freed in a great measure from conventional restriction, appear in their true garbs." - Historian Frank Marryat |
"It seems as though every nation on the face of earth has sent a representative to this place." -Samuel Upham after he arrived in Happy Valley
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By 1849, over 25,000 immigrants had migrated to California hoping to gain sudden wealth.
-Population boom ensured California's admittance as a state
Hatred Towards Natives
- California offered incentives to kill American Indians - Native Americans had few rights -Children were slaves, even though California was "slave-free" |