Account of the Gold Discovered in California in 1848

When the 50th anniversary of California Gold Rush approached there was great interest in locating any eyewitnesses to the event who might still be alive. Several individuals claimed to have been with James Marshall when he first found a few gold nuggets while building a sawmill for adventurer and land baron John Sutter. Most of these accounts were greeted with skepticism, but it was generally agreed that an old man named Adam Wicks, who was living in Ventura, California, could reliably tell the story of how gold was first discovered in California on January 24, 1848. The New York Times published an interview with Wicks on December 27, 1897, approximately a month before the 50th anniversary. Wicks recalled arriving in San Francisco by ship in the summer of 1847, at the age of 21: I was charmed with the wild new country, and decided to stay, and I’ve never been out of the state from that time. Along in October 1847, I went with several young fellows up the Sacramento River to Sutter’s Fort, at what is now the City of Sacramento. There were about 25 white people at Sutter’s Fort, which was merely a stockade of timbers as a protection from assaults by Indians.Sutter was the richest American in central California at the time, but he had no money. It was all in land, timber, horses, and cattle. He was about 45 years old, and was full of schemes for making money by selling his timber to the United States government, which had just come into possession of California. That is why he was having Marshall build the sawmill up in Columale (later known as Coloma).I knew James Marshall, the discoverer of gold, very well. He was an ingenious, flighty sort of man, who claimed to be an expert millwright out from New Jersey. California Gold Rush Began With Discovery at Sutters Sawmill Adam Wicks remembered hearing about the gold discovery as an inconsequential bit of camp gossip: In the latter part of January 1848, I was at work with a gang of vaqueros for Captain Sutter. I remember as clearly as if it were yesterday when I first heard of the gold discovery. It was on January 26, 1848, forty-eight hours after the event. We had driven a drove of cattle to a fertile grazing spot on the American River and were on our way back to Columale for more orders.A nephew, a lad of 15 years, of Mrs. Wimmer, the cook at the lumber camp, met us on the road. I gave him a lift on my horse, and as we jogged along the boy told me that Jim Marshall had found some pieces of what Marshall and Mrs. Wimmer thought were gold. The boy told this in the most matter-of-fact way, and I did not think of it again until I had put the horses in the corral and Marshall and I sat down for a smoke. Wicks asked Marshall about the rumored gold discovery. Marshall was at first quite annoyed that the boy had even mentioned it. But after asking Wicks to swear he could keep the secret, Marshall went inside his cabin, and returned with a candle and a tin matchbox. He lit the candle, opened the matchbox, and showed Wicks what he said were nuggets of gold. The largest nugget was the size of a hickory nut; the others were the size of black beans. All had been hammered, and were very bright from boiling and acid tests. Those were the evidences of gold.I have wondered a thousand times since how we took the finding of the gold so coolly. Why, it did not seem to us a big thing. It appeared only an easier way of making a living for a few of us. We had never heard of a stampede of gold-crazy men in those days. Besides, we were green backwoodsmen. None of us had ever seen natural gold before. The Workers at Sutters Mill Took It in Stride Amazingly, the impact of the discovery had little effect on the daily life around Sutters holdings. As Wicks recalled, life went on as before: We went to bed at the usual hour that night, and so little excited were we about the discovery that neither of us lost a moment’s sleep over the stupendous wealth that lay all about us. We proposed to go out and hunt at odd times and on Sundays for gold nuggets. Two weeks or so later Mrs. Wimmer went to Sacramento. There she showed at Sutter’s Fort some nuggets she had found along the American River. Even Captain Sutter himself had not known of the finds of gold on his land until then. Gold Fever Soon Seized the Entire Nation Mrs. Wimmers loose lips set in motion what would turn out to be a massive migration of people. Adam Wicks remembered that prospectors started appearing within months: The earliest rush to the mines was in April. There were 20 men, from San Francisco, in the party. Marshall was so mad at Mrs. Wimmer that he vowed he would never treat her decently again.At first it was thought the gold was only to be found within a radius of a few miles of the sawmill at Columale, but the newcomers spread out, and every day brought news of localities along the American River that were richer in gold than where we had been quietly working for a few weeks.The very maddest man of all was Captain Sutter when men began to come from San Francisco, San Jose, Monterey and Vallejo by the score to find gold. All of the captains workmen quit their jobs, his sawmill could not be run, his cattle went wandering away for lack of vaqueros, and his ranch was occupied by a horde of lawless gold-crazy men of all degrees of civilization. All the captain’s plans for a great business career were suddenly ruined. The Gold Fever soon spread to the east coast, and at the end of 1848, President James Knox Polk actually mentioned the discovery of gold in California in his annual address to Congress. The great California Gold Rush was on, and the following year would see many thousands of 49ers arriving to search for gold. Horace Greeley, the legendary editor of the New York Tribune dispatched journalist Bayard Taylor to report on the phenomenon. Arriving in San Francisco in the summer of 1849, Taylor saw a city growing at incredible speed, with buildings and tents appearing all over the hillsides. California, considered a remote outpost only a few years earlier, would never be the same.

Nelson Mandel A Leader And The Effect On South Africa

I will be writing about the twentieth century and Nelson Mandela as a leader and the effects he had on South Africa. Nelson Mandela was born on July 18, 1918, in Mvezo, South Africa and he died December 5, 2013, in Johannesburg, South Africa. In his 95 years of life, he would spend 27 of them in prison for standing up against the government. In 1952, Nelson Mandela was put in jail for the first time because he arranged a peaceful civil rights movement. He was the most honored political prisoner in history, receiving the Nobel Peace prize in 1993. Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as the first democratically-elected president of South Africa in 1994. Even though he usually got into a lot of trouble for his doings, Nelson Mandela was a great powerful political leader because he was willing to die for what he believed in and he went to prison for acting on it. In 1652, South Africa was settled by the Dutch and the Boers. But during the eighteenth century the Dutch political power started t o Decline and the British decided to join their colony. The white people from European countries in 1948 thought that the Africans threatened their position in power, the nationalist formed a government that introduced the policy of apartheid. Apartheid was a term originating from the Dutch which meant separation and it is a system of segregation or discrimination due to race. This was used to keep the white minority in political, economic, and cultural supremacy. Then there were new

Analysis of a Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen Free Essays

Honesty in Marriage In A Doll’s House, Ibsen uses role reversal between Nora and Christine to show the importance of honesty in a good marriage versus dishonesty. Nora and Torvald have the dishonest marriage and that proves to turn out badly for their relationship in the end. Christine remained an honest person and ended up with a rekindled relationship with her old love. We will write a custom essay sample on Analysis of a Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen or any similar topic only for you Order Now At the very beginning, everything seems fine with Torvald and Nora if Nora’s initial act of dishonesty is ignored. Torvald calls to her first. â€Å"When did my squirrel come home? (Act I) Right after answering him, Nora does her best to hide the macaroons she had eaten against Torvald’s wishes by stuffing the bag in her pocket and frantically wiping the evidence from her mouth. All is seemingly well between them besides Nora’s lack of willpower against cookies. When Christine comes on the scene, she is alone. She has come to where Nora lives to find work (even though she feels overworked). She is completely honest about her situation with Nora though. From the beginning Christine seems to have nothing to hide. She explains how she spent her life taking care of her family and how she no longer has someone to care for other than herself. Later in the play, when Nora and Torvald go to the party, Nora’s mind is less on dancing the Tarantella and more on the letter Krogstad had written for Torvald. In the letter was the truth about how Nora was able to pay for Torvald’s treatment in Paris. All this time, Torvald was thinking the money came from Nora’s father when in reality, Nora illegally forged her father’s name in order to obtain a loan from the bank at which Krogstad was employed. Nora broke to law by doing business without a man and had not notified her husband. Now Nora is doing her best to stall Torvald in hope of not letting him read his letter from his letterbox. She does her best to be subtle by begging to stay at the party longer. Torvald refuses to give in to her pleas and eventually reads the letter. The result is not pretty. Torvald becomes furious, â€Å"And as for you and me, it must appear as if everything between us were just as before–but naturally only in the eyes of the world. You will still remain in my house, that is a matter of course. But I shall not allow you to bring up the children; I dare not trust them to you. To think that I should be obliged to say so to one whom I have loved so dearly, and whom I still–. No, that is all over. From this moment happiness is not the question; all that concerns us is to save the remains, the fragments, the appearance—† (Act III) Torvald’s idea of a solution is to do his best to hide the situation as best her can by trying to appease Krogstad. Then he wants to keep Nora as a prisoner in her own home while simultaneously isolating her from her own children indefinitely. All this time, Nora’s lies has cost her the relationship she thought she had with her husband. At the same time, Torvald has been hiding his true self from Nora. She never expected him to react in such a way and this lead her to make, more than likely, one of the hardest decision’s she’s ever had to make. While Nora stresses about Krogstad’s letter, Christina decides to pay him a visit and does what Nora should have done with Torvald. Christine tells Krogstad the truth. She explains to Krogstad why they could not be together in the past. She explains how much she needed money to care for her helpless mother and two brothers. She could not afford to wait around for Krogstad. That much, Krogstad can understand. Notice how, their conversation does not involve any talk of shunning the other in anyway. Because Christine is honest with Krogstad, he accepts her the way she is, flaws and all. In the end, Nora feels it is best for her to be on her way even after Torvald changes his mind. Krogstad decides to forget the debt and not hold it over Nora’s head as blackmail any longer. Torvald gets really happy and tries to act as if everything can go back the way it was, â€Å"Listen to me, Nora. You don’t seem to realise that it is all over. What is this? –such a cold, set face! My poor little Nora, I quite understand; you don’t feel as if you could believe that I have forgiven you. But it is true, Nora, I swear it; I have forgiven you everything. I know that what you did, you did out of love for me. † (Act III) He wants to believe that since Krogstad has relinquished the bonds, the situation is all over and everything her said before is in the past. Unfortunately for him, Nora is not so sure. She thinks about how he was so ready to shun her and put her away like a common criminal. She realizes that Torvald is not the noble man she thought he was and she is not the woman for him. She is tired of living like a man’s plaything all her life. Torvald is the one who helps her realize it and she leaves. Christine and Krogstad decide to revive their lost love and live together as a happy couple. So in the end, Nora and Torvald go through their marriage and lying to themselves and each other. As a result, the marriage falls apart and Nora makes the decision to walk away. She hopes to find herself in the world by allowing herself to be honest. Christine walks in with no one. She hides nothing and stays honest with herself. This gives her the freedom to be honest with her long, lost sweetheart, Krogstad. Her honesty gives them both the ability to truly love each other, unlike Nora and Krogstad. Nora and Christine have essentially switched places all because Christine was honest and Nora was not. How to cite Analysis of a Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen, Essay examples

Sample Essay on Organizational Justice under Law

Organizational justice, by definition, is the idea that a business activity or decision is morally correct in context of law, equity, fairness, religion, and ethics (DeConick 2010). This organizational justice behavior is greatly affected by certain aspects, including interactional, procedural, and distributive. These aspects are the integral components of organizational justice and differently influence the effectiveness and efficiency of organizational justice. Distributive organizational justice is defined as the justice related with distribution of resources and outcomes of decision made. However, the resources or outcomes distributed can either be intangible such as a positive appraisal or tangible such as adequate pay (DeConick 2010). The same is fostered in the situation where the outcomes are equally executed. The procedural organizational justice is conceptualized as the equity of the processes which result into effective outcomes (DeConick 2010). When the stakeholders associated with a company recognize their rights or if the concerned processes lacks bias or involves the characteristics such as ethicality, accuracy, and consistency, this aspect of organizational justice is fostered. Interactional justice, on the contrary, is defined as the treatment that can be promoted through delivering the news with respect and sensitivity, or the treatment that is offered to a person as decisions are made (DeConick 2010). This aspect is further divided into informational and interpersonal justice where the former refers to the efficiency of explanations made in the context of truthfulness, specificity, and timeliness. Similarly, latter refers to the perceptions of propriety and respect in an individuals treatment. Thus, it is evident that each of the discussed aspect alters the organizational justice behavior differently as each of the same follow different criteria to reach its decision. References DeConick, B., 2010, The effect of organizational justice, perceived organizational support, and perceived supervisor support on marketing employees level of trust. Journal of Business Research, vol. 63, no. 1, pp. 1349-1355.