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Mining, Gold
Gold mining was one of the industries that truly opened up the Far West in the mid-nineteenth century. The discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill in California in January 1848 began a process that forged a distinctive political culture, drawing populations during an era of international economic and political upheaval. California gold later financed the Union during the Civil War. The first effective settlers in areas that gold claims and business centers established grappled with Native Americans and Californios to determine how land would be settled and who would profit.
Gold was discovered in California in January 1848. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed in February 1848, concluded the Mexican-American War and ceded western territories to the United States. California remained under American military occupation as ...
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