History of the State of California: From the Period of the Conquest by Spain to Her Occupation by the United States of AmericaFrost, John
History
History of the State of California: From the Period of the Conquest by Spain to Her Occupation by the United States of America
Frost, John
California -- Gold discoveries; California -- History
In the following, among other interesting intelligence, will be found
an account of that which was expected long before it occurred--the
resistance of some of the numerous body of foreign gold-seekers to the
tax imposed upon them. The license tax is certainly a just one; but
the foreigners presumed upon their number and strength, that they had
power sufficient to resist its imposition. The easy excitability of
the Americans, upon any subject connected with their own soil is well
known; and it is exceedingly strange that a serious collision did not
take place. We extract from the Alta Californian, of June 1st, 1850.
The _Alta Californian_ has letters from Stockton to May 22d. On the
Tuolumne, but little gold digging has been effected since last fall
along the banks. The gold is under water, and preparations were making
by companies to dam the streams to get at it. This work has been
actively going on for five or six months. There is want of men at this
kind of work, and eight or ten dollars a day is readily obtained. The
diggings at Jamestown, Sonora, &c., have been partially deserted on
account of new diggings discovered at Columbia, three miles from
Sonora, at the last accounts some two thousand persons had collected
there, and town lots were selling at high prices.
Sonora is growing very rapidly, being in the centre of an extensive
mining region. It is likely to be next to Stockton in size and
importance. Discoveries of rich placers have been made in its vicinity
lately; some of the richest holes at Columbia are thirty, forty, and
fifty feet deep. A serious difficulty has broken out at Sonora. A
number of foreigners refused to comply with the law taxing them for
the privilege of working the mines. A time was fixed by the collector
to summon a posse of American citizens to prevent them from working.
The day previous to the time fixed, the foreigners paraded with guns,
&c., and reinforcements of Americans were sent for from the
neighboring towns. A letter from Stockton, dated May 22d, adds:
"In the evening, the sheriff, Mr. Work, was accosted by a Mexican, who
asked him if he was not an officer, or the officer who intended to
enforce the payment of the license. On replying that he was, the
Mexican made an attempt to stab him, when a person standing by, named
Clark, with a single stroke of a bowie knife, nearly severed his head
from his body. Thirty armed Americans soon arrived from Mormon Gulch,
and the whole American population were on the alert all night.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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