Items16The creator’s order
  1. 1Brazilian gold rushBrazilian gold rushThe first great gold rush of the modern era began in the 1690s in the mountains of Minas Gerais, and it ran on forced labor: about 500,000 enslaved Africans were brought into the region. Its showpiece, Vila Rica, later renamed Ouro Preto, served as the capital of Minas Gerais from 1720 to 1897 and…0
  2. 2Georgia Gold RushGeorgia Gold RushOne of America's earliest gold rushes, following North Carolina's, took off in 1829 in the north Georgia hills, on land the Cherokee Nation still held. By spring 1830 some 4,000 miners were working Yahoola Creek alone, and Georgia handed out land seized from the Cherokee by lottery. Within a decade…0
  3. 3California gold rushCalifornia gold rushJames Marshall's find at Sutter's Mill in Coloma on January 24, 1848, drew about 300,000 people to California, from the rest of the United States and from Latin America, Europe, Australia and China. San Francisco grew from under a thousand residents to about 25,000 by 1849, and California became a…0
  4. 4New South Wales gold rushNew South Wales gold rushAustralia's gold rushes started here, with Edward Hargraves's find at Ophir near Bathurst in February 1851, though an 1890 parliamentary committee credited John Lister and William Tom with the first payable gold. Within weeks of the find being announced that May, more than 2,000 people were digging…0
  5. 5Victorian gold rushVictorian gold rushVictoria had about 97,000 people in 1851. By 1861 it had 540,000, half the population of Australia. The rich finds at Ballarat, Bendigo and Mount Alexander in 1851 drew immigrants from Europe, America, China and New Zealand, and in just four months of 1852, 619 ships landed more than 55,000…0
  6. 6Fraser Canyon Gold RushFraser Canyon Gold RushIn 1858 about 30,000 gold seekers, many of them Americans coming north from California, flooded the Fraser River between Hope and Lillooet. Britain responded that same year by creating the mainland colony of British Columbia, so the province itself is this rush's biggest legacy. That summer mostly…0
  7. 7Pike's Peak gold rushPike's Peak gold rushPlacer gold found in 1858 near present-day Englewood led to the founding of Auraria and Denver City on opposite banks of Cherry Creek that year. Possibly 100,000 people headed for the Rockies under the slogan "Pikes Peak or Bust," and although many went home by mid-summer 1859, enough stayed for…0
  8. 8Otago Gold RushOtago Gold RushGabriel Read found gold in the gully that bears his name in May 1861, and by one official count the Tuapeka field held about 11,500 people by July, more than twice the population of Dunedin. The rush made Otago the wealthiest province in New Zealand and turned Dunedin into the country's largest…0
  9. 9Cariboo Gold RushCariboo Gold RushBilly Barker struck the lead 52 feet down on Williams Creek on August 17, 1862, and the town named for him became the heart of a rush that carried settlement deep into British Columbia's interior. Prospectors came from California, Europe and Guangdong, and by the mid-1880s Chinese residents made up…0
  10. 10Alder GulchAlder GulchSix prospectors camped at Alder Gulch on May 26, 1863, and their first pan turned up $2.40. At its peak 10,000 people lived along the string of camps called Fourteen-mile City. A year later, in May 1864, Montana Territory was carved out of Idaho Territory, and Virginia City became its capital in…0