Free Which Way to the Wild West? by Steve Sheinkin Page A

anything I have got for the privilege of having a kiss from you.”
    Another miner expressed his loneliness in his diary: “Got nearer to a female this evening than I have been for six months. Came near fainting.”
    No wives or girlfriends, very little gold to be found, ridiculously expensive food and supplies, backs aching from working bent over, legs swelling from standing in freezing streams … all this was enough to cure most miners of gold fever. Miners expressed their disappointment in new songs like “The Lousy Miner,” which was often heard in 1850s California:

    It’s four long years since I reached this land,
In search among the rocks and sand;
And yet I’m poor when the truth is told,
I’m a lousy miner,
I’m a lousy miner in search of shining gold.

    There was still plenty of gold out there, but it was stuck in the rocks deep underground and getting it required expensive equipment. By the mid-1850s big companies were taking over the gold mining business from individual miners.
    William Swain was one of thousands of miners who decided it was time to give up. “I have made up my mind that I have got enough of California and am coming home as fast as I can,” he wrote. Gone were his dreams of marching back to his family with a fortune. “I shall get home with only $700 or $800,” he warned his wife. “But I am thankful for small favors.”
    Historians estimate that of all the people who came to California in search of gold, only one in twenty left the diggings richer than when he arrived. Swain was just happy to get home, especially when he saw that the entire town had come out to greet him. “I have been many miles and seen many places,” he said, “but this is the finest sight I have ever seen.”
    Maybe I’ll Stay
    O thers decided to settle in California. This was easier said than done, for some.
    Biddy Mason and her three young daughters wanted to stay. Unfortunately for them, Robert Smith was determined to leave. Smith
held the Mason family as slaves—even though California had joined the Union as a free state in 1850.
    By 1855 Smith realized that Biddy Mason knew slavery was illegal in California. That’s when he announced it was time to move to Texas (where slavery was legal). Mason had no intention of going. She contacted free black friends in Los Angeles and told them her story. The friends went to a local judge, who agreed to hear her case.
    In a courthouse packed with curious spectators, Robert Smith tried to claim that Mason and her daughters weren’t really slaves. He treated them just like family, he insisted.
    Mason saw things differently, as she told the judge:

    â€œI always feared this trip to Texas, since I first heard of it. Mr. Smith told me I would be just as free in Texas as here.”

    She didn’t believe that. Neither did the judge, who ruled that Mason and her daughters were free and could live wherever they wanted. They joined the growing black community in Los Angeles.
    Biddy Mason
    But Wait, There’s More!
    B iddy Mason was one of thousands who chose to stay and build a future in California. By 1860 the state population would zoom toward 400,000.
    California’s quick growth was one major effect of the gold rush. Another effect: many of the miners who caught gold fever were never really cured. As they headed back home, they couldn’t help themselves—they kept looking for gold.
    That’s what George Jackson was doing in the Rocky Mountains in January 1859. It was much too late in winter to be out in these snowy mountains, but Jackson had heard rumors of gold being spotted in the area. He decided to search for one more day before heading back to Denver (which then had a total of twenty buildings).
    He found a promising-looking spot along Clear Creek. The dirt was frozen so solid, he had to build a fire on top of it before he could scoop some into his drinking cup. He