California and Utah Settled

1. SETTLING IN
CALIFORNIA and UTAH

2. 1. forty-niners – people who went to California during the gold rush of 1849
2. boomtown – a community that has a sudden growth in population
3. vigilante – a person who takes the law into his own hands

3. CALIFORNIA

4. • In January 1848 in a sawmill
called Sutter’s Mill in Coloma,
California, a worker found a
small piece of gold shining in a
ditch
• When word of this discovery got
out, people from all over the
world flocked to California. This
was the beginning of the
California Gold Rush
• Those who arrived in 1849 were
called forty-niners

5. • Boomtowns developed quickly, and
cities like San Francisco flourished
• The California Gold Rush more than
doubled the world’s supply of gold
• Though few of the forty-niners
gained much wealth, merchants
thrived in the new communities
• One, an immigrant named Levi
Strauss, sold sturdy denim pants to
the miners; these “Levi’s” made
him rich

7. • The mining towns were
populated mostly by men.
There were no police or prisons,
so lawbreaking was common
• Citizens formed vigilante
committees to protect
themselves
• The Gold Rush had a lasting
effect on California’s economy
and growth.
• People who went there looking
for gold often stayed to run a
farm or a business

8. • FYI: The Sydney Ducks was the name given to a gang
of criminal immigrants from Australia in San Francisco,
during the mid-19th century. the rampant crime in the
city at the time. The Sydney Ducks were criminals who
operated as a gang, in a community that also included
sailors, longshoremen, teamsters, wheelwrights,
shipwrights, bartenders, saloon keepers,
washerwomen, domestic servants, and dressmakers.
Most were born in Ireland and migrated during
the Great Irish Famine, first to Australia as laborers
and then to California as part of the Gold Rush.
• The criminal acts of the Sydney Ducks was the reason
for the formation of the first Committee of Vigilance of
1851. The vigilantes took political power from the
corrupt or incompetent officials in the city, and
conducted secret trials, lynchings, and deportations

9. • When Zachary Taylor became
president in 1849, he urged
California to apply for statehood.
• Taylor died of an illness in July
1850; his vice president Millard
Fillmore took office
• After a compromise was worked
out between slave states and free
states (called the Compromise of
1850), California was made a state
in 1850

10. UTAH

11. • In the 1850s members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, called
Mormons, went to Utah Territory to fulfill their vision of living a “godly life”
• The Mormon Church had been founded in New York State in 1830 by Joseph
Smith
• The Church was met with some controversy
• Finding little support in New York, the Mormons went to Ohio, then Missouri,
then Illinois

12. • Smith was killed in 1844,
and Brigham Young took
over as head of the Mormon
Church
• The group moved to Utah,
near the Great Salt Lake,
where Young founded Salt
Lake City
• A great Mormon migration
to the area began in 1846.
The Mormons set up
flourishing communities

13. • In 1848 the U.S. acquired the Salt
Lake City area as part of the
settlement after the war with
Mexico.
• Congress established the Utah
Territory in 1850
• President Millard Fillmore made
Brigham Young governor of the
Territory
• Utah did not become a state until
1896

14. FYI: Why did it take so long for Utah to become a state?
• The Mormon leaders wanted to name the state Deseret, and it would have included
Utah, most of Nevada and Arizona, and parts of southern California, Wyoming,
Colorado, New Mexico, Oregon, and Idaho.
• The Mormons also elected all-Mormon leaders for this “state,” with Brigham Young as
governor.
• Congress didn’t want to create such a huge state. Besides, southern states and
northern states had been fighting about whether slavery would be allowed in new
states. Under the Compromise of 1850, Congress formed the Utah Territory and New
Mexico Territory. Each could vote for themselves whether to allow slavery.
• In 1852, church authorities announced in public that some Mormons were practicing
“plural marriage”. During the next 38 years, this practice pretty much kept Utah from
gaining statehood.

16. FYI:
Franklin Pierce was the 14th president of the
United States. During his term (1853-1857), his
greatest accomplishment was the Gadsden
Purchase (1853)
James Buchanan was the 15th President of the
USA (1857-1861) Buchanan fought to preserve
the Union (the North and the South were
heading towards war over the issue of slavery).
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th president of the
United States of America (1861-1865) and one
of the greatest presidents. He was President
during most of the Civil War; Lincoln helped
abolish slavery in the United States. Lincoln was
assassinated shortly before the end of the Civil
War.