Kiley !

Elizabeth (Biz) Kiley

Gold and Oil: Rushes and Empires

Dr. Ngwenya-Scoburgh and Dr. Forest

29 November 2017

Final Reflection/Paper

As the first history course of my college career, Gold and Oil: Rushes and Empires has

been both challenging and thought-provoking. The first rush studied was the California gold

rush, the “mother of all gold rushes.” It began in 1848 after the U.S. annexed Texas and

California in the victory of the Mexican-American war. This war began in 1845, spurred by

manifest destiny —the imperialistic American desire to control all of the North American land

from coast to coast—and the wanting of some U.S. citizens to expand slavery by making

California a slave state. The Mexican transplants who had chosen to live in California, the

Californios, were granted U.S. citizenship through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo; however

many were unable to maintain the claims to their land as it was taken by American settlers.

The first discovery of gold in California was by John Marshall in the American river in

1848. At the time, Marshall was an employee of John Sutter and found the gold on Sutter’s land.

When Marshal informed Sutter of his findings, Sutter wanted to keep the discovery quiet, as he

was nervous that the news would spread and disrupt his business. However, the news did spread

and reached President Polk, who told all of congress about this exciting discovery, igniting a

nationwide migration to California. By 1849 approximately three hundred thousand people had

moved to California in hopes of striking it rich.

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As speculators moved to what we now refer to as the Golden State, legislature was

enacted pertaining to the miners. In 1850 the Foreign Miner’s Tax was passed in California. This

act taxed any foreign miners working in California. Poor whites loved this act as it discouraged

competition by foreigners for their jobs and for the potential chance to strike it rich. Well-to-do

whites, on the other hand, despised this tax as it made it harder for them to employ harder

working foreigners on their larger, wage-paying gold mines. The wealthy were able to get this

tax repealed in 1851; however, in 1852, more whites, including poor whites, were able to vote

and the tax was reenacted. Many immigrants came to California in hopes of finding wealth and a

better life including Hawaiian, Mexican, and Chinese individuals. They faced much

discrimination by white miners but gained the reputation of being hard working and were often

employed as wage workers. As the inhabitants of California increased, Native Americans were

forced to leave the lands they previously inhabited. The population of new settlers was male-

heavy; however, there were women present. Some of these women came with their families and

some worked as dancers, prostitutes, and nurses, while a few were even miners.

Mining innovations with environmental impacts sprung up during this rush as ways to

retrieve the precious gold. One such method was placer mining, in which the water of a river was

diverted from its path to expose the bottom. Another such method was hydraulic mining, which

used high pressure jets of water to separate valueless rock materials from the gold that was

lodged inside them. This was effective for releasing gold; however, it caused excess sediment to

settle at the bottom of riverbeds, leading to an increase in flooding. Other changes to the

environment came in the form of infrastructure, such as the transcontinental railroad and the

Panama canal which made California more accessible to outsiders.

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I felt as though the California Gold Rush was intrinsically interesting as it was the first of

these gold rushes. Furthermore, its intrigue was enhanced through the readings, particularly

Christoper Herbert’s “"Life's Prizes Are by Labor Got": Risk, Reward, and White Manliness in

the California Gold Rush” which discussed the author’s ideas about how the California Gold

Rush redefined the white man’s ideas of manliness and risk. The article claims that white Anglo-

Saxon men working in California associated manliness with whiteness and also with taking the

risk of striking it rich on one’s own mining for gold. The article also claimed that white men

debased foreigners by associating wage working and the risk of gambling with femininity. This

almost subconscious racism was present in one form or another in almost every preceding gold

rush. I say subconscious, because on its face many believed and sold the gold rush as a landscape

of equal opportunity for all. Herbert claims, “risk contributed to the myth of the California Gold

Rush as classless at the same time that its values were inherently class-based” (Herbert 368). As

we see in the past and the present, many white males find ways to degrade other races and

genders in order to maintain their position at the top of the totem pole. The California Gold rush

did offer opportunities of advancement to all people; however, it was clear that some individuals

started out with more of an advantage than others.

The proceeding gold rush took place in Australia in 1851. In the 1840’s Australia was

mainly populated by convicts shipped there to get them away from society. Gold was discovered

in Australia in 1844 and 1848 but was not published by the government of New South Wales

until the economic benefits of the California Gold Rush were witnessed. As gold was found in

medium quantities in 1851 in Warrandyte and Clunes, enough diggers, or gold miners, had

moved to Australia that the colony of Victoria was founded. Finally in August of 1851 a large
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sum of gold was found in Ballarat by Thomas Hiscock and then by John Dunlop and James

Regan. Reporter Henry Frenchman received wind of this and announces in the newspaper that

gold has been found in Ballarat. This ignited a rush to Ballarat which became a tent city of

diggers. The average digger in Ballarat found one to one and a half ounces of gold each day.

However, it was not all roses for these diggers.

A licensing fee had been issued by the British government so that no one could dig for

gold unless he or she purchased a license. The miners despised this fee as they saw it as a form of

taxation without representation in the British government and they protested it from the

beginning of the rush, eventually forming the Anti-Gold License Association in 1853. This

society called for the fee to be reduced to 10 shillings and if that demand was not met they would

refuse to pay the licensing fee at all. These tensions rose and eventually lead to the Eureka

Rebellion of 1854, an Australian revolt against the British colonial authority and class system.

Miners began burning their licenses in protest. This revolt was sparked by a murder of an Anti-

Gold License Association member at a bar by a member of the elite. In response, one hundred

and ninety miners occupied the Eureka Stockade. British troops raided the stockade and ended

up killing six protesting miners. This was met with outrage, and the British Royal Commission

was called in to investigate the event. The BRC sided with the miners, and rectified the situation

by abolishing the license fee, enacting the Electoral Act of 1856 which allowed male colonists to

vote in the lower house of Victorian parliament, and limiting the entrance of Chinese immigrants

into the country at the request of white miners.

This was not the only discriminatory act aimed at Chinese immigrants. Just as in the

California Gold Rush, Chinese immigrants came to Australia hoping to strike it rich like
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everyone else, and employers favored Chinese wage laborers over white wage workers because

they worked harder and were typically sober. This caused much hate to be directed at them by

white workers. These tensions came to a head in 1861 with the Lambing Flat Riots in which a

mob of two thousand white men went to the Chinese community at Lambing Flat and drove the

Chinese off of their land. Colonial police came to restore order and were also attacked by the

white miners. This event lead to the Chinese Immigration Act which severely limited the flow of

Chinese immigrants into the country but did nothing to combat the racism of white workers

towards the Chinese people.

The Lambing Flat Riots are especially intriguing when one considers the Eureka

Rebellion, in which white miners claimed to be fighting for equality for all and developed the

concept of “mateship” which was the idea that all males are worthy of friendship, loyalty, and

equality. Clearly these ideas of equality were confined by race and gender. Women, another

minority group present during the Australian Gold Rush, were not given the right to vote but

were able to have occupations that they most likely would not be able to hold in a traditional

British society. Women filled roles such as milliners, printers, cattle traders, blacksmiths, bar

maids, prostitutes, and even fossickers in the gold fields. Some women made fortunes traveling

around the country and dancing for male diggers, such as Lola Montez who was renowned for

her risqué spider dance. Another woman we learned about from a primary source was Ellen

Clacy, who worked in the gold fields with her brother and other men. Clacy shared interesting

viewpoints about other women, often trying to debase them for living and operating in the rough

Australian terrain, demonstrating that even women are subject to buy into the classist, patriarchal

norms sold to them by proper British society. The Australian Gold Rush was thought provoking
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as it demonstrated how ideas of equality can be skewed to exclude and degrade other types of

people who are not initiating the movement. It is a good reminder today to fight for equality for

all people and to not actively put down another group in order to elevate one’s own.

Moving forward, the next gold rushes took place in British Columbia and New Zealand.

The former, British Columbia, is located in the extremely mountainous, modern day western

Canada. The first British explorers made their way there in the 1790s. The British, through

George Vancouver, moved quickly to claim the area for the motherland as they were competing

with the Americans and their idea of manifest destiny. The Hudson Bay Company ran the area

and discouraged immigration, as they wanted to maintain their monopoly on the fur trade. In

1857 gold was discovered along the Fraser River; however, the Hudson Bay Company and the

British Columbian government did not want Americans rushing to their land so they chose not to

publicize it. Later in 1857 Secwepemc natives brought gold to James Douglas, the governor of

Vancouver Island. Douglas wanted to create an esteemed British colony in Vancouver and

decided to spread the news of a gold discovery to entice more British citizens to settle in his

territory. Many British men and women do as he had hoped they would and moved to British

Columbia. Nevertheless, this rush of settlers did not arise without conflict. In 1858 a French

miner raped a native Nlaka’pamux woman, and the native people retaliated by decapitating

several miners and sending their bodies down the river. This was the beginning of the Fraser

Canyon War. Douglas called the British navy in to restore order, which Douglas was more than

happy to do as read about in Barry M. Gough’s “'Turbulent Frontiers’ and British Expansion:

Governor James Douglas, the Royal Navy, and the British Columbia Gold Rushes.” The account

states, “From the outset Douglas's intention was to add stability to frontier, and to this end, on
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May 8, 1858, he request British government place a small naval or military force at his disposal,”

(Gough 19). Douglas was continually using large shows of power to maintain and show off the

strength of the British empire as he was hopeful that Vancouver would become just as British as

Britain itself. The Fraser Canyon War was resolved in 1858 and the Snyder Treaties were signed

guaranteeing the native people the right to mine on the land just like the white settlers.

Unfortunately, this treaty was ignored and these rights were taken away. In the meantime,

Douglas gained an arch enemy, Richard Moody, the governor of British Columbia. Douglas and

Moody were constantly competing to make the areas they commanded over more grand and

“British” than the other. When the gold in British Columbia ran out, both Vancouver and British

Columbia went bankrupt from their extravagant expenditures. After building an expensive and

pointless road through the Cariboo mountains, Vancouver and British Columbia had accumulated

over half a billion modern-day dollars in debt. In 1867, the two areas merged and joined Canada

for debt relief.

The next of the “respectable rushes” took place in New Zealand. Gold was found in

Otago in 1862 by Gabriel Read. The discovery of gold brought settlers to the country, which then

set its course on becoming the most British of all the colonies. New Zealand employed a strict

class system and built many proper centers of learning such as schools and libraries in lavish

Victorian fashions. In the 1890’s New Zealand began to brand itself as the “most democratic”

country as it was the first nation to give women the right to vote. This seems to be a great benefit

of the country’s need to seem proper and British, with a large drawback being the strict class

system seen in British societies.

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The final gold rush studied took place in South Africa. South Africa was dominated by a

sect of Dutch settlers, called Boers, until 1806 when the British started entering the country. The

British and the Boers despised one another as the British viewed the Boers as classless, crude,

and unintelligent, and the Boers viewed the British as invaders. In 1866 Erasmus Jacobs found a

twenty-one carat diamond in Kimberley, South Africa. In 1871 Esau Damon, a cook, confided in

Diedrick and Johannes De Beers that diamonds had been found in their farm in Kimberly. Their

farm then became known as the Big Hole, essentially a giant diamond mine. By 1872 fifty-

thousand miners arrived in Kimberly. The big difference between this diamond rush and the

previous rushes studied is that diamonds are located extremely deep into the ground, so

individual prospectors could not afford to mine the land on their own and big businesses came in

to access these precious gems. One such British business man was Cecil Rhodes. Rhodes arrived

in Kimberley at eighteen-years-old, and made strategic moves to control the diamond mining

industry. First, he purchased all of the water pumps that every company needed to use to extract

diamonds. Rhodes then uses the profits from these pumps to buy up almost every single diamond

claim. Next, Rhodes solidified his relationship with British bankers to ensure fluidity of funds.

With these two steps, Rhodes established a monopoly on the world diamond trade and named his

company the De Beers Corporation. These diamond mines were run using indigenous people as

laborers, unlike in previous rushed in which the native people were typically driven off of the

land. This made labor much cheaper, and, in turn, raised profits. White labor was discouraged as

it was too expensive, and whites often took more skilled positions only. This is significant as it

created even more of a racist society as read about in “The Randlords” by Geoffrey Wheatcroft.

When the strip searching of workers became necessary due to an increase in theft, white workers
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refused to be strip searched, stating, “‘It would be a disgraceful and degrading thing if they

should be compelled to disrobe in the searching house, and so lowered in the sight of

natives,’” (Wheatcroft 97). The white workers worked in the same mines as the black laborers,

and yet they felt such a sense of superiority over them purely based of skin color. The

imperialistic ventures of the white men allowed them to reap the benefits of the native land and

people while simultaneously degrading and dehumanizing them.

The diamond rush in South Africa was followed by another resource-driven rush, a gold

rush. Before this rush started in full force, the British ceded control of South Africa to the Boer

government in 1852. That same year, J.H. Davis discovered gold in Witwatersrand. When

English settlers brought their discovery of gold to the Boer government, the government exiled

them to keep the discovery of gold a secret and to prevent an influx of British settlers looking for

gold. Later on from 1877 to 1881 the First Boer War took place between the British and the

Boers over Kimberley and the diamond mines. The Boers came out victorious and the British

were terribly embarrassed. However, in 1886 George Harrison discovered gold on the Langlaagle

Farm in Johannesburg. News spread and by August 1886 three thousands whites had moved to

the area. By October 1886 the city of Johannesburg was established on top of the gold field. Big

business, including Cecil Rhode’s De Beers company, which was already present in South Africa

due to the diamond trade, moved in to benefit from the gold discovery. With all of these British-

owned companies growing in profits and power, they began to clash with the Boer government,

lead by Paul Kruger. The Boers enforced laws to keep the British and other whites politically

powerless, such as passing a law that individuals must be residents for five years before gaining

citizenship and voting rights. In 1895 Anglo voters demanded equal rights with the Boers. This
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lead the British businessmen to organize the Jameson Raid using company troops in the hopes of

igniting British workers to rise up in a coup. The British workers did not rise up and the

organizers of the raid, including Cecil Rhodes, were shamed. This event only heightened the rift

between the British and the Boers and with new restrictions on the British enacted in 1898, the

British declared war on the Boers in 1899. This is known as the Second Boer War. The British

fought for political control and pride as the most powerful nation in the world, while the Boers

fought to preserve their culture and rule. The British employed a scorched earth policy as well as

deadly concentration camps to hold Boer women and children. Around 25,000 Boer women and

children died from disease in the camps. Word of this spread internationally and favor turned

against the British in South Africa and eventually swayed the troops to halt the usage of

concentration camps in 1901. By 1902 the Boers had exhausted all of their resources and the

British had won the Second Boer War with the Peace of Vereening, which gave the British

control of South Africa but with an eventual plan of self-government in the Transvaal. This treaty

did nothing to provide independence or voting rights for indigenous black inhabitants and this

omission only maintained the disparity between races.

All of the aforementioned gold rushes are, in one way or another, similar to the 21st

century oil boom currently happening in Ohio. In every rush we have studied there have been

periods of imperialism in one form or another. In the more historical rushes in which land is

being taken, resources mined, and native people exploited the imperialistic actions are much

more clear cut. However, in the modern day Ohio oil boom, imperialism is much more subtle and

corporately driven instead of nationally motivated. One of the articles which makes this plainly

abundant is Ernest Scheyder’s “Amish flee oil boom in Ohio.” This piece discusses how oil has
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been found under land historically inhabited by Amish people. This discovery has disrupted their

quiet way of life and has brought outsiders to their land, forcing many to sell their mineral rights

at much lower prices than they would get if they maintained them simply in order to move and

get away from all of the commotion. While not with brute force, the Amish people are being

driven off of their land without much of a choice, just as the Native Americans, Californios,

Australian aboriginals, and Canadian First Peoples were driven off of their rightfully owned land

due to the precious resources it possessed. In addition, just as traditional gold mining methods

such as placer and hydraulic mining wreaked havoc on the environment, there are many

environmental implications within mining for oil in modern day Ohio. The oil must be extracted

through a process called fracking which fractures the rock deep underground to release the oil.

This method is highly controversial with some claiming its perfectly safe and others claiming its

incredibly dangerous. In Walter H. Boone and Mandie B. Robinson’s “”Whole Lotta Shakin’

Going On’: Recent Studies Link Fracking and Earthquakes” the authors draw the conclusion that

fracking does in fact lead to earthquakes and that the scientific research has “stirred the public to

demand stronger regulations of such wastewater injection wells” (Boone 75). While this may be

true, there is no denying that people are starkly divided on this environmental and economic

issue.

I was able to experience the benefits and potential issues with the current Ohio oil drilling

business through a field trip to areas where the business operates as well as with in-class guest

speakers. My first exposure to fracking came through guest speaker Larry Wickstrom, president

of Wickstrom Geoscience and former geologist for the state of Ohio. Mr. Wickstrom spoke about

his experience with the rock formations of Ohio and explained to the class how fracking works
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through many diagrams and other descriptions. Mr. Wickstrom seemed very informed on the

geology of Ohio and was very confident that fracking was completely safe and regulated and that

people who believed otherwise were mistaken or flat out lying to advance an agenda, such as the

creators of the popular documentary Gasland. As this was my first in depth exposure to fracking,

I was inclined to believe him. Mr. Wickstrom spoke about all of the economic and material

benefits we receive from drilling crude oil, showing us a picture from National Geographic that

depicted a yard chocked full of items that are made with oil or with byproducts of the petroleum

industry.

The next time our class met was for our field trip around Southeastern Ohio, where the

Ohio oil boom is occurring. Our first stop was at Buckeye Brine, a water injection site where

liquid byproducts from oil fracking were placed back deep into the earth. Before this site visit I

was not even aware that there was a waste byproduct from oil fracking and that this byproduct

would need to be forced back into the ground. When touring the facility, we were told this

product was called “brine” which I associated with salt water. We were shown the lab where

brine deliveries were tested, and we were told that if certain deliveries of brine were too muddied

or dirty Buckeye Brine would turn them away. This made me wonder what exactly happens to

the rejected brine, and if there is any way to filter it. The owner of Buckeye Brine also showed us

the control room and spoke on how delicate of an operation this is and that the speed and

pressure of the injection sites must be constantly monitored. He also spoke on his competitors,

who he said may inject the brine at higher speeds but are exposing themselves to many disastrous

risks in order to do so. Leaving Buckeye Brine, I felt more informed on how intense of a process

fracking is. I felt as though Buckeye Brine operated with safety in mind but was worried by the
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owner’s comments about his competitors who may be more motivated by the bottom line than by

safety.

Our next stop on the field trip was to Wayne National Forest where we watched an

informational video about how Wayne National Forest was created to provide reforestation after

the over-chopping of trees and provided jobs to many after the Great Depression. Wayne

National Forest is not one large area of land but actually a bunch of separated fragments of

forest, which made it seem odd that it was all considered one national forest. It made me think

that there may be underlying motivations for the government to continually claim this land, such

as the precious resources it sits on top of. We spoke to a forest ranger who showed us all of the

economic benefits the counties around the forest receive from the oil drilled there, which was

substantial and mainly went toward education. The park and its government-employed officials

had a positive stance on fracking and were mainly focused on all of the wealth it brought to the

state.

Up to this point in the class and field trip I had only heard positive views on the fracking

industry and was very curious as to why this issue was such a hot topic. I began to understand

why once we reached our third and final field trip destination, Torch, Ohio. This small town was

one hundred feet away from a water injection site, much like our earlier stop Buckeye Brine. The

difference was that this well site was much closer to a town. We were met by town members who

were part of a group called Torch CAN DO, an activist group trying to stop the fracking

occurring so close to their homes. The group showed us a very different side of fracking talking

about the misleading name of “brine” that is actually much more than just salt water but actually

toxic and potentially radioactive waste. They talked about the threat of earthquakes and
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contaminated water from fracking, chemical smells that wafted from the air into their homes,

raising prices around them without seeing any personal economic benefits, and the havoc that

brine-carrying semi trucks were wreaking on their smaller roads that their tax dollars pay to fix

and maintain. The members of Torch CAN DO were extremely persuasive, and whether or not

all of their information was verified, I know that I would not want a fracking site anywhere near

my home. One of the women of Torch spoke about how she feels the fracking business targets

economically depressed towns like Torch knowing that the people with less means and education

will be unable to get them out. This made me consider the imperialism we learned about

throughout the gold rushes and the similarities between what happened then and what was

happening now to Torch with their resources being drained with only outsiders profiting while

native inhabitants are left to deal with the damaging environmental and health effects. I left

Torch and ended the field trip feeling decidedly against fracking.

The next outside source came from our guest speaker Dr. Amy Townsend-Small, an

environmental scientist who teaches at the University of Cincinnati and who has studied the

environmental effects of fracking in Ohio in depth. Dr. Townsend-Small talked about an

environmental concern of fracking that was new to me: the release of methane and its potential to

change the environment rapidly, which can have massive environmental implications and

possibly even change the current system in the ocean, leading to mass flooding and disaster. Dr.

Townsend-Small further ingrained in me the idea that fracking is a negative process; however,

she also demonstrated to the class that the problem is not simple as there is not a sustainable

alternative at the moment to fossil fuel energy and even though renewable sources exist they are
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far from being viable on a large scale. It is harder to be against fracking when I have no possible

solution in mind to replace it and maintain our modern way of life.

Finally, our final guest speaker was a man from the Ohio & Gas Energy Education

Foundation, an organization that educates citizens on natural gas in the state and provides

scholarships for students entering into this field. This speaker was pro-fracking and seemed to

repeat many points from our first class speaker. Overall, I feel like the economic benefits of these

natural resources is the strongest argument for fracking, but I still hope one day there will be a

safer, more sustainable solution.

The studying of historical resource booms while in the midst of one in my own state was

extremely provocative as it made it easier to see ways in which history is repeating itself and to

pinpoint potential threats or actions that lead to bust periods from the past and interpret them for

modern times. More than anything, this class has taught me about imperialism and how it shaped

and continues to shape our world today. This class will help me in my future studies as a fashion

major when looking at fabric and trim content. I am now aware of all the petroleum based

product that the fashion industry uses and relies on such as synthetic fibers, plastic closures,

sewing machine parts and lubrication, and so much more. In addition, I believe the fashion

industry is one that thrives on imperialism as the vast majority of garments are made overseas

exploiting the cheap labor of native people in sweatshops who barely make enough money to

survive while large corporations make large profits, just as indigenous labor was exploited in

South Africa. Overall, I will be more conscious about the materials I use and the companies I

purchase from or even potentially work for. I am very pleased with my decision to take this
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course and to broaden my knowledge in historical events, economic implications of natural

resources, and a modern day issue that are shaping the future of our planet.
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Bibliography

Boone, Walter H., and Mandie B. Robinson. “‘Whole Lotta Shakin' Going On’: Recent Studies Link

Fracking and Earthquakes.” Defense Counsel Journal, International Association of Defense

Counsels, 1 Jan. 2015.

Clacy, Ellen. Lady’s Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. Tredition Classics, 2013.

Gough, Barry M. “‘Turbulent Frontiers’ and British Expansion: Governor James Douglas, the Royal

Navy, and the British Columbia Gold Rushes.” Pacific Historical Review, vol. 41, no. 1, 1972,

pp. 15–32., doi:10.2307/3638223.

Herbert, Christopher. “‘Life's Prizes Are by Labor Got’: Risk, Reward, and White Manliness in the

California Gold Rush.” Pacific Historical Review, vol. 80, no. 3, 2011, pp. 339–368., doi:

10.1525/phr.2011.80.3.339.

Scheyder, Ernest. “Amish Flee Oil Boom in Ohio.” HighBeam Research - Newspaper Archives and

Journal Articles, The Washington Post, www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-35519953.html.

Wheatcroft, Geoffrey. THE RANDLORDS. Weidenfeld, 1993.