1850

January 29: U.S. Senator Henry Clay presents a compromise to prevent the Union from dissolving over the issue of slavery. Congress debates Clay's proposal for eight months before passing the Compromise of 1850, which includes allowing California to enter the union as a free state.

April 13: The state legislature levies a $20 per month tax on non-American born miners. The tax primarily targets Latin Americans. Resistance to the Foreign Miners Tax comes from French, Mexican, Chilean and German miners as well as from merchants who faced tremendous business loss as a direct result of the tax. The passage of the tax bill will lead to a rise in banditry in the mines; the tax will be repealed in March 1851.

April 22: The California legislature passes an Act for the Government and Protection of Indians that essentially forces Native Americans into servitude. The law provides for the forced labor of loitering or orphaned Native Americans, regulates their employment, and defines a special class of Indian crimes with punishments.

May 1:The Panama sails from San Francisco for the East Coast carrying $1,500,156 in gold dust.

May 4: In San Francisco, a second Great Fire breaks out in the United States Exchange, a saloon and gambling house, and soon engulfs the entire block bounded by Kearny, Clay, Montgomery and Washington Street. The fire jumps Washington Street across from the Plaza. There was one death, 300 buildings burned and $4,000,000 in damage.

May 11: Methodist missionary Israel Lord expressed his feeling that people should have equal rights to dig gold. "It is strange that Americans are not willing to give foreigners an equal chance, when there is so much labor required to secure uncertain gains which fall to the lot of the laborer here....I, for one, contend that they have the same right to dig for gold here as in the older States for iron, or wheat, or potatoes," Lord wrote in his journal. Since the fall of 1849, Americans have been making efforts to oust foreigners from the gold fields.

June 14: Another fire in San Francisco destroys the area between Clay, California and Kearny all the way down to the Bay. Three hundred more buildings are lost, and the damages cost $5,000,000.

June 15: The Mayor presides over a mass meeting at Merchants' Exchange to raise money for a water supply for fire protection. $7000 is raised.

June 22: A 500-pound grizzly bear is caught near the Mission Dolores in San Francisco.

September 9: California is admitted to the Union as the 31st state.

September 17: A fourth Great Fire destroys 150 buildings in the area bounded by Dupont, Montgomery, Washington and Pacific streets. The loss is estimated at $500,000.

October 2: Hiram Pierce decides to give up mining and go back to his family in Troy, New York. His journey home is difficult and he contracts Chagres fever. Pierce reunites with his family on January 8, 1851.

October 18: The news that California has been admitted to the Union reaches San Francisco. The entire city bursts into spontaneous celebration.

An estimated 50,000 people are mining in California by the end of 1850. The estimated Chinese population in California is 660.

1852

In 1852, 20,026 Chinese enter the U.S. through the San Francisco customs house. The previous year only 2,716 had done so. In 1853 the number dropped to 4,270, but it bounced back up to 16,084 in 1854.

April 1: Frederick Douglass writes about the spread of gold fever among blacks.

May 4: A second Foreign Miners Tax is imposed, this one aimed at the Chinese. The tax lasted through the 1860s and became a key source of revenue for the new American state of California.

Gold exports for the year 1852 amount to $45,587,803.

By the end of the year, the entire non-native population of California is estimated to be 223,586.

1854

September 24: The preserved head of Joaquin Murieta is sold at auction for $36.

In People v. Hall, the California Supreme Court reverse the conviction of George Hall and two other white men who murdered a Chinese man. Hall and his companions had been convicted based on testimony by Chinese witnesses. The court bases its decision on a California law stating that African Americans, Native Americans and all other people of color may not testify in court. The judges rules that the Chinese should be considered Native Americans and are "a race of people whom nature has marked as inferior and who are incapable of progress or intellectual development beyond a certain point."

July 15: A dispute over a gambling table between a man from Hong Kong and a man from Canton escalates into the Weaverville War. At three o'clock in the afternoon in Weaverville, before 1,000 white spectators, 140 Hong Kong men charge 400 men from the other Chinese associations, drive their opponents away and capture their flag. Eight Canton men and two Hong Kong men are killed and a dozen on each side severely wounded. One white spectator shoots at one of the Chinese parties and another spectator shoots the white man dead.

1857

The search for gold continued unabated throughout the 1850s. Gold production stabilized in 1857 at about 45 million dollars a year.

Rapid technological advances in the 1850s, most notably the rise of river, quartz, and hydraulic mining, require far greater capital resources. To meet the growing need for capital, large-scale corporations become the dominant form of economic organization, and speculation in mining securities becomes a regional obsession.

1861

Civil War begins.

1902

July 11: Luzena Stanley Wilson dies of thyroid cancer in San Francisco.