Gold Rush Days reports
from Daniel (age 9) and Masa (age 13)

A Golden Day!by Daniel

The day began with fish fried golden brown. We ate 8 Crappie and 1 Bass. I think it was great! But Masa didn't like it, so he had potato soup. Next we got ready to go to the river and then to town. The river was warmer than yesterday, but still cold! Brrr! We went into town to go to a gold mine tour and to do some gold panning. In the gold mine, we went down 60 feet! It was was wild yet cool! It was 59 degrees Farenheit. It felt good!　 Our guide said that the third rail in between the tracks was for the electricity which ran the mine cars. There was a 100 feet of water down a 180 foot drop. In this mine was one of the largest gold veins in the world. It was the largest mine east of the Mississippi at the beginning of the 20th century. After we came out of the mine, we all panned for gold and each of us got about 11 peices of gold. We are rich, Yea!

Gold Rush Reflectionsby Masa

Today, I got the feeling of the Gold Rush spirit. Most people have a strong feeling for gold, but I can not forget the following story of the gold rush in Georgia.

In 1828 thousands of white people came to the Cherokee land of Dahlonega in America's first gold rush. (In the Cherokee language, "Dahlonega" means "the color gold.") "Gold!!," the whites with gold fever yelled as the gold rush began. 10 years later in 1838, the whites forced the Cherokee Indians off of their land. This was the beginning of the Cherokee Indian "Trail of Tears." They moved from Georgia to Oklahoma in the winter. I heard this story at the Dahlonega Gold Museum.

In Japan, we have a similar story. When the rulers of KAI, the old name for Yamanashi-ken, found gold in ENZAN, they killed the local people who lived there to take the gold.

Why is it that--even though the Cherokee Indians were humans just like the Europeans--they did not mine the gold which was so abundant on their land.
I want to learn much more about the Cherokee civilization.

(The picture on the left is the old gold mint in Dahlonega now on the campust of North Georgia College. The picture on the right is the Atlanta state capital building, the dome of which is covered in Dahlonega gold.)

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