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Escape To The California Gold Rush

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Escape to the California Gold Rush
Yellow fever, malaria, and cholera are all disease that people in present day US don’t get often, but many pioneers caught these nasty diseases on there long, hard trek to California. In 1847, the US defeated Mexico in their fight for California and other territory in the Western US. One year later in 1878, the first nugget of gold was found in California as US territory. This gold nugget sparked millions to take the long trek to California seeking riches in gold. Many people traveled by boat coming from China, Peru, Mexico and many other places along with the settlers of the East in the US. The pioneers during the trek to the California Gold Rush had faced numerous challenges on there way to California including …show more content…
“At the end of the gold rush, the preferred ocean route was around Cape Horn. The trip, however, was brutal. Passengers broiled near the equator and froze near the Antarctic.” (Saffer, 14). Many people died because they froze or over-heated near the arctic or equator. Hypothermia and heat exhaustion were things back in the 1800’s during the California Gold Rush the pioneers could not treat or could not treat properly. Therefore the pioneers would perish because of the inability to treat hypothermia or heat exhaustion. Many of the ships had little shelter and often times there would be 3 man per bunk (Saffer, 14). The ship's room was taken up by supplies and food, but much of that food would spoil as there were many reports of wormy bread, dirty sugar and even vile tasting, dirty water. This food and water made many pioneers weak and very sick. Many fruits would also spoil causing the pioneers to catch scurvy, a disease that is commonly caught with lack of vitamin C. Pioneers with scurvy would develop anemia, debility, exhaustion, or swelling in some parts of the body. After crossing the Panama Canal, many pioneers stayed in Panama to rest, but many of them caught deadly diseases (Saffer, 14). Many of these diseases were typhoid, dysentery, yellow fever, malaria, and cholera. These diseases were caught because of the simple fact that the pioneers bodies were never exposed to the diseases and have no …show more content…
Many necessary supplies were lost or spoiled during the journey such as food and water (Kuck, 12). Food and water are a necessary on the trip to California that takes about 123 days. The human can only go about 3 days with water. That's 41 times the amount of days the human body can last without water, so water is essential in the journey to California. Many treatments for heat exhaustion use food and water, but without these materials the pioneers would die of those diseases, which many did. Pioneers heading to the California Gold Rush had many problems with weight of tools, so they dumped supplies before they crossed the Sierra Mountains (Cherne, 12). The Sierra Mountains are a very ungrateful place, with harsh wind and freezing temperatures. Many men were not equipped for the Sierra Mountain cold and died of hypothermia. They also dumped there supplies that would have helped them survive the hypothermia. “According to estimates, half of those who crossed the desert in 1850 faced starvation.” (Cherne, 12). Dangers of heat and starvation were real dangers to the pioneers. Starvation is a very painful death and if the pioneer wouldn't die it takes a long time to recover from starvation. The heat was a huge factor. The heat would make the pioneers dehydrated, but also make their water evaporate much faster than normal, therefore making the water only last for a brief time. The pioneers struggled with

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