The Gold Rush Diary of Ram Gil Navarro (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780803233430)

Gold! Gold! Gold! This seductive mantra, shouted throughout the Americas in 1848-49, convinced thousands of people that California's gold could be had simply by picking it up off the ground. Ram Gil Navarro, an Argentinean political exile living in Chile, heard these rumors of a new El Dorado, but he was not so na?e as to believe that the gold merely had to be gathered. He understood that mining required extensive capital investment and labor, and along with three other investors he arranged to have 120 workers and a shipload of supplies sent to California. Navarro accompanied the workers to Stockton and began prospecting.

Gold rush California was a rough and tumble world where finding gold--and keeping it--was not a simple matter. Navarro encountered people from all over the world brought together in a society marked by racial and ethnic intolerance, swift and cruel justice, and great hardships. It was a world of contrasts, where the roughest of the rough lived in close proximity to extremely refined cultural circles. Despite his planning, Navarro had not reckoned on the racism he would encounter. He witnessed several instances of Anglo miners harassing Latinos and other ethnic groups. After three years without success, Navarro returned to South America. He became a national representative in the Argentinean congress and worked as a journalist. He never returned to California.

Author: Ram Gil Navarro
ISBN-10: 0803233434
ISBN-13: 9780803233430
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
Language: English
Published: 10/01/2000
Pages: 315
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.44lbs
Size: 9.29h x 6.36w x 1.21d