Blacks in Gold Rush California

Abstract

By 1860, twelve years after the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill, more than five thousand American blacks had made the difficult trek to California in search of quick wealth. This fascinating book tells their story, filling in a missing chapter of American history. “Students of black history will be grateful to Rudolph M. Lapp because his picture of California between the Gold Rush and the outbreak of the Civil War provides us a most useful variation of the general picture of black-white relations outside the South in that period.”—Hugh Brogan, Times Literary Supplement "Thoroughly researched, intelligently organized, and effectively presented."—Kenneth Wiggins Porter, American Historical Review “This study does a great deal to fill a void in a field where so little has been done. It has brought together the author’s many years of study and is both well researched and well written. . . . It should be on the shelf of anyone interested in black history in the United States.”—W. Sherman Savage, Southern California Quarterly "A solid account of black forty-niners who went West to seek their fortune. Much detail is given to their life in mining communities and their relationships with other minorities and with whites."— The Washington Post