California Gold Rush, Mexican-American War, and Compromise of 1850

California and the Boundaries of Freedom

• As easily accessible gold diminished, mining transitioned to underground operations requiring substantial financial investment.
• This shift intensified tensions among diverse racial and ethnic groups vying for gold in California.
• The absence of effective law enforcement exacerbated the chaos.
• Vigilante committees emerged in San Francisco during 1851 and 1856, overriding the courts to try and sometimes execute alleged criminals.
• White miners created unofficial groups to expel "foreign miners," including Mexicans, Chileans, Chinese, French, and Native Americans.
• The state legislature imposed a $$20 monthly tax on foreign miners, leading many to leave California.
• California imposed restrictions on who could enjoy freedom and rights, despite its image as a land of opportunity.
• The state constitution of 1850 limited voting and court testimony to white men, excluding Native Americans, Asians, and the small Black population of 962 people.
• Spanish-descended landowners and those who married American settlers were regarded as white.
• Many landowners lost their land due to challenges to their titles dating back to Mexican rule, resulting in sales to settlers from the eastern United States.
• The gold rush had a devastating impact on Native American communities.
• Miners, ranchers, and vigilantes killed thousands of Native Americans.
• State officials provided bounties to militias for attacking Native populations.
• Thousands of Native American children were forced into slavery and labeled as orphans or vagrants, despite California's status as a free state.
• By 1860, California's Native American population decreased from approximately 150,000 at the end of the Mexican War to only 30,000.

The Effect of the Mexican-American War

• The Mexican-American War, similar to the Louisiana Purchase, brought up the critical issue of slavery's expansion into the west, eventually leading to the Civil War.
• Acquiring Mexico was likened to "swallowing arsenic," with Ralph Waldo Emerson suggesting that "Mexico will poison us."

The Wilmot Proviso

• In 1846, David Wilmot of Pennsylvania proposed prohibiting slavery in all territory acquired from Mexico.
• Party lines dissolved as Northern Democrats and Whigs supported the Wilmot Proviso, while nearly all Southerners opposed it.
• The Wilmot Proviso was described as bringing "to a head the great question that is about to divide the American people."
• Opponents of slavery formed the Free Soil Party in 1840.
• The Free Soil Party nominated Van Buren for President and Charles Francis Adams (son of John Quincy Adams), illustrating the widespread anti-slavery sentiment in the North.

The Appeal of Free Soil

• The Free Soil ideology gained traction in the North for several reasons.
• It reflected resentment of Southern power in the federal government.
• The West was viewed as a place of opportunity, not slavery.
• "Free Soil" advocated preventing slavery in the West and the federal government providing free homesteads in the new territories.
• Free soilers were not abolitionists; they primarily envisioned the West as a place for free white men.
• White southerners saw barring slavery in the West as a violation of their equal rights as members of the Union.

The Compromise of 1850

• California sought admission to the Union as a free state in 1850.
• Southerners feared this would disrupt the sectional balance.
• Henry Clay proposed The Compromise of 1850 as a resolution.
• Key Components of the Compromise of 1850:
  • California was admitted as a free state.
  • The slave trade, but not slavery, was abolished in the nation's capital.
  • A stricter Fugitive Slave Law was enacted.
  • The remaining territories acquired from Mexico would decide on slavery through popular sovereignty (popular vote).
  • The US would assume Texas' debt.