In 1848, a sawmill carpenter named James Marshall discovered gold on land belonging to rancher John Augustus Sutter. Sutter, a Swiss immigrant, had created a booming 50,000-acre settlement east of San Francisco which he named New Helvetia. Sutter attempted to keep the discovery secret, because he was concerned that a rush of miners would destroy the plans for his settlement and because he did not yet own some of the land where the discovery was made. But as word of the discovery got out, “thousands flocked into the hills in search of gold” (61). By July 1848, “20 percent of the non-Native American population of California” 4, had left their homes to hunt gold (61).

According to Gillon, “the gold rush inspired perhaps the largest mass movement of people in world history” (64). Americans making the journey took overseas and overland routes, but miners were soon coming from all over the world—first from Mexico and Hawaii, then South America, the Far East, and Europe. Gillon argues that the influx of so many different races, religions, languages, and nationalities into the mountains of California almost overnight created “one of the most diverse and energetic cultures anywhere on the planet” (68).