Diversity played an important role in the Gold Rush, and in shaping the future state of California. This largest migration in American history brought people to California from every background. Diversity is where all of the cultures combine and work together to make things work. Until we read the journals that were written during the Gold Rush, we never thought about how "diversity" means even more than just people from different countries.
The journal that Charles Gillespie wrote had a section about the little town Coloma that shows what we mean by the idea of diversity. "The principal street in Columa was alive with crowds of moving men: Negroes from the South, mulattoes from Jamaica, Hawaiians, Peruvians, Chileans, Mexicans, Frenchmen, Germands, Italians, Irishmen, Yankees, Chinese and last of all a few Indians, the only indigenous creatures among all these exotics, lost, swallowed up, out of place. ...It was a scene that no other country could ever imitate. Antipodes of color, race, religion, language, government, condition, size, capability, strength and morals were there, within that small village in the mountains of California."
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This black miner is pictured in 1852. This picture is taken from the Sacramento Bee which wrote this about the African-Americans who came to California:
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Read about other ideas associated with the Gold Rush:
