Customer Reviews

Calaveras Gold: The Impact Of Mining On A Mother Lode County (Shepperson Series in History Humanities)

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BOOK - Calaveras Gold: The Impact Of Mining On A Mother Lode County

This book is is one of the top history books on mining and history of California.

Regarding the anonymous critic, the reviewer stated that Alfred Doten, "never owned a store at Volcano". He doesn't know if Doten did or not, he only knows it isn't written in Doten's journal. For example, many people are not aware that William T. Sherman owned a store in Coloma. He didn't run the store in Coloma, he and his partners owned it.

History books have errors, it is the nature of the business.

It wouldn't change the fact that this book is one of the finest I have read. It gives me a solid platform to do deeper research.

Concerning the way the book states Mexican/Californio miners were treated; The critic thinks it is just "PC", anti gringo. It is not! It was probably accuately stated .

I have included below only one of many examples of there treatment as recored in Newspapers of the day..

Daily Alta California,

Volume 3, Number 260, 20 September 1852

The miners at Vallecito (Calaveras County) held a meeting and passed resolutions to compel the Spanish American population to leave in twelve hours. From appearance, it seems that the American in Calaveras and Tuolumne counties are determined to rid themselves of the Spanish American people. It may occasion considerable bloodshed.

The Daily Union.

VOL. IV---NO. 467 Sacramento, Tuesday Morning, September 21, 1852

Expulsion--A meeting of many miners was held

at Vallecito on Monday last to take into consideration the necessity of expelling the Spanish American population from that vicinity. It was unanimously agreed that they should be ordered to leave in

twelve hours, after having received notice, and in

ease of non-compliance, to be severely dealt with.--

When our informant left, another meeting was to be

held to take the matter into further consideration,

and to discuss the expediency and policy of immediate Expulsion.

And from W. T. Sherman:

"Colonel Mason then handed me a letter from Captain Sutter, addressed to him, stating that he (Sutter) was engaged in erecting a saw-mill at Coloma", ......"and wanted a "preemption" to the quarter-section of land on which the mill was located, embracing the tail-race in which this particular gold had been found. ...."

"I wrote off a letter, reciting that California was yet a Mexican province, simply held by us as a conquest; that no laws of the United States yet applied to it, much less the land laws or preemption laws, which could only apply after a public survey."

Was the future General just being "PC" ?

The treaty with Mexico was not yet signed when James Marshall found the gold, and therefore,

The California Gold Rush started in Mexico's Territory of Alta California... Per W. T. Sherman and Gov. Mason..

May 2010

A. Spence

At a quick glance this book appears to be worthy of reading, and to be fair the hardrock mining sections are interesting, but the first 138 pages are filled with blatent political correctness and some misinformation that tarnishes the overall quality of the book.

The authors claim that Alfred Doten (The Journals of Alfred Doten, University of Nevada Press. 1973) owned a "store" in Volcano, California. He never owned a store at Volcano nor anywhere else. The authors repeatedly make use of Doten to exemplify an untenable and skewed position of political correctness: "He "politely courted white women but was lusty and wanton around...women of color." What is their purpose in a hardrock mining text since Doten only placer mined? I'm not sure. So one must be left to infer that Doten was impolitely lusty around women who were not white? Could this be a metaphor about hardrock mining that I was not able to grasp?

Anyone who has read Doten's diaries knows that he had no scruples about any woman period! Doten is also quoted for writing angry words in his diary having caught "two Mexicans" trespassing and working his claim. During Doten's time (1850s) sifting through dirt on another's claim was illegal; taking any gold that was found on another's claim was stealing. Doten would have been upset regardless of who jumped his claim.

Doten is also described as "relishing" a vigilante justice occurance--sounds a little PC to me; Doten thought it was horrible. The authors also perpetuate the Joaquin (Murieta) myth that "gringos" raped his wife and murdered his brother--both never happened ("Joaquin" wasn't even the gang leader; his brother-in-law was). Should a myth justify the indiscriminate murders and robberies that the avenging "Robinhood" and his gang performed without mercy until his life was taken away, as the author's state, by "Euro-Americans" ? I PC think so.

These authors should have stuck with hardrock mining instead of veering off in an attempt to integrate societal mechanisms of the mid nineteenth century with today's hindsight--risky and revisionist at best, but not historically accurate. If one is going to write history, fine--the reader will analyze the facts, albiet having the facts and context of the period incorporated coherently. But these "historians" use the first 138 pages of their book to shape their opinions and unabashed biases into a pseudo-scholarly text that takes away from the overall quality of an otherwise interesting book that excells with regard to hardrock mining and its impact within Calaveras County; it just happens a little too late in the book.