The Gold Rush Diary of Ramon Gil Navarro

Gold! Gold! Gold! This seductive mantra, shouted throughout the Americas in 184849, convinced thousands of people that California's gold could be had simply by picking it up off the ground. Ramon Gil Navarro, an Argentinean political exile living in Chile, heard these rumors of a new El Dorado, but he was not so naive as to believe that the gold merely had to be gathered. He understood that mining required extensive capital investment and labor, and along with three other investors he arranged to have 120 workers and a shipload of supplies sent to California. Navarro accompanied the workers to Stockton and began prospecting. Gold rush California was a rough and tumble world where finding goldand keeping itwas not a simple matter. Navarro encountered people from all over the world brought together in a society marked by racial and ethnic intolerance, swift and cruel justice, and great hardships. It was a world of contrasts, where the roughest of the rough lived in close proximity to extremely refined cultural circles. Despite his planning, Navarro had not reckoned on the racism he would encounter. He witnessed several instances of Anglo miners harassing Latinos and other ethnic groups. After three years without success, Navarro returned to South America. He became a national representative in the Argentinean congress and worked as a journalist. He never returned to California.

Chapter One

The Diary of

Ramón Gil Navarro

Concepción [Chile], 15 February 1849. On my way to California

Several days ago Don Ignacio Palma, Don Manuel Zerrano, Liljebalch, and Juan Alemparte were attempting to arrange an expedition to California. Four people were appointed directors of a company that is supposed to take thirty workers plus a ship full of supplies up to California for a two-year stay to work the gold mines there. I am one of the four who is supposed to direct this venture. A ship called the Carmen has been bought for 10,000 pesos, and it is being loaded. It will leave as soon as possible. Don Manuel Santamaría, Don Tomás Rioseco, and Don Borjas Fernandes are my fellow directors. I have been signing up men, and we are all part owners. The expedition will cost 30,000 pesos, but this investment will also eventually be ours. I have given my word, and I cannot back off now. I do not know what Lady Luck will do for me.... For the past three years I have had no real place to call my own, though during this period I have progressed a great deal, always in the right direction. Who knows if Lady Luck wants me to get rich as well? Anyway I am going to go six thousand miles from here. God, what will it be like? Well, my thoughts are pure, and God will be with me. And if I am to die at sea or up there where the life of an adventurer is fraught with so many perils, so what? But no, God will not want this. I have a poor family that deserves to be happy. I am searching for that and nothing else. My God, help me and stay with me!

28 February 1849

New decisions have been made regarding our company. The partners have rightfully reached the conclusion that having four persons heading up the company would lead to total disorder, rendering it difficult to make decisions. They have decided that I should go along with Dr. MacKay, who, being English, will be able to help me. Besides, he is a doctor by profession, and this might be useful as well. Actually I don't normally get on very well with the English, but this decision seems like a good one to me. Everything is almost ready. The Carmen will be carrying 150 passengers, including the crew. It looks as though the total cost will be more than 30,000 pesos. There are hardly any young men left in Concepción. The ones not going with us are going to be aboard the General Rivera , which is ready to leave, or the Holland , which is to leave in another fifteen days. The Freire should be coming soon from Valparaiso to get ready for the voyage to California, and the Oballe left about twenty days ago. This place is almost empty.

On the meridian, 11 degrees north, 4 April 1849. Another storm

Today around ten o'clock a horrible storm of funneling wind struck us. The entire crew was in a fix, but the ship finally was able to smooth its sails, and now the strength of the storm is a little less fearful. We are heading into the wind, but at least we are able to advance a bit.

    I feel sorry for the young men in the crew who have to climb to the top of the masts on the captain's orders to reef the sails. How appalling it would be for the mothers of these lads to see them swinging at the end of a pole only held by their chests, with the rest of their bodies flailing wildly in the air. This would not be so bad if the wind were not blowing hard, but now, when the sails and the masts are creaking with great force, it is really frightening to behold how these poor devils are so close to real danger. And despite the fact that storms have often thrown sailors into the sea, for them, one of these storms is not dangerous at all. They are jumping up and down now with joy because it is pouring rain and they can finally wash their clothes.

    On deck you can hear shouts and exclamations of joy as each one washes his clothes. They make one of their comrades slip on deck and that way he gets a bath, and everyone laughs all the time. The carpenter has tied a rope around his waist and has jumped overboard just for fun. The ship is moving as fast as lightening now, and he is towed alongside. It looks like mountains of water rise and come to gobble him up, but he and the ship pass over the waves like a feather. It would not be surprising either if a shark just slipped up and made a nice sandwich out of his leg. The captain says there are many sharks in these waters.

San Francisco, California, 30 April. The anchor went down in the bay!

It is half past two in the afternoon, and we have just put the anchor out in this port. I am hardly able to write because I am trembling all over with excitement.... Thank the good Lord, who has protected us so well and has granted us the most felicitous voyage imaginable. We arrived before many other ships that set out twenty or thirty days before us. Yet even this most fortunate of ships arrived here with no mast and while taking on water. The port was filled with warships and merchant marine vessels, almost one hundred of them. It is hard to imagine a more impressive and beautiful port. The bay is the most beautiful and secure bay of all the Americas, and possibly of Europe as well. It is entirely protected on all sides. The hills are completely green as befits the springtime at hand, though it is as cold as can be.... The wealth of the mines is beyond doubt, but it might be very costly to get there. There are warships and an established government here, but laws do not seem to be respected, and there are no police officers around to make sure they are obeyed or to establish a semblance of public order. There are murders and robberies, but nobody protests, and nobody pursues the murderer or the thief. Everyone carries his own weapons, living and sleeping with them, defending himself as best he can. In other words, this is even more than a Babylon because there is the greatest sort of confusion of languages, of religions, of laws, of taxes, etc., etc. We found out all of this thanks to some Chileans who just came abroad. I shall go ashore and will take it all in with my own eyes.

Tuesday, 1 May 1849. Back on board

It is nine o'clock at night, and I have just come aboard the ship with the captain. All night yesterday and this morning I was writing and sending letters aboard a ship that left this midday. None of what they had told us about California is false. Everything, everything is completely true. There must be as much bustle and confusion in the port as there will be in the valley of Josaphat on the day of the Last Judgment, where, according to the prophets, all the nations of the world will come together. Well, this could not be much less; there are people from all over the world, and loads of them. The houses are as lovely perhaps as those of Valparaíso. The luxury of the cafés is almost unbelievable, considering how expensive everything is because of all the gold. Their windows at night afford a view much like that of an enchanted palace. From the outside you can see the wonderful landscapes, portraits, and other paintings, the likes of which I have never seen. All of it is so alive and natural that it is as though you were touching them in reality. The rooms of these cafés are luxuriously appointed in the extreme, and their walls are filled with paintings of all types and subjects. I would call most of these paintings both very beautiful and very obscene.

    Gambling tables are all over, and people gamble all the time, no matter whether they are laborers, artisans, public employees, military officers, Indians, or just about anyone else. The least they bet on a card is one or two ounces of gold, and each dealer has at least six, eight, or ten thousand pesos in front of him. In a saloon there are only six or eight types of games. There was one dealer who caught my eye more than the others. He was a Chilean with a straw hat pulled down over his eyebrows and who handled the cards with amazing dexterity. Around the table he had one man who was picking up his earnings and another paying what he had lost. I came up to the table almost at the same time as a Mexican with a poncho down practically to his heels, a sombrero so large that the brims went out past his shoulders, with hair down to his waist, and a beard to his chest. He took out a little sack, which I thought had tobacco but which in fact was filled with gold, and bet all of it on the first card dealt. Since another card won, with no sign of any emotion at all, he pinched about a peso's worth of the gold dust he had lost and said, "this is for a slug of rum and off to bed." I was in a state of shock because it was the first time in my life that I had ever seen anything like it.

    At the end of a long corridor the captain and I saw a group of men playing darts, where the only thing flowing was gold. There was so much gold on the table that the entire top was covered and it looked as if the table itself was made of gold. As we were leaving we asked how much a cup of coffee cost, and we were told it was twelve reales . At that price we figured it was better to have our coffee on board the ship, and so we left. The price was not surprising. Around here a new shirt costs $4 [pesos], and washing it costs another $2. It costs $4 to carry a single load from the docks to the warehouse and another $34 (without meals) to get a man to the staging areas near the mining country. It costs another $25 to get one arroba of goods from there to the mines, as long as there are wagons or carts, and if not, two ounces of gold. A leg of meat costs $25 in the mines, and a pound of flour costs one peso and twelve reales. All of this may seem like a dream, but it is as real as the person writing in this diary.

Wednesday, 2 May

It is such a shame to watch the multitude of young men whose hopes appear to have been dashed and who are obliged to load and unload the boats in order to make a living. They thought that over here it was only a question of arriving, getting their share of gold, and returning to Chile with their fortunes made in two or three months. How wrong they were! I have seen a lot of elegantly dressed young men who are carrying boxes around on their shoulders from the beach to the warehouse in order to earn four pesos a day, hardly enough for a square meal. When Samuel arrived here, he consigned his cargo to an Englishman and went to live in the tent at the house of a friend. He too has had to wash clothes and to cook for himself and for other mates who were desperate and who seemed to prefer to die of hunger and without clothing rather than to serve themselves. Poor Samuel! He is probably the most elegant young man I know, the greatest friend of comfort, and yet the English tell me he is the only one to have remained strong throughout all the travails they have had to endure. Who knows what awaits me, a person who has, up until now, only had to observe the privations of others?

    I am beginning to see that over here only big investments really work, and even though we have some and our company is fairly large, I fear that we too will be reduced eventually to God knows what.... I can see that Dr. MacKay is doing his best to sell the cargo and take us and all of the supplies to Stockton. This part will cost us five hundred or one thousand pesos, and after that on to the mines, which is the hardest part for most outfits. We could take on a loan against the ship or its cargo, but today we have seen the contract, which has an article directly prohibiting the doctor or myself from incurring any debts against the company. We can have all the money generated from selling the cargo or the ship, but neither of them can be sold for cash just to gain ready access to this money. Today I took samples of all the articles to E. Mikel and Co., who told me that if we could not find buyers we could put up the goods at auction, which is rather like burning them. The workers are like caged animals. The doctor has told them they can flee if they want, but if they do they should be prepared to work in jail. Since they know that his threats cannot be backed up, they say that they will go whenever they want. It is strange that they did not leave the day we arrived, much as has happened to many companies who have come here. Oh well, may the Lord's will be done.

Thursday, 3 May. Revolution

Today I was speaking with the doctor, and he told me that he has decided to go his own way and leave everything in my charge. I pointed out to him that according to the contract he could not leave the company unless there were fewer than ten men remaining. He seems to have regretted talking to me about his own determination so clearly. Yet it seems that my observation has opened the way for him, because just now he has granted permission to the crew to go ashore, and I am almost certain that half of them will never return. Three have already left, saying clearly that they will not return. One man named Montiel deserted yesterday, but I found him in the main square and ordered him to follow me. At first he resisted, but when I showed him the pistols in my holster, knowing that California is not Chile and that shootings and knifings cause no excitement here at all, he followed me without saying a word. This morning, while taking some cargo ashore in our boat, after insults and fights with other sailors, he finally jumped out when it reached shore and fled. This time I do not think I will find him.

    This morning I wrote to Samuel in Stockton, advising him of my arrival and my situation. It looks like I will end up carrying the weight of the entire company. If he were here next to me, I am sure there would not be any major problems like there were with the doctor. I think he could handle everything. I may be wrong, but it looks like he is much more capable here than either the doctor or I.

Friday, 4 May. A terrible situation!

This morning I went off very early to see if there was any work for our men while some sort of decision was being made regarding our going to the mines. A number of proposals were made that I did not find very interesting, and finally we decided to settle on an agreement tonight with an Englishman who needs eight men to cut adobe bricks and to dig a trench. He offered me six pesos per day plus meals for each man, and I asked for eight pesos without meals, which I could provide. Tonight we are to close this deal in the central square at the Café del Encanto. It might be a bit difficult to find my man because this is the café where all of California meets at night. The doctor no longer seems to be involved at all with our company. I do not know his whereabouts or how to find him. Four or six of the men have fled, and I have no news about their whereabouts. This morning E. Mikel told me that earlier he had proposed to the doctor that twenty laborers work eight days on a street. But the doctor had not been interested. His lack of diligence has made us lose 1,300 pesos for reasons I cannot understand. I sure hope it wasn't to damage the company, because in doing so he would not be getting anything for himself. Not feeding the laborers or finding work for them leads to boredom, and that is why they leave. If only ten remain, then he is a free man.... Ergo c'est vrai, il ne veut pas travailler pour la compagnie, il fait tout seul son affaire ....

    The beach is completely filled with tents and shacks made of crates by the Chileans, who have nothing to do and spend their days mired in their misery and hoping to get to the mines. There are the young Aldunates, Lucos, Martínez, etc., from Santiago, and the only thing you can see in their faces is the sense of abandonment of those who are carried along by misery perhaps to their death, for they cannot work nor are they used to the travails they are enduring. Poor devils! The wind is strong, cold, and humid, and the water comes up to the very entrance of their shacks. Who would have said that these young men who had departed from Chile, leaving behind their country, their families, their comforts and all, were only to come to this land to suffer the privations and miseries of a beggar. My Lord, what a horrible situation!

Saturday, 5 May. Drowned in search of gold

One of the young Martínez boys, after having made his fortune, was to travel once again to Sacramento on a great business deal. As he was leaving the bay the boat he was on developed a leak, took on water, and ended up sinking. He was able to grab his bedroll, which was floating on the water, but the current snatched it from him, and the waves swallowed him up amidst the shouts and cries he made for help, the last of which were destined for his family. His parents and his six brothers may have lost all of their hope and worldly possessions, but none of these would cause sorrow so great as losing a son and a brother.

    Some men came from the mines today and said that the Indians have invaded the camps of the Chileans and, even though they were driven back, five or six compatriots perished, one of whom was a young man from Valparaiso. Another two or three young Chileans have just died of fever in Sacramento, and we still do not know who their families are. I am still waiting to see what God wants to do with me, though for now I am very happy.

Sunday, 6 May. The first California mission

I had hoped to go to mass today, but I am alone on board and cannot spend the entire day at mass without exposing the ship to some unforeseen danger. Here in San Francisco the Catholics do not have a church. A league from here there is a convent that they call the mission. Even though the convent is now in ruins, it is clear from the order and the tastefulness of the building that it must have been built by the Jesuits. At the mission there are a few Jesuit missionaries, who are the only Catholic priests you find occasionally around here, and that is where we have to go to hear mass. Since it is springtime now, vegetation and flowers of different types and colors cover the hills and plains you cross on your way there. In this way, the trip there is lovely. It is as though the God of the Catholics had lined the road to his temple with flowers and plants. I spent the entire day aboard ship, and the cannon shot sounding the nine o'clock hour at night from an American ship just rang out across the bay. What would I have been doing just now had I been in Concepción? I would have gone to listen to music with Juan, Mardoqueo, and Fabio! What sad thoughts have just come over me!

Tuesday, 15 May. The Chinese

A ship from China just entered the bay, and it is quite unlike all of the other ships around. All of the crew are wearing red hats, and even the captain has one that folds and falls over his shoulders. Two additional American warships sailed into the bay, and they say another one that sunk six miles from here with 250 men on board belonged to the same fleet. A brigantine from the Canary Islands and another from the Sandwich Islands also came in, making five ships in only one day.

    Last night as I was walking with Rivero in front of the Café del Encanto, we heard them playing music and decided to enter. Inside there were two Mexicans playing the harp beautifully. We had a wonderful time inside listening to the music. It was the first time my heart has beaten softly to the rhythm of music since I arrived in California. They played pieces I knew and have played before. Parts of opera that I have sung together with Samuel, Mardoqueo, Juan, in those happy days before we decided to head for California. After they had finished playing, one of them came around with a tray in hand to collect whatever we might want to give him. Nobody there, I am sure, paid up with more pleasure than I.

Wednesday, 16 May

It was ten o'clock at night by the time the captain came back after being away for a couple of days. The night is darker and colder than ever. The captain and his men were all wet and shivering from the cold. Fortunately, I was just having some tea and had saved them some ham and cake, which my Chepe had given me today. This wonderful black man idolizes me since I am the only one aboard who speaks French. With all his talent and capability, the poor guy cannot understand a word of Spanish or English. Let's leave Chepe for later. The captain found no trace of our lost boat, even though he went more than fifteen leagues down the coast. He found an old rancher who had been the local governor two years ago and now is not even the lowest soldier. He gave him lots of provisions, including four bottles of milk, bread, and meat. I am sorry I did not go with them.

Thursday, 17 May. A death aboard!!

This afternoon a terrible thing occurred. The captain of the Roland , anchored only twenty-five feet away from our Carmen , like all the other captains, has suffered from the tendency of his sailors to desert before unloading all of the cargo. Today the last two of them wanted to leave even before having finished a job they had begun this very morning. He was very upset and wanted to retain them by force, as is his right, according to the contract he has with them. They spoke to him impertinently, and he replied by saying that he was going to tie them up. At that point the most desperate of the two dared to grab him by the collar of his coat. The captain could not bear this sort of affront from one of his sailors, and, perhaps for the first time in his life, his French pride took over and he did not use his head. He took out a pistol he had brought from his cabin and ordered the sailor to let him go, lest he blow his brains out. Instead of letting him go, the sailor grabbed him and raised his fist to hit him. But there was no time because his fist stopped in midair as his brains were blown against the door of the cabin across the way, turning it into a tricolor door of white, red, and green. The captain immediately went to General Smith and told him what had happened. The general asked if there were any witnesses the captain had brought with him. The general replied "well done." Now two mates have just thrown the body of that poor devil overboard. One of them had him by the arms and the other by the legs, as they swayed the body back and forth to the rhythm of "one, two ..." A terrible thing, but insolence and immorality were on the rise, and an exemplary punishment was necessary. It fell to this poor devil to be an example to all the others. May God receive this poor man, as he deserves.

Friday, 18 May. Samuel

Samuel and I have just come aboard. While I was in the house of Nemecio Martínez I saw a young man arrive with hair to his shoulders and dark as a San Benito. I hardly recognized him, but it was Samuel! He was carrying his bedding on his back, had a little yellow metal box under his arm, and was wearing a rich pair of pistols in an embroidered holster. He was a living bandit. He is fat and as healthy as ever. Thank God.

Monday, 21 May. Preparations

Today we got all of our equipment and cargo together, for we are to leave tomorrow. I am lucky because Samuel will accompany me to Stockton, where once again we will take leave of each other. Yesterday a North American friend of Samuel invited us to have lunch, and at two o'clock we were at the inn. I have never seen as much luxury, not even in the best inns of Valparaíso. The dining room was more than fifty yards long, and there were two lines of tables. At our table there were nearly 200 persons eating. It was a delight to see all the lavish decor in the room. All the dishes were made of Chinese porcelain, and the waiters were as facile and clean as the best of gentlemen. There were two Chinese servants with braids all the way down their backs and with the ugliest faces imaginable. Yet I was delighted to see the care with which they served each course.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from The Gold Rush Diary of Ramón Navarro by Ramón Gil Navarro. Copyright © 2000 by University of Nebraska Press. Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.