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Show 708 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT Cash Purchase Act of 1820,48 the Preemption Act of 1841,49 and the Homestead Act of 1862.50 Although these laws were intended to provide "land for the landless," what actually happened was that entries were made by agents hired by wealthy speculators who ended up owning all the land. The government seemed unable to check this perversion of the public land acts, and the people themselves found nothing strange in homestead entries in an area which was virtually worthless for agriculture. The Far Western Mining Frontiers "Where can it be- This land of Eldorado?"51 Although Mark Twain facetiously suggested that whiskey always preceded a pioneer settlement,52 most of us are willing to give gold the credit for the dramatic increase in the population of California. After years of being romanced to death about the discovery of gold, I am dismayed to learn that historians are not sure whether James Marshall was really the first to find it and whether the date was actually January 24, 1848.53 For present purposes, it is "3 Stat. 566 (1820). 19 5 Stat. 453 (1841). 50 12 Stat. 392 (1862). 81 From Edgar Allan Poe's finest lyric, Eldorado, first published in April 21, 1849, and inspired, of course, by the Gold Rush. 82 See Wyman, Western Folklore and History, 1 The American West No. 1, 44 (1964). "The problems are posed and the documents assembled in Paul, The California Gold Discovery: Sources, Documents, Accounts, and Memoirs Relating to the Discovery of Gold at Suiter's Mill (1966) . As to the identity of the discoverer, there must be some who are romantic enough to vote for Peter Wimmer's kids. Assuming Marshall to be the culprit, the reader may wish to discover what happens to people who start gold rushes. See Dillon, Fool's Gold: The Decline and Fall of Capt. John Sutter of California (1967); Gay, James W. Marshall: The Discoverer of California Gold (1967); Gudde, Sutter's Own Story (1936); O'Brien, California Called Them (1951) . perhaps enough to say that the event at Sutter's sawmill at Coloma ushered in an extravagant era in the history of mining law. The initial impact of the discovery was relatively mild, except for Sam Bran-nan who is supposed to have walked up the street in San Francisco shouting, "Gold! Gold! Gold from the American River."54 Then, President Polk (after smugly insinuating that he had been aware of the valuable gold deposits all along) proclaimed to Congress on December 5, 1848, "The accounts of the abundance of gold in that territory are of such an extraordinary character as would scarcely command belief .. ."55 With that, the great Gold Rush of 1849 was on!56 Overnight, miners from all over the world poured into the California mining country. Lead miners from Galena, Cornish miners from England, Chinese, Australians accompanied by the merry clink of the ball and chain,37 and Americans from all classes of society engaged in a crude form of placer mining which required only a pan, a spade, and some water to wash the earth from the gold dust. Each one a trespasser on the Federal public domain, each one concerned only with his own personal El Dorado. The first miners encountered few problems, but with the advent of hordes of Marshall is reported by a contemporary diarist, the Mormon Henry W. Bigler, to have said exactly what you'd expect, "Boys, by God I believe I have found a gold mine." Gudde, Bigler's Chronicle of the West 89 (1952). 54 Bailey, Sam Brannan and the California Mormons 121 (1943) . " 4 Messages and Papers of the Presidents 629, 636 (Richardson ed. 1897) . ¦ For recent accounts of the Gold Rush period, see Clark, Frontier America (1959) ; Greever, The Bonanza West: The Story of the Western Mining Rushes 1-86 (1963); Hawgood, America's Western Frontiers 164-98 (1967); Kirsch and Murphy, West of the West: Witness to the California Experience 1542-1906 (1967); Paul, Mining Frontiers of the Far West-1 848-1880 12-36 (1963) . " sec monaghan, australians and the gold Rush: California and Down Under 1849-54 (1966) . |