This post explores the evolution of gold
mining technology in California, and the negative repercussions for indigenous
uses of natural resources. First, I have provided an exploration of the
different techniques used by California placer miners, and their subsequent
effects on the environment. My discussion looks at the difference in worldview
between Indigenous people and gold miners, and applies concepts from coursework
to this study.
Placers are deposits of gravels that
contain small amounts of various minerals, in this case, gold (Yeend, et al,
1998). In the first few years of the gold rush, surface placer deposits were
abundant (Limbaugh, 1998) but as gold dwindled from the surface and into the
miners’ pockets, created the need to develop more invasive mining technology.
As placer mining technology transformed, the changes were developed with the
goal being an increase of production, rather than an interest in preserving
natural resources.
Because of the original abundance of
gold, technology was that of reuse. Prospectors arrived with whatever may help,
including shovels, picks, butcher knives, frying pans. Many of the tools and
techniques adopted by miners were used by other cultures for years. For
example, the batea from Spain, a bowl
carved from a single block of wood. Miners were also known to use the intricate
watertight baskets woven by the indigenous peoples of the Northwest Coast
(Limbaugh 1998).
Although the
panning process was not the most destructive mode of mining technology to the
environment (these techniques had been used by Indigenous Peoples for long
prior to the Gold Rush), the miners themselves were destructive. Chatterjee
accounts that the, “settlers arrived and set about tearing up the river beds
and hillsides for mining and chopping down forests for firewood to keep
themselves warm and to cook, devastating the traditional food supply”
(Chatterjee, 1998, 3). He provides the example of the Tahoe basin region, whose
forests were devastated for a reach of one hundred miles at least (Chatterjee
1998).
By the 1850’s
the surface placer gold deposits had been severely depleted, and prospectors
began to develop heavier technology: the sluice, long tom, and rocker. These
new devices used water and gravity to separate the heavier gold pieces from
light gravel and sand (Limbaugh 1998). Water consumption increased, as well as
the amount of placer deposits removed. Along with sluice boxes, miners used amalgamation, in which the riffle bars
of sluice boxes were coated with mercury, to “capture” the pure gold. They then
cleaned the gold by burning off the mercury (Limbaugh 1998). These chemicals
have since found their way into towns and affect fish and wildlife in the
communities (Chatterjee, 1996, 11).
The process of hydraulic mining is one
of the most destructive forms of mining technology. Limbaugh refers to this
“breakthrough” as a “revolutionary process using the destructive power of
high-pressure water to exploit thick, deeply buried placer deposits at the
lowest possible cost (Limbaugh, 1998, 33) Hydraulic mining was capable of
speeding up the process of gold mining by weeks (Chatterjee, 1996, 16).The
effects of hydraulic mining were that it causes an immense amount of debris.
Approximately 40,000 acres of farmland and orchards were destroyed when buried
by the washed down sediment (Chatterjee, 1996, 15). According to Anderson, the
most affected rivers were the Feather, Yuba, Bear, and American rivers in
California (Anderson, 2005, 99). Hydraulic technology was replaced by use of
chemicals such as mercury and cyanide leach technology later in the 1960s
(Chatterjee, 1996, 22). Mercury had been used prior in the sluice box, but was
now on a much larger scale.
Although the focus of this post is the
effects on natural resources, it is important to reiterate that at this time
there was also widespread explicit genocide on Native Americans in California.
Native Americans had mining claims as well, but were in many cases forced off
by miners. Shopkeepers developed the “digger ounce” as a way to swindle the
gold the Native Americans were able to mine at this time. The violence expanded
into a widespread militia and several massacres, the cultural damage of which
is still prominent in many Native American societies (Chatterjee 1996).
One of the primary concepts we have been
examining in this Native Perspective on Natural Resources course, is the
difference in worldview between indigenous people and settlers. Although the
presence of gold had been known prior to its “discovery” at Sutter’s mill in
1848 (Sawin 1949), this event is an example of the revival of the American
Dream myth that has been blindly followed by Americans.
Gregory Cajete offers two
concepts which I believe represent the underlying difference in native and
non-native worldview perception. These terms are biophilia, which is described as an innate instinct of human beings
to facilitate themselves around living things, and biophobia, a basic instinct of human beings to fear nature (Cajete,
2000). The difference is a feeling of community and relationship with nature,
versus the constant fear of death that creates a mistrust of nature. I find
this biophobia to be the underlying influence for non-native science. I also
relate this to the social/spiritual expression barrier from Indigenous Peoples and the Collaborative
Stewardship of Nature, because non-native thinkers[1]
have a mistrusting relationship with nature, and the universe in general, which
leads to the constant questioning and proof-seeking epistemology.
The California Gold Rush is an
event that occurred as part of new Americans attempting to fulfill the myth of
the American Dream. This is the era of the industrial revolution, which had
resulted in idea that science, innovation, and technology could lead to success
and material wealth (Limbaugh 1996). The need to fulfill this myth provided
enough rationalization for the miners to ignore the consequences of their
actions, and eliminate any competition to their success.
This myth has protruded into the
present era, as shown by the elevated status Americans give the story and the
absence of Indigenous perspectives from the literature. In my research for
example, many sources tended to leave out the fact that Sutter’s mill was on
Maidu land, and Maidu workers helped greatly in the “discovery” of the gold
(Chatterjee 1996).
Mining practices have persisted
into the present as well, however there are also those dedicated to the study
of the process of sediment disruption from the Gold Rush (Allan, 1989). The
continued degradation of natural resources has continued, hidden away in the depths of
our culture and we are unaware the myth even exists and continue to follow it
blindly. However, as more Americans become aware of our civil religion creation
myth, perhaps we can begin to end the cycle of violence that is so inherent in
our country.
Bibliography
Anderson,
Kat. 2005. Tending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of
California's Natural Resources.
Berkeley: University of California.
Cajete,
Gregory. 2000. Native Science: Natural Laws of Interdependence. Santa
Fe, NM: Clear Light.
Chatterjee,
Pratap. 1996. Gold, Greed and Genocide: Unmasking the Myth of the '49ers.
Berkeley, CA: Project
Underground.
James,
L. Allan. "Sustained Storage and Transport of Hydraulic Gold Mining
Sediment in the Bear River,
California." Annals of the Association of American Geographers 79.4
(1989):570-92.
Limbaugh,
Ronald H. “Making Old Tools Work Better: Pragmatic Adaptation and Innovation in
Gold-Rush Technology." California
History 77.4 (1998) 24-51.
Ross,
Anne, Kathleen Pickering Sherman, Jeffrey G. Snodgrass, Henry D. Delacore, and
Richard Sherman. Indigenous Peoples
and the Collaborative Stewardship of Nature: Knowledge Binds
and Institutional Conflicts. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast, 2011.
Yeend,
Warren, Peter H. Stauffer, and James W. Hendley II. 1998. Supporting Sound Management of Our Mineral Resources: Rivers
of Gold--placer Mining in Alaska. Reston,
Va.: U.S. Dept. of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey.
[1] When
I say non-native, I refer to the general characteristics that have been
ascribed to “Western” thinking in general
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