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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A shrewd foreign observer on the Early American West,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Gold Rush Diary of Ramon Gil Navarro (Hardcover)
Ramon Gil Navarro, age 22, an intellectual and writer exiled by an Argentine tyrant to Chile came to California in 1849 looking for gold. Instead of riches, what he found was a riveting multicultural maelstrom of a new society struggling to be born. With his excellent command of languages (English, French, Spanish) Navarro was able to interact with most of the cosmopolitan population of the California gold fields. In this exceptionally fine diary, he paints a vivid and memorable portrait of early California and its mesmerizing cast of characters: adventurers, entrepreneurs, fortune hunters, bon vivants, cowboys, outlaws, cold-blooded killers, wandering Indians, dispossessed Mexicans, and many others. There is an especially a moving portrait of African-American slaves brought by their masters from the warm regions of the US South to the snowy mountains of California to work in the mines. Appalled by their plight, Navarro visits the shackled, freezing, famished slaves while their masters are away and describes his attempts to warm up the slaves, to feed them, and to cheer them up by playing favorite songs on his guitar. Highly recommend primary source for historians and a marvelous account of a bygone era for the average reader.
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The Gold Rush Diary of Ramon Gil Navarro by Ramón Gil Navarro (Hardcover - October 1, 2000)
$50.00
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