Was It Worth It?

Crews Leave Ship

Frederick Douglass' Thoughts on the Gold Rush, 1852

Frederick Douglass, a famous black American writer and editor of the period, voiced the concern of many writers of the time when they saw so many young men leave for California,

"So strong is the excitement that it has become a question who ought to go and who ought not to go. . .Discretion and reasonable considerations seemed to have been abandoned. Lovers hurried and married their sweethearts and left them. Young husbands left young wives. . .some have returned much better off and some much worse."

A Young Wife's Hopes for the Future

The wife of a struggling shopkeeper wrote,

"Joseph has borrowed the money to go; but I am full of bright visions that never filled my mind before, because at the best of times I have never thought of much beyond a living, but now I feel confident of being well off."

Was it worth it? It all depends on your point of view. The young wife thought it was; Frederick Douglass had some doubts. Yet, wherever they came from, the argonauts helped make California what it is today. And, along with the people, the ships carried the supplies the people needed across the oceans, as they still do--

Sailors' Shanty

Many sailors "jumped ship" when they arrived in San Francisco during the Gold Rush. "Jumped ship" meant they did not come back to work when the ship was ready to leave on another voyage. Instead, they--like all the other argonauts--took off for the "diggings." So San Francisco harbor was a mass of ships with nowhere to go and no one to sail them.

Sailors sometimes sang a shanty like the one printed below when they arrived in port. It expressed their feelings of saying good-by to the ship that was their home and the companions they might not see again,

"Oh, the times was hard, an' the wages low,

Leave her, Johnny, leave her.

But now once more, ashore we'll go,

And it's time for us to leave her.

Leave her, Johnny, leave her,

Oooh! leave her Johnny, leave her!

For the voyage is done, an' the winds don't blow,

And it's time for us to leave her!"

Excerpts and quotations in this booklet are from the sources listed below. For complete notes see the teacher's guide A Ripping Trip, available through the Oakland Museum of California.

Charles Bateson, Gold Fleet for California

W. Jeffrey Bolster, Black Jacks

California Dept. of Education, Unit VI, 4th Grade. (draft from Chinese Americans Past and Present

Rudolph M. Lapp, Blacks in the Gold Rush

Oscar Lewis, Sea Routes To The Gold Fields

Jo Ann Levy, They Saw the Elephant, Women in the California Gold Rush

R and E Research Associates, Chilenos in the California Gold Rush

Ronald Takaki, Strangers from a Different Shore

 
Part I, Resource 10-6d
Page 132
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