[Detail] Ships at the Erie Basin, New York.
Historical Research Capabilities: California Migration
Research the migration to California in the decade of the Gold Rush, 1849-1859, comparing the routes by sea and by land. Routes by sea went through the Caribbean by way of the Isthmus of Panama in New Granada or the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in Mexico. Or, they went around South America by way of the Straits of Magellan or by rounding Cape Horn, the southernmost point of the continent.
Search on charts and maps for materials that will help you to visualize and better understand these routes. Read about crossing the Isthmus of Panama in The Canoe and the Saddle: Adventures Among the Northwestern Rivers and Forests, and Isthmiana by Theodore Winthrop:
"ARDENT Californians, after a day of dragging in the mud and squeezing in the alloys of the Cruces Road, remember the Isthmus of Panama only as a geometrical line; a narrow, difficult, slippery, dirty path, paved like the bed of an Alpine torrent, beset with sloughs of despond and despair, with mosquitoes, tired mules, plundering natives, and bad provender. They follow this geometrical line on their way to California, as a pious Mohammedan treads tremblingly the slender bridge that conducts him to the seventh heaven, - looking forward, but very little around him . . . To American adventurers struggling towards their seventh heaven, the Isthmus seems to concentrate the obstacles of a continent. In dread of the thousand nameless terrors of the tropics, they hasten to Panama, eat one breakfast of eggs in their omelet stage of existence, and are off up the coast in the steamer."
Read about the dangerous voyage through the Straits of Magellan in Round Cape Horn: Voyage of the Passenger-Ship James W. Paige From Maine to California, 1852 by J. Lamson:
"Tierra del Fuego lay before us on the right, and Staten Land on the left, their valleys and heights covered with snow. I promised myself the great gratification of a near view of both of these desolate regions; but in this I was doomed to disappointment. Before ten o'clock the sky became filled with clouds, and the brilliancy of the morning gave place to darkness and gloom. An eclipse of the sun occurred during the day, which increased the darkness. . . . The current carried us towards Staten Land, whose coasts were very bold and dangerous to approach, and were rendered doubly so at this time by, the exceeding darkness of the night. Our sails were flapping uselessly against the masts, we had no control over the vessel, which was drifting at the rate of four knots an hour, and our situation was becoming perilous in the extreme. Captain J. was exceedingly anxious. He ordered the mate to have the boats in readiness, for we might soon want them. We were now only three miles distant from the coast as the captain conjectured. A heavy swell added to our danger and increased our difficulties; and there seemed scarcely a hope of our escaping shipwreck, on one of the most desolate and forlorn coasts of which the imagination can conceive."
Compare the voyages by sea either around South America or through the Caribbean to journeys across the United States by wagon. Learn more about the overland journeys in the American Memory collection, "California as I Saw It:" First-Person Narratives of California's Early Years, 1849-1900. Search on journey and travel for diaries, letters, and recollections of travelers who took the overland route, as well as a few who went by sea.
- Which of the routes proved to be the fastest to California?
- Which was the most convenient method of travel?
- What were the hardships endured by migrants on each of the routes?
- Did more people travel to California by sea or by land? Why?
