# Why Didn't the Native Americans Discover Gold in CA?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-native-americans-discover-gold-in-ca/347409
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [March 7, 2006, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-native-americans-discover-gold-in-ca/347409 "2006-03-07T18:54:34Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@D\_Odds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Odds)
#### Post date: [March 8, 2006, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-native-americans-discover-gold-in-ca/347409/21 "2006-03-08T21:25:47Z")
**Wakinyan** , I wanted to make the same point, but didn’t have the facts to back me up specifically on California tribes, nor the time to research. I’ve read, but cannot decently cite right now, that the introduction of smallpox and bubuonic plague were responsible for many tribes becoming more nomadic, as the surviving population couldn’t support itself in the manner they had become accustomed. My opinion is that this helped shaped the current image, versus the native way of life prior to Columbus’ arrival.
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### Author:  [@wevets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wevets)
#### Post date: [March 8, 2006, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-native-americans-discover-gold-in-ca/347409/22 "2006-03-08T22:07:44Z")
> [@Wakinyan](#):
>
> Bit of a hijack:
> I would also like to point out that it is a myth that native american cultures were a bunch of nomadic tribes. In fact, there were cities in North America as big as most cities in Europe at the same time, there were large areas of cultivated land, orchards and parks (the latter likely for hunting). These areas were the first sign of civilization and often amazed the first imigrants/soldiers before they reached the town.
I appreciate that you’re addressing a widely-held myth, but you might also want to note that there were no Native American cities in California. Many tribes, such as the Miwok of the area I live in, the San Francisco Bay Area, moved seasonally. Both cultivation of crops as well as permanent settlements of more than 100-200 persons were extremely rare, if they existed at all, in central and northern California - I’m not that familiar with the natives of southern California, so it may have been different there.
There were large Native American cities in the central U.S. (Illinois), and southwest (AZ/NM), but I’m not sure how relevant their existence is to the California Gold Rush.
> [@](#):
>
> So the image of the noble, nomadic primitive is – to use a modern word – propaganda that we still buy.
I agree about the notion of noble, but there **were** nomadic Native Americans. Obviously, the notion that nomads somehow have less right to land they live on than permanent inhabitants is ethically unsound, but let’s not muddle the fact that nomadism was a successful lifestyle in many parts of the Americas, and California.
> [@](#):
>
> I think this is important to point out, because the native americans today still suffer from this “misunderstanding” and lack of recognition.
No arguement about that.
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### Author:  [@Wakinyan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wakinyan)
#### Post date: [March 8, 2006, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-native-americans-discover-gold-in-ca/347409/23 "2006-03-08T22:19:05Z")
> [@D\_Odds](#):
>
> **Wakinyan** , I wanted to make the same point, but didn’t have the facts to back me up specifically on California tribes, nor the time to research. I’ve read, but cannot decently cite right now, that the introduction of smallpox and bubuonic plague were responsible for many tribes becoming more nomadic, as the surviving population couldn’t support itself in the manner they had become accustomed. My opinion is that this helped shaped the current image, versus the native way of life prior to Columbus’ arrival.
Aside of the propaganda, I think one of the main reasons we still think of the natives as few, nomadic, “uncultivated”, is that our image is very much shaped by one hundred years of Hollywood, where only nomadic tribes are pictured; namely the prairie cultures, which in fact was a new culture (or way of life) made possible by the spanish import of horses, and not too representative for the stunningly diversity of North American civilizations (though very interesting).
The natives were driven for the lands en masse, diseases wiped entire societies from the face of earth, and the extermination or close to extermination of many species like the buffalo, of course had a apalling decimating effect. – The last memories we have of “the free indians” is, as you point out, the few starving families cuddling up by the fort wall.
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### Author:  [@Wakinyan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wakinyan)
#### Post date: [March 8, 2006, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-native-americans-discover-gold-in-ca/347409/24 "2006-03-08T22:28:00Z")
**wevets** , I think we agree on all accounts. I know my post was a bit sweeping in my trying to get the point through; there’re all kinds of cultures, as we both know. Also, it was a bit of a hijack, not really a comment to the OP, as I stated.
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### Author:  [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)
#### Post date: [March 9, 2006, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-native-americans-discover-gold-in-ca/347409/25 "2006-03-09T00:49:47Z")
I remember visiting the Mission of San Juan Batista, south of SF. In the handout at the mission museum, there was a little bit about the indians-the little cemetary attached to the mission is mostly filled by the graves of indian converts. The mission indians died off, well before the end of the missions. So most likely, western diseases did away with many of the native people. But I agree-given the Spanish greed for gold, its amazing thta the gold wasn’t discovered before Sutter built his mill.
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