Amount of gold in North Carolina and Georgia equal to amount of gold in California

I was recently reading about the North Carolina and Georgia gold rush in the USA.

"The Carolina Gold Rush, the first gold rush in the United States, followed discovery of gold in North Carolina in 1799. It was not until a few years later that word of the gold spread and men started coming to North Carolina from other states....Over 2,500 ounces of gold was deposited in the Philadelphia Mint by 1824." "The Georgia Gold Rush was the second significant gold rush in the United States and the first in Georgia, and overshadowed the previous rush in North Carolina. It started in 1829 in present-day Lumpkin County near the county seat, Dahlonega, and soon spread through the North Georgia mountains, following the Georgia Gold Belt. By the early 1840s, gold became difficult to find. Many Georgia miners moved west when gold was found in the Sierra Nevada in 1848, starting the California Gold Rush....It is estimated that Georgia produced about 870,000 troy ounces (24,000 kg) of gold between 1828 and the mid-20th century, when commercial gold production ceased."

What if the amount of gold in North Carolina and Georgia was as large as the gold in California? What would the impact be on the history of the South and of the United States?

Regards

Stubear1012
 
Depends of how it gets there. Most gold close to the surface was likely placed by asteroid impacts during bombardment in the early solar system and is moved by geologic forces. Whatever placed the gold in North Carolina and Georgia would either need to be more powerful to force more gold to the surface or there would need to additional impacts there earlier. This probably change the geography enough to change history in unknown ways (Humanity might not exist).

Pretending that geographically and historically things generally stay the same then it depends if the additional gold is easier to find. Maybe if gold trinkets come from there it may draw the Spanish in. If not then if the English if they discover it will put more investment there and try to keep greater control, which may change how the any American revolution plays out.

Isn't this a geologic POD? If it is it might be moved because for some reason forum policy is that geologic PODs belong to the ASB section.
 
It simply can't be. The resources were not there. Why not place a giant deposit of gold on Manhattan Island?

But I think a more evident Georgia gold is gonna lead to Spain colonising the Southeast to at least New Mexico levels. De Soto or one of his successors who explored the back country of the South in the 16th century would find it. And the 16th century Spaniard seemed to love nothing more than precious metals, so that would go over quite well with the King and others in Europe and thus Spain is paying way more attention to the region and sending colonists there. And probably many slaves, likely a mix of semi-enslaved Indians from Mesoamerica or the Andes and actual African slaves. The local indigenous people, too small in number for Spain to make good use of them, will be enslaved (in some form or another) whenever they are caught, but as in OTL, they will be found to be poor slaves for numerous reasons, not the least the ease of escape and blending back into indigenous society.
 
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