Tag: California history

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What Is Gold Rush 2.0?

gold flakes in bottle or fool's gold?

With gold trading at more than $4,000 an ounce, a new gold rush is on. It’s caused a renewed interest in gold mining in the California hills. This recent gold rush has been dubbed Gold Rush 2.0 to differentiate it from the first gold rush in 1849 that attracted thousands of prospectors — Argonauts — from all over the world to San Francisco and the California gold diggings.

When I lived in California, the Gold Country was a major vacation spot for long weekends in summer and ski trips in winter. It still is. My family visited many gold rush towns over the years — Nevada City, Placerville, Sutter Creek, Angels Camp, Mokelumne Hill, Coulterville, and others. The town of Columbia, part of the Columbia National Historic Park, was a favorite. This preserved, nineteenth-century mining town had a wooden rocker or cradle set up so kids could search for gold flakes as sand, dirt, and water was sluiced down the rocker’s long chute.

gold flakes in pendant

In 1849, gold mining was a rough, dirty business, hard on the body. Early in the gold rush days, miners squatted at the edge of cold mountain streams or stood almost knee deep in them, in the scorching sun. Most used round pans with sloping sides that Chilean miners brought to shovel dirt in, swirl in the running water, and hope to see the glint of gold as the lighter particles of dirt washed out. You can still buy versions of these pans in Gold Country hardware or dry goods stores.

In 1849, when the onslaught of gold-crazed prospectors, those now known as Forty-Niners, arrived, merchants raked in more money than the miners by charging eye-watering prices for food, drink, tools, clothes, and transportation. Ghirardelli was there, selling the miners chocolate. In 1854, Levi Strauss landed in San Francisco and sold work pants and tents. Captain William A. Richardson and his son Esteban made their money by transporting miners to and from the goldfields, as well as by supplying prime beef, produce, and fresh water to the hotels and tent kitchens in San Francisco. I am writing about these wild days in my next book.

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Impromptu Reading at the South Whidbey Commons

Author reading in bookstore/cafe

A member of my writing group encouraged me to read a section of my novel at The Commons on June 5th Open Mic night. My book and other local authors’ books are there for sale, and a cafe serves delicious cafe lattes and baked goods. About 35 people showed up to read and listen.

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Indie Bookstore Weekend 2026

Celebrate on April 25 or 26 by visiting your local independent bookstore and buy one of the thousands of wonderful fiction or nonfiction books available. Keep bookstores alive and thriving. If you can’t go this weekend, visit your store sometime this week or month. I’m thrilled to see my book displayed on the top shelf at the front of my local indie bookstore, Moonraker.

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When did European sailing ships venture onto the oceans?

Model of square-rigged sailing ship

A visit to the Marine Institute in Lisbon, Portugal, reminded me of the Portuguese navigator Prince Henry, who encouraged brave sailors to sail the oceans, far from the safe shores of their home country. My photo shows a model of a Portuguese square-rigged sailing ship. Before the 1400s, most European sailing ships had a single lateen sail for navigating around the Mediterranean Sea. They were swift, and the sail was easy to move to take advantage of the wind’s changing directions. To navigate, mariners used portolan charts, maps that showed coastlines and ports.

Once Spanish and Portuguese sailors dared to travel further from shore into the ocean, they developed nautical maps which showed ocean currents and sea routes, not just outlines of the coasts. They preferred the large square sails for their larger ships. 

Sea captains were tempted to take chances on the open seas in pursuit of gold, silver, silk, and spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, pepper, and ginger. Portuguese ships followed the currents west and arrived in South America, claiming the land that is now Brazil as a colony for their country. Spain sent Columbus and other explorers west, but they landed further north, establishing colonies in what is now Mexico, Florida, and the Southwestern states to California, along what they named the Gulf of Mexico. The Spanish conquistadors invaded Mexico in search of gold and silver, but also discovered another treasure for Europe, chocolate.

The larger ships were also needed for whaling. Whale hunting for food dates back to prehistoric times, but later, commercial whaling ships sailed all the oceans and chased whales for their oil. Whale oil was valued for lighting and lubricating machinery. Whaling was not only dangerous but also nauseating when sailors boiled the blubber to extract the oil. In the 1800s, Captain William A. Richardson arrived in Alta California on a whaling ship. After surviving severe weather, a churlish captain, and treacherous whale hunts, he had less trouble deciding on his future.

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When will Dancing on the Brink of the World be published?

The official publication date is January 13, 2026. Three cheers! My novel is now available for pre-order online. You can find it listed on Simon & Schuster,  Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Bookshop, and Indigo. Be sure to look for my pen name – Marianne T. Rafter.

In author Tamim Ansary’s review of my novel, he wrote, “Rafter’s novel feels as solidly real as my world, because she takes me into it with such a wealth of historical details, I feel up close to the everyday life of these people, in this time and this place.” I hope you will order my book, and as you read it, be absorbed into Captain Richardson’s time, too.

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Was California ever a slave state?

The Republic of Mexico’s Constitution, adopted in the 1820s, forty years before the American Civil War, prohibited slavery. By 1846, all mission neophytes had been freed from the mission system and the mission lands had been secularized. Mexican-appointed governors chose administrators for each California mission to give the land and livestock to some mission neophytes and many rancheros. 

American settlers moved into the California territory with Native American and Black slaves after 1840. They never became Mexican citizens or bowed to Mexican laws. In 1846, several American men staged a revolt in Sonoma to make California a republic with their laws. They were named the Bear Flaggers for the flag they created for their republic. Many of these rebels were quite drunk, and some people thought the bear painted on the flag looked more like a pig, but the Americans pulled down the Mexican flag and saluted the new California Republic flag. Now they could keep their enslaved workers and their land without bowing to Mexico. 

The United States Pacific Naval Squadron annexed Alta California a few weeks later, and the California Republic flag was lowered and replaced with the Stars and Stripes. When California became a state in 1850, it joined the Union as a free state. Until the Civil War, some enslavers kept it secret from their workers that they were now legally free.

Because several state flags have a pro-slavery history, many flag enthusiasts see it as a disturbing problem and want to change them.

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Who Hasn’t Left Their Heart in San Francisco?

Three-masted sailing ship on San Francisco Bay with the city in the background

Tony Bennett, who died last month, made that song famous. It was my mother’s favorite song, especially after she visited the city and I moved there. Its history continues to fascinate me through my research about its early founder, Captain William A. Richardson. After the dinosaurs disappeared, the Miwoks and Ohlone people, the Spanish, the Mexicans, the Russians, the British, and finally the Americans wanted a piece of the place. With the 1849 Gold Rush, the world surged through the bay’s gateway to get to the “diggings” in the mountains. The city by the bay, in fact, all of California, still attracts people from around the world to visit or live there. But many are also leaving. They cherish the city and the state or at least their memory of them, but can no longer afford to live there.

José Vadi wrote in his essay collection Inter State: Essays from California, that he fears former Californians are becoming modern-day Okies, displaced by a new demographic, Californians with deep pockets. I joined the ranks of those modern-day Okies when I moved to the state of Washington a few years ago. But I have great affection for the years I lived in California and love to visit.

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Open-air Kitchens in Early California

Adobe brick oven for baking and five brick open fire pits for boiling

An adobe brick oven was used for baking bread and brick open-fire pits for stewing and boiling. This oven and the fire pits are at Mission San Gabriel Archangel in California.

in the 1800s, kitchens were busy all day. Stirring up a fire from smoldering ashes in the early morning was a priority. In Alta California, a cook or wife made hot chocolate drinks for the family. A ranchero drank his chocolate and then mounted a favorite horse which was already saddled and waiting. While the husband was checking on a herd of cattle or horses or on field workers, a wife, daughters, and servants prepared tortillas, collected eggs, roasted beef for a huge breakfast to be ready for her husband, sons, and workers. The prep work was done in the kitchen on large wood tables, and tortillas and breads were baked in the adobe brick ovens, while beef roasted on a spit.

Preparations for a midday meal and supper started immediately after breakfast. Grinding grain, killing and plucking chickens, picking vegetables and fruit if available filled the hours, keeping everyone busy all day. Other household chores were packed into the day also. Washing clothes, milking cows or goats, making cheese and butter, and sewing. All this daily work was necessary to maintain a family and its servants.

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Why was Indigenous Peoples’ Day established?

For many years a debate hung over the use of the word “discovered” when talking about Columbus Day. Italian Americans lobbied Congress in 1934 for a holiday to honor their heritage and recognize the contributions of their immigrant ancestors. However, Americans failed to acknowledge the role of the many people who lived in the Americas when the Italian navigator Christopher Columbus landed in the West Indies on the island the Lucayan people called Guanahani. Claiming the island for King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain, Columbus renamed it San Salvadore. 

In 2021 President Joe Biden officially endorsed the second Monday of October as Indigenous Peoples’ day. Many states now observe this holiday instead of, or as well as, Columbus Day. I found this holiday a good reminder to reflect on Native American heritage and even to discover what tribes lived on the lands I’m now on.  An interactive map for the Canadian website Native Land Digital (native-land.ca) shows territories throughout the Americas that Indigenous people inhabited. You can learn about this nonprofit’s sources for its map on its website. When I clicked on the California state area, a box popped up listing the names of the many tribes that had dwelled there. I’ve researched several of them and found that each group had its own language, customs, ceremonies, foods, and tools depending on its location. For example, some peoples used locally-sourced clay to make pots while others living near marshes used reeds to weave baskets and mats. I feel I now have a better understanding of their lives and their world before Spanish explorers came. 

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What is the connection between California’s US Route 101 and El Camino Real?

US Route 101 trails along the California coastline from San Diego and beyond the northern California border. As far as San Francisco, it follows much of the same route that the Spanish explorer (conquistador) General Gaspar de Portolá traveled from 1769-1770, when he led an expedition for the Spanish king. The path was labeled El Camino Real, the Royal Road. Franciscan friars trudged along hundreds of miles with the Spanish expedition and started to build a chain of missions in Alta California along El Camino Real, which stretched from Mexico City to the San Francisco Bay. The Royal Road sprouted branches leading east over mountains and desert to Santa Fe, which was also Spanish territory. Spanish and Mexican soldiers, settlers, fur trappers and traders, messengers, Native Americans, and the Richardson family rode along El Camino Real.

Today, Californians and tourists drive US Route 101, never realizing that a good portion lies on the route along which General Portolá guided his expedition. During his explorations, Portolá established the California cities of San Diego and Monterey. He also served as the first governor of Alta California. Of the twenty-one Spanish missions constructed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, some have disintegrated, but many people visit those that have been preserved and are still places of worship today.