|
| During the late 1840s and the 1850s, hopeful prospectors flooded the
gold-rich areas of the American West. By the 1860s, when the gold yield had
declined to a modest level, most whites abandoned the enterprise, leaving the
Chinese to constitute nearly two-thirds of the mining workforce west of the
Rocky Mountains. According to the 1870 census, for example, Chinese made up 61
percent of the total number of miners in Oregon, 21 percent in Montana, 59
percent in Idaho, and 25 percent in California. It is not certain how many
Chinese worked for American companies or Chinese contractors and how many owned
stakes themselves. It is known that larger companies used hydraulic mining
techniques, while the Chinese tended to use simpler methods. The Chinese also
mined salt in the San Francisco area; borate in California, Nevada, and Oregon;
coal in Utah, Wyoming, and Washington; and quicksilver in the Napa and Lake
county regions of California. In addition to miners, Chinese also were hired in
the mining communities as laundrymen, cooks, and servants. |
|
|
