Seeking America in America: French Immigrants and the Rush to Gold - History Essay Example

The discovery of Gold mines in California, United States, resulted in a rapid immigration of people from other parts of the world into the lands of California. The 1848 gold discovery and the French revolution led to an influx of French Argonauts with various expectations that they would realize equal opportunities in both the US and France. The French Argonauts wanted to have equality of opportunities as the locals in California to explore the Gold enterprise in the region; these expectations were shut down by the natives in an attempt to safeguard what was rightfully theirs. A buoyant feeling motivated the rush for gold that the commodity was free for all, hence; any person had an open opportunity to create abundant wealth as expressed in the Californian dream.

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The French revolution had affected the US especially the Californian region in adverse ways, initially; the Americans were in support of the movement but later came to realize that it did them more harm than good. After the 1789 reforms, the French allies became stronger than the Great Britain and began to employ radical and violent acts against their initial supporters, the Federalists, the Democrats, and the Republicans. As a result, the Democrats-Republican Party experienced a vast division with the Federalist Party who wanted to maintain a good relation with Britain. However, due to the potential economic devastations that would hit

America, the both parties later came to an agreement to remain neutral during the war between France and Britain. The French Immigration to the US illustrated various experiences in the limits of equality, access to land, and citizenship in the mid-19th Century in the history of California.

The early French Immigrants came to California as individuals seeking peace and freedom in the US in attempts to flee the hardships that they were facing in their country. There was never mass immigration of the French people to the US, but rather; they came as an influx of minor groups and their population increased drastically. The availability of gold in California attracted about 30, 000 French Argonauts between the year 1849 and 1851 (Wilson, p.12). After the news about the gold had spread to many regions, the immigrants from Chinese and other parts of the world rushed into the region in vast numbers leading the United States to adjust the immigration laws to limit the numbers and reduce the rights of foreign immigrants. Later in the 19th era, the French political activities following the war between France and European nations resulted in numerous limits to equality between the native Californians and the immigrants. The Congress reinforced the Alien and Sedition Acts and raised the limitations for aliens to acquire the US citizenship (Wilson, p.24). The act also gave the president powers to deport all illegal aliens from the US; the head of state was mandated to ensure that all foreign male citizens above the age of 14 were deported to their homelands during the war eras. There were also restrictions that banned political and insisting speeches by the aliens in the region as these statements would result in a back clash between the foreigners and the Native Americans. The right to property ownership was also limited for the foreigners to ensure that the locals have unlimited access to crucial resources such as land and ban the French immigrants from exploiting the Native Americans economically.

The French immigrants had become dominant after their population rapidly increased in California and other parts of the US. Their military was also doing well in the war against the European countries, and this motivated the French people to acquire more land in California due to its precious minerals. The majority of French people forcefully acquired tracts of land that previously belonged to the natives, and this resulted in great animosity between the two conflicting groups (Wilson, p.31). Some of these lands were used for cultivations purposes, and due to lack of labour; the French people sourced slaves from various parts of their colonies to come and work on the farms in the US. However, after a long battle with the French people; the US government regained some of these pieces of land and handed them over to the landless Americans and introduced stiff laws to block foreigners from owning land.

With the provision of the Alien and Sedition Act, the slaves that were brought to the region were also deported back to their countries since they were considered dangerous to the host nation. These experiences illustrated that the US had lost trust in all groups of foreigners and wanted to eradicate them from within their borders. The Native Americans were kind to the foreigners, but also prioritized their welfare over other intruders; hence, the government considered the foreigners as liabilities to their economy (Rohrbough, p.76). The US borders were manned to blocked aliens from coming into the nation and interrupt the economic and political activities of the Native Americans. The US wanted to safeguard their resources from exploitation by foreigners who had only come to enrich themselves and take back all their financial gains to their home countries (Rohrbough, p.78, p.65). Most of the foreigners fled America following a rapid rebellion against the last lot of French Argonauts who employed devastating and discriminative acts against the Americans. The US government applied forceful deportations against the Argonauts while some returned to France as soon as the operation began.

The experiences of the French emigrants resulted in various responses towards the regulations of foreigners by the US immigration authorities. Following the rapid growth of French immigrants acquiring the US citizenship, the government sought urgent measures to curb the increase of these foreigners. The quest to obtain the US citizenship was facilitated by the high expectations of the profits gained from the gold enterprise, the merchants would realize 100-200% profits in their cargo, and this would enable them to heal from the losses accrued in their businesses in the hurt France economy (Rohrbough, p.232). The limitations to allow foreigners the US citizenship illustrated that the US was no longer willing to host foreigners. They wanted to limit their population increase to ensure that the needs of the people did not exceed the available resources. Many of the American people from other parts of the country were leaving their jobs that paid as little as $1.5 a day to seek greener pastures in the Californian gold mines only to find that their opportunities were limited by the French Argonauts (Rohrbough, p.229). This prompted the local authorities to seek tougher laws that would ensure that the locals would also reap greater benefits from their resources.

The 1848 gold discovery and the French revolution led to an influx of French Argonauts with various expectations that they would realize equal opportunities in both the US and France. A light feeling motivated the rush for gold that the commodity was free for all, hence; any person had an open opportunity to create abundant wealth. There was never mass immigration of the French people to the US, but rather; they came as an influx of minor groups and their population increased. The Congress later reinforced the Alien and Sedition Acts and raised the limitations for aliens to acquire the US citizenship. All the occasions led to the other and shaped how business was conducted in the US, and the effects of these events are evident to date as the country deals with the issue of rampant immigration.

Works Cited

Wilson, Karen S. "SEEKING AMERICA IN AMERICA: The French in the California Gold

Rush." SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA QUARTERLY 95 (2013): 1-36.

Rohrbough, Malcolm J. "The Rush to Gold." Rush to Gold (2013): 73-88.

Rohrbough, Malcolm J. "The Long Echoes of the French Rush to Gold in California." Rush

to Gold (2013): 253-68.