On This Day (1/24/1848): In 1848 the California Gold Rush began. The gold rush started when James W. Marshall found gold at Sutter’s Mill in Coloma, California. Over the next two years, over 300,000 people arrived in California looking for gold. The human and environmental costs of the Gold Rush were substantial. Native Americans, dependent on traditional hunting, gathering and agriculture, became the victims of starvation and disease, as gravel, silt and toxic chemicals from... prospecting operations killed fish and destroyed habitats and the surge in miners brought new diseases to the area. The explosion in the mining population also resulted in the disappearance of game and food gathering locales as gold camps and other settlements were built amidst them. Later farming spread to supply the camps, taking more land from the use of Native Americans. In 1850 The Act for the Government and Protection of Indians was passed by the California Legislature, which allowed settlers to continue the Californio practice of capturing and using Native people as bonded workers. It also provided the basis for the enslavement and trafficking in Native American labor, particularly that of young women and children, which was carried on as a legal business enterprise. Native American villages were regularly raided to supply the demand, and young women and children were carried off to be sold, the men and remaining people often being killed in genocidal attacks. To this day, Native peoples of California have never been compensated for the millions of dollars in gold taken from their lands, the theft of their land, or for the genocide perpetuated upon them.