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Chapter 49 Gold and Glory
Chapter 49 Gold and Glory
"Gold! Gold! I've found me some Gold!"- Doug Walker 1848
"Come to Texas! Get cheap Land and the opportunity to become your own king with the California Gold Mines."- Immigration Ad 1849
"I'm glad that we're receiving more people but the problem is they're coming too fast. We've got way too many Asians and those Americans are flocking to the Western Union in droves. We've got to keep the Germans and Tejanos on our side while we build up the Chinese vote. Never thought I'd be saying that."- President Mirabeau B. Lamar 1849
In 1848 as the German/Hungarian wars were winding down and the Oregon War was coming to a conclusion, the Republic of Texas once more settled back into tranquility. Just the year earlier Texas had once more managed to defeat the rogue Mexican governors in the Border Wars and they had managed to gain a nice slice of Sonora in the deal as well. The first year of Lamar's final term was rather quiet as his policies were still being put into effect by the Republican dominated congress (though the Unionists were gaining more ground each election), more land was being settled west and two more tribes and joined the citizen program, immigration was increasing due to the refugees from the revolution, trade with America was at an all time-high, and there was little conflict in the west save for the occasional rogue Indian attack and outlaw. Everything was fine. Then come 1848, the destiny of Texas and its importance on the world stage would be changed forever. Early in March 1848, Texas Rangers Doug and Rob Walker, were searching for minerals in the stream near their lands in modern day Coloma due to Rob reporting the sight of metal. On March 12th, Doug Walker was reported to have discovered the first amounts of gold on there lands by digging up a near 2 Pounds of gold. Initially the two brothers wanted to keep the affair quiet so that they could collect it all to themselves. This silence would not last as the Rangers had to hire more men from the region to get higher quantities dug up. A Tejano worker leaked the news of the gold to a reporter at the Monterrey Gazette, and soon an editorial was published within on August 19th which proclaimed that Gold was spotted in California. Soon the news began to spread all over the Commonwealth in weeks and it managed to reach Texas around two months later. On December 5th, President Lamar addressed congress on the matter where he proclaimed that in an report that he had received from the Texas Rangers company in Monterrey, that gold had been sighted and California did have multiple confirmed deposits. After that address the news was spread all over Texas by the Houston Chronicle and word would reach the United States, Latin America, and Europe months later. The California Gold Rush had begun.
Areas of the Gold Rush in California
During the first year of the gold rush the miners were mostly Californians who lived in the North and had managed to get in on the early discoveries making them richer than most Texans at the time. In 1849 this would all change as nearly 350,000 immigrants would arrive in Texas during this year. The forty-niners as they were called, came from all over the world with the highest places of origin being the United States, Mexico, the Yucatan, Rio Grande, Chile, China, Australia, Britain, France, and Germany. Seemingly overnight, California sprung up from a small and quiet backwater part of Texas, to a huge Commonwealth with bustling towns all over California and the Pacific ports having become the size of their American counterparts in a matter of months. Gold was developed in three stages with the first being river panhandling, the second hydraulic mining, and the third dredging. The last two stages were also the inventions of such techniques and come to play a major role in Texas with the discovery of Oil during the turn of the 20th Century. From 1848-1856, California was nearly stripped dry of its early deposits with an estimated $ 65 Billion Redbacks in Gold being discovered by the miners. Later gold mining using advanced drilling still continues in some form to this day. Another benefit of the Gold Rush was the fact that mining also began in the modern day Commonwealths of Arizona and Deseret as the discoveries of gold were only reported to be in California, which some people assumed was the entirety of the commonwealth. This would launch the early coal and iron mines of the 19th century and along with the mining of precious metals, would lay the groundwork for the Petroleum and Nuclear industry. Economic development would boom overall in California as the Pacific Ports would become the largest cities in the country with the buildup of the shipping, transportation, entertainment, lodging industries booming in these towns with the needs to accommodate the minors continually increasing. Another important side effect was that with the arrival of more immigrants came the development of California's Agriculture industry and land procurement. Finally the Republic of Texas was able to come out of its economic slumber by the end of the 1850's with billions of dollars in gold making its way to the state treasury. The Department of the Treasury had taken up quick actions to create mints in California to exchange the gold for printed coins, Redbacks, and other foreign currencies that it was able to procure with the help of France. By 1861 $1 US Dollar was the equivalent of $.9 Redbacks.
San Francisco 1850 (Right) Largescale goldmining operations near a riverbed (Left)
At the same time while the Rush had brought much growth and financial success to California, there were many conflicts and difficulties that came with the rush. In the beginning the California Commonwealth was hardly developed and there was little infrastructure to take in the large spike in Immigration. There was also little amounts of law and order as only a few hundred Rangers and the established garrisons could protect the hundreds of miles of land and keep order among the population. Racial divisions also arose as different groups of immigrants came into conflict with each other and settlers from the United States frequently attacking the native Tejano and Indian population. The conflicts with the Native lands had caused multiple tribes of California to apply for citizenship during 1848/49, causing their land to be protected by law and causing many miners to ignore it and claim it as their own. There was also one final problem that came to the realization of the politicians at Austin. With the new wave of settlers coming in there would be tens of thousands of people who would gain citizenship, men who could instantly change the political demographic and potentially open their own parties. Needing to act fast in order to solve the crisis, Congress would be active for most of 1849 and Bipartisan bills were passed in order to take care of the immigrants, get the gold, establish order, and get more votes to their side. The first action that would be taken was a huge increase in funding for the Texas Army to be increased a Division of 5,000 men with their forces being split into half with two regiments, one stationed in California, the other Texas. The Texas Rangers were also given the same amount of treatment with hundreds of men being recruited over California in 1849 in order to keep order within the Commonwealth. Most of the Army and Rangers were deployed to California at this time so that they could enforce the national and commonwealth laws, insure a fair distribution of land and gold, and preventing any race riots or abuse of workers by some of the white leaders of the Gold Rush. When it came to the issue of citizenship, the Republicans pushed heavily for a constitutional amendment to increase the time to become a citizen, something which the Western Unionists were open to as well. An Amendment was passed in 1849 that stated that all immigrants who arrived that year would have their citizenship status increased from 6 months to 6 years. In the meantime they were welcome to stay as Residents and would have their rights be protected by the constitution. The Partisan division over race and ethnicity would divide even more during this time as the Western Unionists wanted the Americans to come in droves to California while also encouraging more Indians to become citizens to gain votes, something that caused a division in the party. The Republicans encouraged native Texans to go west and become Californian while also giving preferential treatment in Immigration to Tejanos and Germans. The Chinese were also a new factor as they now formed a large minority group in Texas with thousands of votes coming into play in the mid-50's. There were some calls to ban Asian immigration, though they never managed to gain much attraction in congress as they same law could've been applied to Hispanics and Europeans later on, while many in Texas found the Chinese to be a valuable citizen as they would work hard and do it for a cheap price. Overall most Chinese would slowly go the side of the Republicans as many calls for banning had come from the Western Unionists and the Republicans had created a care system for immigrant voters similar to Tammany Hall. The Department of Immigration and Customs would increase exponentially in this period and it soon became the largest department in Austin. In order to solve the issue of gold acquiring and economic development, Congress passed laws pouring millions of funding into infrastructure development and for the expansion of the Department of the Treasury to create new mint shops in California. Loans were also taken from the United States and Europe, while many prominent individuals and families in Texas would fund their own little gold companies for California such as the exiled Bourbons who used their large wealth to practically create the city of San Francisco, while gaining a fortune of near $765 Million Redbacks in today's money. By the time the mid-1850's had settled, California became a largely populated Commonwealth with over 400,000 in terms of population and an equal, if not greater amount of economic development compared to main Texas. California would soon become the second heart of the Republic and launch Texas into the global economy with the creation of trade with Asia and virtual control of shipping in North America from the Pacific. The largescale influx of migrants and development would also cause the devolution of the region into California, Arizona, and Deseret during President Crockett's term.
The Chinese Texas (Right) Texas Rangers protecting an Indian tribe from Immigrant attacks (Center) Gold Texas coin created to celebrate the Centennial of the Gold Rush (Left)
The rest of the domestic policies for Lamar's term besides the amount of investment dedicated to California, was focused on two things; roads and trains. Most people at the time chose to immigrate to California by sea as the journey from Texas to California would involve crossing hundreds of miles of prairies, deserts, rivers, and mountains. This would mean months of travel on land and a huge delay in trade between the two sides of the Republic. Another important issue was the crossing into the Rio Grande, while Texans had free travel through the land due to the Southwestern Union, it was not under there control and the strip of land was near lawless in several parts. The Department of Railroads and Transportation was created in 1849 and millions of funding was also given to the extensive creation of railroads and the development of stone roads for travel between towns. By the end of Lamar's term, the first stone roads were being laid down with a network of road travel starting to form in Eastern Texas. Dozens of miles of railroad track were also laid down with the goal to reach the Rio Grande by 1859. Funding for the railroads had also come from the United States as many southern businessman had wanted to use Texas as a connection to sale their cotton to the Pacific. The development of these roads did come into an early conflict with Indian tribes though according to their lands. The response of the Lamar administration was to use the State Department to work several treaties to try and gain the land, with high offers of money for the sale. With the extensive and large task to coordinate the building of the roads in the Republic, the calls for new Commonwealths to be created from California began to be born. Finally, negotiations took place with the Rio Grande, and Texas Ragners would be allowed to escort caravans across the border to California. Negotiations over the sale of the New Mexican territory would also start and would be finalized in the Burnett administration. Although Texas would not be fully connected to California by the end of Lamar's term, the travel time did reduce by some weeks, and the groundwork was being laid for the eventual construction of the Continental Railroad in the 1860's.
View attachment 300432
The first locomotives in Texas
In terms of foreign affairs after the Border War, actions were taken to increase ties with the Republic of Yucatan while the border with Mexico was increasingly strengthened. Texas trade had flourished with Europe at this time as the United States was still recovering economically from the Oregon War, and the mass chaos from the revolution had caused an increased need for food exports from the new world. In 1847, Texas had recognized the sovereignty of the German Empire and became one of the first to recognize Hungary's independence. A formal embassy was set up in Berlin in 1849 with the Germans opening up a counterpart that same year in Austin. The same action was done with Budapest, but both nations kept it at a consular level. When the German Empire was born, close relations were maintained between the two nations due to Texas's German heritage and the continued rise of German immigrants in the 1850's, and the two established a close trade relationship in the 1850's. Any military aid was halted though due to the pressure coming from Napoleon. This formed an even larger partisan divide in Texas due to the Republicans wanting to ally with Germany, while the Western Union wanted to maintain relations with the French. Finally, missions were created by the State Department at the end of Lamar's term to be set off in 1850 and establish contact and trade with China.
Poster created by Adelsverein to promote German culture in Texas
When 1850 came around, Lamar finally stepped down as President due to reaching his constitutional term limits. When he had left office he was a very popular man and had numerous accomplishments under his belt due to protecting Texas's independence, sustaining economic and education development, winning the Border Wars, and the Gold Rush. Due to these successes the Republicans nominated Vice President David Burnett for the Presidency. The Western Unionists had in turn nominated Senator James Henderson. The race while expected to be a Republican landslide, turned out to be a close call as many American and French immigrants had arrived in Lamar's final term while numerous tribes were accepted for citizenship and would tend to vote for the Western Union. Additionally Burnett while an established politician, had little to no charisma and performed poorly in the national debate. It was only over 1,000 votes that had saved Burnett from losing the Presidency again, the Republic spike in voting attributed to the arrival of German refugees from the Unification War. While Burnett was elected to the Presidency, the Western Union was finally able to gain control of the Senate with a 16(W)-14(R) lead in the house while the gap in the House had closed to 30 (W)-37 (R). It was showing that Texas was slowly losing its one party status and that the Western Union would soon gain control.
1850 Texas Presidential Elections
Burnett/Zandt (R): 16,643. 51.72%
Henderson/Wood (W): 15,532. 48.28%
"Gold! Gold! I've found me some Gold!"- Doug Walker 1848
"Come to Texas! Get cheap Land and the opportunity to become your own king with the California Gold Mines."- Immigration Ad 1849
"I'm glad that we're receiving more people but the problem is they're coming too fast. We've got way too many Asians and those Americans are flocking to the Western Union in droves. We've got to keep the Germans and Tejanos on our side while we build up the Chinese vote. Never thought I'd be saying that."- President Mirabeau B. Lamar 1849
In 1848 as the German/Hungarian wars were winding down and the Oregon War was coming to a conclusion, the Republic of Texas once more settled back into tranquility. Just the year earlier Texas had once more managed to defeat the rogue Mexican governors in the Border Wars and they had managed to gain a nice slice of Sonora in the deal as well. The first year of Lamar's final term was rather quiet as his policies were still being put into effect by the Republican dominated congress (though the Unionists were gaining more ground each election), more land was being settled west and two more tribes and joined the citizen program, immigration was increasing due to the refugees from the revolution, trade with America was at an all time-high, and there was little conflict in the west save for the occasional rogue Indian attack and outlaw. Everything was fine. Then come 1848, the destiny of Texas and its importance on the world stage would be changed forever. Early in March 1848, Texas Rangers Doug and Rob Walker, were searching for minerals in the stream near their lands in modern day Coloma due to Rob reporting the sight of metal. On March 12th, Doug Walker was reported to have discovered the first amounts of gold on there lands by digging up a near 2 Pounds of gold. Initially the two brothers wanted to keep the affair quiet so that they could collect it all to themselves. This silence would not last as the Rangers had to hire more men from the region to get higher quantities dug up. A Tejano worker leaked the news of the gold to a reporter at the Monterrey Gazette, and soon an editorial was published within on August 19th which proclaimed that Gold was spotted in California. Soon the news began to spread all over the Commonwealth in weeks and it managed to reach Texas around two months later. On December 5th, President Lamar addressed congress on the matter where he proclaimed that in an report that he had received from the Texas Rangers company in Monterrey, that gold had been sighted and California did have multiple confirmed deposits. After that address the news was spread all over Texas by the Houston Chronicle and word would reach the United States, Latin America, and Europe months later. The California Gold Rush had begun.
Areas of the Gold Rush in California
During the first year of the gold rush the miners were mostly Californians who lived in the North and had managed to get in on the early discoveries making them richer than most Texans at the time. In 1849 this would all change as nearly 350,000 immigrants would arrive in Texas during this year. The forty-niners as they were called, came from all over the world with the highest places of origin being the United States, Mexico, the Yucatan, Rio Grande, Chile, China, Australia, Britain, France, and Germany. Seemingly overnight, California sprung up from a small and quiet backwater part of Texas, to a huge Commonwealth with bustling towns all over California and the Pacific ports having become the size of their American counterparts in a matter of months. Gold was developed in three stages with the first being river panhandling, the second hydraulic mining, and the third dredging. The last two stages were also the inventions of such techniques and come to play a major role in Texas with the discovery of Oil during the turn of the 20th Century. From 1848-1856, California was nearly stripped dry of its early deposits with an estimated $ 65 Billion Redbacks in Gold being discovered by the miners. Later gold mining using advanced drilling still continues in some form to this day. Another benefit of the Gold Rush was the fact that mining also began in the modern day Commonwealths of Arizona and Deseret as the discoveries of gold were only reported to be in California, which some people assumed was the entirety of the commonwealth. This would launch the early coal and iron mines of the 19th century and along with the mining of precious metals, would lay the groundwork for the Petroleum and Nuclear industry. Economic development would boom overall in California as the Pacific Ports would become the largest cities in the country with the buildup of the shipping, transportation, entertainment, lodging industries booming in these towns with the needs to accommodate the minors continually increasing. Another important side effect was that with the arrival of more immigrants came the development of California's Agriculture industry and land procurement. Finally the Republic of Texas was able to come out of its economic slumber by the end of the 1850's with billions of dollars in gold making its way to the state treasury. The Department of the Treasury had taken up quick actions to create mints in California to exchange the gold for printed coins, Redbacks, and other foreign currencies that it was able to procure with the help of France. By 1861 $1 US Dollar was the equivalent of $.9 Redbacks.
San Francisco 1850 (Right) Largescale goldmining operations near a riverbed (Left)
At the same time while the Rush had brought much growth and financial success to California, there were many conflicts and difficulties that came with the rush. In the beginning the California Commonwealth was hardly developed and there was little infrastructure to take in the large spike in Immigration. There was also little amounts of law and order as only a few hundred Rangers and the established garrisons could protect the hundreds of miles of land and keep order among the population. Racial divisions also arose as different groups of immigrants came into conflict with each other and settlers from the United States frequently attacking the native Tejano and Indian population. The conflicts with the Native lands had caused multiple tribes of California to apply for citizenship during 1848/49, causing their land to be protected by law and causing many miners to ignore it and claim it as their own. There was also one final problem that came to the realization of the politicians at Austin. With the new wave of settlers coming in there would be tens of thousands of people who would gain citizenship, men who could instantly change the political demographic and potentially open their own parties. Needing to act fast in order to solve the crisis, Congress would be active for most of 1849 and Bipartisan bills were passed in order to take care of the immigrants, get the gold, establish order, and get more votes to their side. The first action that would be taken was a huge increase in funding for the Texas Army to be increased a Division of 5,000 men with their forces being split into half with two regiments, one stationed in California, the other Texas. The Texas Rangers were also given the same amount of treatment with hundreds of men being recruited over California in 1849 in order to keep order within the Commonwealth. Most of the Army and Rangers were deployed to California at this time so that they could enforce the national and commonwealth laws, insure a fair distribution of land and gold, and preventing any race riots or abuse of workers by some of the white leaders of the Gold Rush. When it came to the issue of citizenship, the Republicans pushed heavily for a constitutional amendment to increase the time to become a citizen, something which the Western Unionists were open to as well. An Amendment was passed in 1849 that stated that all immigrants who arrived that year would have their citizenship status increased from 6 months to 6 years. In the meantime they were welcome to stay as Residents and would have their rights be protected by the constitution. The Partisan division over race and ethnicity would divide even more during this time as the Western Unionists wanted the Americans to come in droves to California while also encouraging more Indians to become citizens to gain votes, something that caused a division in the party. The Republicans encouraged native Texans to go west and become Californian while also giving preferential treatment in Immigration to Tejanos and Germans. The Chinese were also a new factor as they now formed a large minority group in Texas with thousands of votes coming into play in the mid-50's. There were some calls to ban Asian immigration, though they never managed to gain much attraction in congress as they same law could've been applied to Hispanics and Europeans later on, while many in Texas found the Chinese to be a valuable citizen as they would work hard and do it for a cheap price. Overall most Chinese would slowly go the side of the Republicans as many calls for banning had come from the Western Unionists and the Republicans had created a care system for immigrant voters similar to Tammany Hall. The Department of Immigration and Customs would increase exponentially in this period and it soon became the largest department in Austin. In order to solve the issue of gold acquiring and economic development, Congress passed laws pouring millions of funding into infrastructure development and for the expansion of the Department of the Treasury to create new mint shops in California. Loans were also taken from the United States and Europe, while many prominent individuals and families in Texas would fund their own little gold companies for California such as the exiled Bourbons who used their large wealth to practically create the city of San Francisco, while gaining a fortune of near $765 Million Redbacks in today's money. By the time the mid-1850's had settled, California became a largely populated Commonwealth with over 400,000 in terms of population and an equal, if not greater amount of economic development compared to main Texas. California would soon become the second heart of the Republic and launch Texas into the global economy with the creation of trade with Asia and virtual control of shipping in North America from the Pacific. The largescale influx of migrants and development would also cause the devolution of the region into California, Arizona, and Deseret during President Crockett's term.
The Chinese Texas (Right) Texas Rangers protecting an Indian tribe from Immigrant attacks (Center) Gold Texas coin created to celebrate the Centennial of the Gold Rush (Left)
The rest of the domestic policies for Lamar's term besides the amount of investment dedicated to California, was focused on two things; roads and trains. Most people at the time chose to immigrate to California by sea as the journey from Texas to California would involve crossing hundreds of miles of prairies, deserts, rivers, and mountains. This would mean months of travel on land and a huge delay in trade between the two sides of the Republic. Another important issue was the crossing into the Rio Grande, while Texans had free travel through the land due to the Southwestern Union, it was not under there control and the strip of land was near lawless in several parts. The Department of Railroads and Transportation was created in 1849 and millions of funding was also given to the extensive creation of railroads and the development of stone roads for travel between towns. By the end of Lamar's term, the first stone roads were being laid down with a network of road travel starting to form in Eastern Texas. Dozens of miles of railroad track were also laid down with the goal to reach the Rio Grande by 1859. Funding for the railroads had also come from the United States as many southern businessman had wanted to use Texas as a connection to sale their cotton to the Pacific. The development of these roads did come into an early conflict with Indian tribes though according to their lands. The response of the Lamar administration was to use the State Department to work several treaties to try and gain the land, with high offers of money for the sale. With the extensive and large task to coordinate the building of the roads in the Republic, the calls for new Commonwealths to be created from California began to be born. Finally, negotiations took place with the Rio Grande, and Texas Ragners would be allowed to escort caravans across the border to California. Negotiations over the sale of the New Mexican territory would also start and would be finalized in the Burnett administration. Although Texas would not be fully connected to California by the end of Lamar's term, the travel time did reduce by some weeks, and the groundwork was being laid for the eventual construction of the Continental Railroad in the 1860's.
View attachment 300432
The first locomotives in Texas
In terms of foreign affairs after the Border War, actions were taken to increase ties with the Republic of Yucatan while the border with Mexico was increasingly strengthened. Texas trade had flourished with Europe at this time as the United States was still recovering economically from the Oregon War, and the mass chaos from the revolution had caused an increased need for food exports from the new world. In 1847, Texas had recognized the sovereignty of the German Empire and became one of the first to recognize Hungary's independence. A formal embassy was set up in Berlin in 1849 with the Germans opening up a counterpart that same year in Austin. The same action was done with Budapest, but both nations kept it at a consular level. When the German Empire was born, close relations were maintained between the two nations due to Texas's German heritage and the continued rise of German immigrants in the 1850's, and the two established a close trade relationship in the 1850's. Any military aid was halted though due to the pressure coming from Napoleon. This formed an even larger partisan divide in Texas due to the Republicans wanting to ally with Germany, while the Western Union wanted to maintain relations with the French. Finally, missions were created by the State Department at the end of Lamar's term to be set off in 1850 and establish contact and trade with China.
Poster created by Adelsverein to promote German culture in Texas
When 1850 came around, Lamar finally stepped down as President due to reaching his constitutional term limits. When he had left office he was a very popular man and had numerous accomplishments under his belt due to protecting Texas's independence, sustaining economic and education development, winning the Border Wars, and the Gold Rush. Due to these successes the Republicans nominated Vice President David Burnett for the Presidency. The Western Unionists had in turn nominated Senator James Henderson. The race while expected to be a Republican landslide, turned out to be a close call as many American and French immigrants had arrived in Lamar's final term while numerous tribes were accepted for citizenship and would tend to vote for the Western Union. Additionally Burnett while an established politician, had little to no charisma and performed poorly in the national debate. It was only over 1,000 votes that had saved Burnett from losing the Presidency again, the Republic spike in voting attributed to the arrival of German refugees from the Unification War. While Burnett was elected to the Presidency, the Western Union was finally able to gain control of the Senate with a 16(W)-14(R) lead in the house while the gap in the House had closed to 30 (W)-37 (R). It was showing that Texas was slowly losing its one party status and that the Western Union would soon gain control.
1850 Texas Presidential Elections
Burnett/Zandt (R): 16,643. 51.72%
Henderson/Wood (W): 15,532. 48.28%
- Kaiser Chris
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