Notes
1 Sucheng Chan Asian Californians Boyd and Fraser San Francisco 1991. p27
2 Zesch, Scott. The Chinatown war: Chinese Los Angeles and the massacre of 1871. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012
3 Panek, Tracey. Getting to the Bottom of Levi Strauss & Co.’s ‘Top’ Tops Historian Levi Strauss & Co. 19 January 2017 https://www.levistrauss.com/2017/01/19/getting-bottom-levi-strauss-co-s-top-tops/ accessed 29 July 2024.
4 Zesch, Scott The Chinatown War: Chinese Los Angeles and the Massacre of 1871 Oxford University Press: New York 2012. p92
5 Integrated Action Civics Project: UC Berkeley History-Social Science Project, https://iacp.berkeley.edu/historical-analysis/historical-thinking accessed 14 July 2024
6 Nahl, Charles Christian and August Wenderoth, Miners in the Sierras, 1851-1852, oil on canvas , 54 1⁄4 x 66 7⁄8 in. (137.7 x 169.8 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum.
7 California pictorial lettersheets, 1849-1859: museum reproductions of unique pictorial writing paper used in gold rush California, selected from rare originals in the archives of the California Historical Society, San Francisco. Portfolio. [San Francisco]: [Reynard Press], 1961
8 Rawls, James J., Richard J Orsi, and Marlene Smith-Baranzini. A golden state: mining and economic development in gold rush California. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1999 p58
9 Dr. Weirde “Historical Essays: The Six Companies” Found SF.org The San Francisco Digital Archive https://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=The_Six_Companies accessed 16 July 2024
10 Sucheng Chan Asian Californians Boyd and Fraser San Francisco 1991. P56
11 “People V Hall” Immigration History: A project of the Immigration and Ethnic History Society last updated 2019 https://immigrationhistory.org/item/people-v-hall/ Accessed 16 July 2024.
12K., & Comstock, lithographer. (0 C.E.). California gold diggers. Mining operations on the western shore of the Sacramento River. [graphic] [Pictorial works, Lithographs].
13 Rawls and Orsi “A Golden State: Mining and Economic Development in Gold Rush California.P58
14 “In the early 1850s, Chinese miners were the targets of vigorous anti-Chinese sentiment in Nevada County. In 1859 the sheriff of Shasta County requested assistance from the governor to put down an insurrection of locals attempting to drive Chinese out of the county. Indeed, local attempts to exclude Chinese miners were made in various mining districts throughout the state, including Agua Fria, Grass Valley, Horsetown, Oregon Gulch, Middletown, Mormon Bar, Horse Shoe Bar, Columbia, Deer Creek, Rough and Ready, Wood's Creek, Foster's Bar, and Yuba River Camp”. Kanazawa, Mark. “Immigration, Exclusion, and Taxation: Anti-Chinese Legislation in Gold Rush California.” The Journal of Economic History 65, no. 3 (2005): p783
15 Initially the tax was a $20 per month license to mine for gold. But it was difficult to collect or enforce. It was repealed in 1851 and a modified tax was levied in 1852 of $3 per month and counties were given the incentive of keeping 50% of collected revenues minus collection costs. In 1853 the tax increased to $4 per month. The foreign miner’s tax accounted for around 10% of state revenues in this period. Kanazawa, Mark. “Immigration, Exclusion, and Taxation: Anti-Chinese Legislation in Gold Rush California.” The Journal of Economic History 65, no. 3 (2005): p785
16 Wyatt, David Five Fires: Race, Catastrophe, and the Shaping of California Addison-Wesley Publishing Company Inc. Reading, Massachusetts 1997, p83
17 Kanazawa, Mark. “Immigration, Exclusion, and Taxation: Anti-Chinese Legislation in Gold Rush California.” The Journal of Economic History 65, no. 3 (2005): p781
18Starkweather, Joseph Blaney. A photograph of an unknown group of white and Chinese miners at a sluice box in Auburn Ravine, 1852. https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/california-gold-rush/sources/1910
19 Isaac Wallace Baker photographer - unnamed Chinese man https://explore.museumca.org/goldrush/silver-chman.html
20 Sucheng Chan Asian Californians Boyd and Fraser San Francisco 1991. p58
21 Rohe, Randall “The Chinese and Hydraulic Mining in the Far West” Mining History Journal 1994 p79
22 Valentine, David Chinese Placer Mining in the United States: An Example from American Canyon, Nevada. P 38-43
23 Letter to Mr. Editor. Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. 1856 P 3
24 Ibid.
25 Pfaelzer, Jean. Driven out: the forgotten war against Chinese Americans. New York: Random House, 2007 p13.
26 Named New Almaden in honor of old Almadén, a mercury mine in Spain which got its name from the Arabic: المعدن , romanized: al-maʻdin, which literally means 'the metal', 'the mineral'.
27Schneider, Jimmie. Quicksilver: The Complete History of Santa Clara County’s New Almaden Mine p 10-14, 35-36.
28 Alexander Edouart, “Blessing of the Enriqueta Mine,” 1860, oil on canvas. The Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley.
29 Schneider, Jimmie. Quicksilver: The Complete History of Santa Clara County’s New Almaden Mine.p 21, 30.
30 The Photographs of Carleton Watkins, Carletonwatkins.org https://www.carletonwatkins.org/gallery_display.php?keylist=2 accessed 14 July 2024
31 Almaden Quicksilver Mining Museum Exhibit, Santa Clara County Parks https://parks.sccgov.org/almaden-quicksilver-mining-museum
32 Larson, Elizabeth Lake County News “EPA Updates Community on Sulphur Bank Superfund site cleanup Plan” posted 17 June 2021 https://lakeconews.com/news/69414-epa-updates-community-on-sulphur-bank-superfund-site-cleanup-plan accessed 10 July 2024
33 Department of Conservation, Office of Mine Reclamation, Abandoned Mine Lands Unit. California’s Abandoned Mines: A Report on the Magnitude and Scope of the Issue in the State Vol. 1. (June 2000) https://www.conservation.ca.gov/dmr/abandoned_mine_lands/AML_Report/Documents/volume1textonly.pdf
34 “A History of Chinese Americans in California” : HISTORIC SITES: Sulphur Bank Mine Clear Lake Oaks, Lake County Last Modified: Wed, Nov 17 2004 Accessed 31 July 2024 https://www.nps.gov/history/parkhistory/online_books/5views/5views3h81.htm
35 Ibid
36 Sucheng, Chan Asian Californians Boyd and Fraser San Francisco 1991. p56
37 “Clear Lake” California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment website https://oehha.ca.gov/advisories/clear-lake Last Modified 7 August 2018. Accessed 31 July 2024
38 “Guide to San Francisco Bay Area Creeks” Exhibit at the Oakland Museum of California on the legacy of Mercury Mining. https://explore.museumca.org/creeks/z-mercurymines.html accessed 7 July 2024
39 National Minerals Information Center, “Hydraulic Mining Techniques, California, 1870s”, USGS website. https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/hydraulic-mining-techniques-california-1870s#:~:text=Hydraulic%20mining%2C%20California%2C%201870s&text=Hydraulic%20mining%20was%20a%20variation,the%20miners%2C%20ounces%20of%20gold. Accessed 31 July 2024
40 Kanazawa, Mark. “Immigration, Exclusion, and Taxation: Anti-Chinese Legislation in Gold Rush California.” The Journal of Economic History 65, no. 3 (2005). p782
41 Rohe, Randall “The Chinese and Hydraulic Mining in the Far West” Mining History Journal 1994 p79
42 Rohe, Randall. “Chinese River Mining in the West.” Montana, the Magazine of Western History 49 (Autumn 1996): p73
43 Siobhan Angus, “Mining the History of Photography,” in Capitalism and the Camera: Essays on Photography and Extraction, edited by Kevin Coleman and Daniel James (London: Verso, 2021) P65-66
44 Watkins came to California as a gold miner, failed at this, was hired by Collis Huntington to deliver supplies and by 1852 Watkins opened his own photography business. His stereographs are some of the most vivid images of later mining in the region. Stereographs are double images which can be viewed through a device to create a kind of 3D image. Many of these images are hosted at https://www.carletonwatkins.org/about_watkins.php
45 Some Chinese owned Hydraulicking Operations: Yreka Flats in 1867, French Coral in 1869, and in Dutch Flat in 1872. Rohe, Randall “The Chinese and Hydraulic Mining in the Far West” Mining History Journal 1994 p84
46 National Minerals Information Center, “Hydraulic Mining Techniques, California, 1870s”, USGS website. https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/hydraulic-mining-techniques-california-1870s#:~:text=Hydraulic%20mining%2C%20California%2C%201870s&text=Hydraulic%20mining%20was%20a%20variation,the%20miners%2C%20ounces%20of%20gold. Accessed 31 July 2024
47 “It is not the sedimentation issue alone, however, that is of such concern regarding these numerous and extensive hydraulic sites. The huge sluices — either on the surface, or in extensive drain tunnels — were liberally laced with mercury to capture the gold washing through. Tons of mercury (a potent neurotoxin) were used in the mines, and lost to the environment (Knudson 1991). This issue has recently come to light, and is the target of a multi-million dollar study by the USGS.” Department of Conservation, Office of Mine Reclamation, Abandoned Mine Lands Unit. California’s Abandoned Mines: A Report on the Magnitude and Scope of the Issue in the State Vol. 1. (June 2000) p17
48 "Malakoff Diggins State Historic Park". https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=494 revised 2024. accessed 31 July 2024
49 See the Nevada City Daily Transcript 14 May 1887 “The Chinamen, so we learn from an intelligent Mongolian, are devising ways and means of making Yuba county disgusted with arresting Chinese for hydraulicking…The plan under consideration, and Chinamen being plenty, is to set twenty or thirty Mongolians to work on the same claims and if arrested they will refuse to pay any fine imposed upon them In that event they would be sent to the county jail. After that is done they will send a still larger number of their countrymen to work the claim, and as fast as they are taken to Marysville a new crew will be on hand ready to take their places. They think they can flood the Marysville jail, and in the end bankrupt Yuba County.” As quoted Randall E. Rohe. “After the Gold Rush: Chinese Mining in the Far West, 1850-1890.” Montana: The Magazine of Western History 32, no. 4 (1982): 2–19.
50Currier and Ives Gold Mining in California https://www.loc.gov/resource/pga.08765/ public domain image.
51 New York Tribune as quoted in Wyatt p 92-93.
52 Wyatt, David. Five fires: race, catastrophe, and the shaping of California. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Pub. Co., 1997p93
53 Kanazawa, Mark. “Immigration, Exclusion, and Taxation: Anti-Chinese Legislation in Gold Rush California.” The Journal of Economic History 65, no. 3 (2005): 779–805. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3875017. p780
54 Valentine, David Chinese Placer Mining in the United States: An Example from American Canyon Nevada in Cassel, Susie Lan The Chinese In America: A History from Gold Mountain to the New Millennium p37
55 Wyatt, David. Five fires: race, catastrophe, and the shaping of California. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Pub. Co., 1997 p90-92
56 Dr. Weirde “Historical Essays: The Six Companies” Found SF.org The San Francisco Digital Archive https://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=The_Six_Companies accessed 16 July 2024
57 Sucheng Chan Asian Californians Boyd and Fraser San Francisco 1991. P42, 45
58 Wyatt, David Five Fires: Race, Catastrophe, and the Shaping of California p92-93
59 Zesch, Scott. The Chinatown war: Chinese Los Angeles and the massacre of 1871. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012
60 Wyatt, David Five Fires: Race, Catastrophe, and the Shaping of California. p92
61 Ibid.
62 Raab, Jennifer “The Art of Alchemy: Golden Pictures, or Turning Extractive Capitalism into American Individualism” in Iglesias Lukin, Aimé, Tie Jojima, Karen Marta, Edward J. Sullivan, and Susan Segal. El Dorado: a reader. New York, NY: Americas Society, 2024 p 77
63International Baccalaureate Tool Kit https://www.ibo.org/digital-toolkit/brochures-flyers-and-posters/ accessed 14 July 2024
64 Artist Unknown, California gold rush caricatures, Beineke Reading Room, Yale University [California gold rush caricatures]. [United States?: s.n., [1850?]
65“Gold Mountain Dreams” Becoming American - The Chinese Experience. Published March 25, 2003 https://billmoyers.com/content/gold-mountain-dreams/ accessed 15 July 2024
Comments: