The Californios, once the masters of
their country, were now a small minority.
At first some of them benefited from the
California gold rush, especially those who
prospected claims of their own or sold
supplies to the miners. They were joined
by many fellow Hispanics from other
parts of the Southwest, Mexico, Peru,
and Chile. Mexican Americans knew
more about prospecting gold than Anglos
did. They taught the newcomers many
things, including how to use a batea, aflat-bottomed pan, to isolate gold in
streams, and how to crush gold-bearing
rocks with a tool called an arrastra. But
Anglo miners soon came to see Hispanics
as competitors, particularly those from
the Mexican state of Sonora, who were
more knowledgeable and had more suc-
cess than they did.
Because mining camps generally
arose far from the reach of established
law, in areas as yet unclaimed by anyone
but Native Americans (whose rights were98 ATLAS OF HISPANIC-AMERICAN HISTORY
California Gold Mines of the 1850s
Shifting Demographics of the Town of Sonora, California
These graphs illustrate the shifting demographics of the town of Sonora, California.
As the gold rush proceeded, Anglo miners forced many miners of other nationalities from
the fields.