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California is a sparsely populated Mexican province, home to about 7,000 Californios (Mexican citizens), 150,000 Indians, and 900 foreigners (mostly Americans).
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San Francisco at that time is a tiny Mexican village known as Yerba Buena.
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Samuel BrannanSutter's Fort was located near modern day Sacramento.
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A narrative by John SutterJames W. Marshall, a foreman building a lumber mill for pioneer landholder John Sutter, discovers gold in the Americdan River east of Sacramento.
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California officially becomes United States territory with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ends the Mexican-American War by transferring nearly half of Mexico's lands to the United States.
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The Californian newspaper in San Francisco reports for the first time on the gold discovery in the Sierra, but most San Franciscans remain skeptical of the report.
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San Francisco's California Star newspaper prints a six page special edition for distribution in the eastern states about immensely rich gold mines in California.
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Mining PicturesSamuel Brabbab runs through the streets of the city, waving a quinine bottle full of gold while shouting "Gold, gold, gold from the American River!!" Virtually the entire male population of San Francisco leaves the city in a rush to the gold fields.
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In the first six weeks following the arrival of gold fever in San Francisco, Samuel Brannan earns $36,000 ($750,000 equivalent in today's market) in profits from his general store, outfitting miners with picks, pans, and shovels.
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More than half of the miners in the gold fields in the first months of the Gold Rush are Indians, often brutally exploited by whites.
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The New York Herald becomes the first major eastern newspaper to tout the discovery of gold in California.
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The first gold ship, carrying $500,000 worth of gold sails from San Francisco bound for the United States Mint.
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Virtual tourThey were waiting for the prairie to harden enough to allow overland travel by wagon to California.
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The first American Gold Rushers to sail for California via Cape Horn arrive in San Francisco.
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The 49'ersThey later become known as Forty-Niners. An estimated two-thirds are white Americans, but the Forty-Niners also include large numbers of Chinese, Chileans, Peruvians, Mexicans, Europeans, And Australians. 97% of the migrants are men.
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California delegates assembled in the coastal town of Monterey and draft a state constitution, requesting admittance to the Union.
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In 1849, ten million dollars worth of gold is extracted by miners from the mines in California.
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The population was less than 1000 prior to the gold discovery at Sutter's Mill.
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In Washington, Congress agrees to the Compromise of 1850, which admits California to the Union as a free state.
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And all of it came from the California mines!