Fraser Canyon Gold Rush

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The "new Eldorado ".

The Fraser Canyon Gold Rush, or Fraser Gold Rush, was a gold rush in the Canadian province of British Columbia .

trigger

This gold rush was triggered in 1858 when the governor of the Vancouver Island colony , James Douglas , sent a shipment of ore to the mint in San Francisco, where it became known that at the confluence of the Thompson River and the Nicoamen River , a few miles upstream from The confluence of the Thompson River with the Fraser River , gold had been found. In the same year, around 25,000 people came to the area, digging for gold or doing business on the banks of the Fraser River, north of Lillooet .

This boom was short-lived, but had a lasting impact on the lives of the indigenous people in the area. The village of Victoria , which previously had around 500 inhabitants, grew considerably within a few months. James Douglas had only allowed access to the newly founded colony of British Columbia via Victoria, because he wanted to contain the influx and feared that hundreds of thousands could otherwise pour in. But thousands also came by land. Most of the prospectors came from the USA , but there were also many Chinese , British , English-speaking Canadians and residents of the maritime provinces , French-speaking Canadians , Germans , Scandinavians , Italians , Belgians , Hawaiians , and natives of the West Indies .

consequences

This gold rush led to the establishment of the British Columbia colony on the mainland in the first place. The British Crown wanted to underpin its claim to the area and the authority assigned to it in the Oregon Compromise . But the lack of funds that made it impossible for James Douglas to control the land routes also led to his attempt to restrict arms imports being undermined. The previous balance between the fur traders of the Hudson's Bay Company and the local Indians was due to the many prospectors disturbed. In the fall of 1858 tensions between gold panners and Nlaka'pamux Indians intensified and escalated into the Fraser Canyon War .

In addition, there was racist unrest between fair-skinned “Americans” and non-white gold prospectors. When the former slave Isaac Dixon was beaten up by two whites on Christmas Eve 1858, it led to the McGowans War .

The gold rush not only brought prospectors to the area; they were followed by traders, entrepreneurs and business people who founded new towns and contributed to the development of the frontier. The Fraser River became an important artery and was soon used by paddle steamers .

By 1860 the Fraser sandbanks were depleted and many of the gold panners were either returning to the United States or moving on in search of undiscovered treasure.

See also

literature

  • GPV Akrigg, Helen B. Akrigg: British Columbia chronicle, 1847-1871. Gold & colonists. Discovery Press, Vancouver, BC 1977, ISBN 0-919624-03-0 .
  • Netta stars: Fraser gold 1858! The founding of British Columbia. Washington State University Press, Pullman 1998, ISBN 0-87422-164-1 .
  • Robert E. Ficken: Unsettled boundaries. Fraser gold and the British-American Northwest. Washington State University Press. Pullman 2003, ISBN 0-87422-268-0 .
  • Heike Wagner, Bernd Wagner: Canada. the West. ADAC-Verlag, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-89905-666-2 . P. 13 and 62. ( books.google.de )

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ John Lee: Lonely Planet Travel Guide Vancouver. MairDumont, Ostfildern 2014, ISBN 978-3-8297-2344-2 , p. 229. ( books.google.de )
  2. ^ Albrecht Iwersen, Susanne Iwersen-Sioltsidis: Canada. CH Beck, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-406-39869-3 , p. 135. ( books.google.de )
  3. ^ Governor James Douglas: Father of BC. In: telus.net. Retrieved November 24, 2015 .
  4. ↑ 1001 British Columbia Canada Information. kanada-british-columbia.de, accessed on November 24, 2015 .
  5. ^ Fraser River Gold Rush ( English, French ) In: The Canadian Encyclopedia . Retrieved July 26, 2019.
  6. ^ Ned McGowan, Hill's Bar and the Fraser River Gold Rush ( English, French ) In: The Canadian Encyclopedia . Retrieved July 26, 2019.
  7. ↑ Culture & History. In: Vancouver, Coast & Mountains, BC. hellobc.de, accessed on November 24, 2015 .
  8. ^ Fraser River. (PDF, p. 5 ff.) On mundolibre.de