In 1848-’49 true diversity came to California with the gold rush. People came from all over the world to strike it rich in the gold fields. Others came to get money off of the people working in the gold mines.This was the main point in a series of presentations, the first of which was shown by Carlos Lopez, the president Emeritus of Menlo College and a historian of Chileans in California.

At last Thursday’s presentation, Chileans were the topic of conversation. Chileans flocked to California a year before the 1849 gold rush actually started. Mainly coming from one of the busiest ports of the time; Valparaiso. Originally they came to San Francisco and formed a sub-town called Little Chile. However, the Chileans were hated by the white inhabitants of the city and Little Chile was destroyed in the process of running the Chileans out of town by a gang called the Hounds.

From there the Chileans dispersed across California. Most of the Chileans went to the mines, and perfected a mining technique which came to be known as the Chilean mill, but in the mines, the Chileans were detested. Taxes were passed on immigrant gold miners, giving the government the Chileans gold before they got it. They were also pushed out of their claims in incidents like the Calaveras war, in which several were executed, and many sent back to Valparaiso without ears. However, despite initial friction the Chileans eventually mixed well with their neighbors because many of them already spoke English.

One of those who succeeded was Faxon Atherton. Atherton’s ships brought goods from Valparaiso to San Francisco, and with the profits from selling goods to San Francisco he was able to purchase several ranches and homes across California. The most famous of which became the first home in the town of Atherton. Faxon Atherton raised a very large family which continues to this day. As a matter of fact Carlos Lopez is a great great grandson of Faxon Atherton.

Lopez’s speech attempted to disprove many myths about Chileans in the 1850’s such as:• Joaquin Marietta, a popular bandit of the time period, was not Chilean; he was Mexican.

• Furthermore Lopez couldn’t find many Chileans in California, while 30,000 were guessed to have existed, due to the records having been burned down in the 1906 earthquake, but he could only find 3,000.

• The Hounds, who chased the Chilean’s out of San Francisco, only existed for one to two months, and only in San Francisco.

• Finally to those of you hoping to cash in on the Chilean experience there are no millionaire grandfathers who went back to Chile.”Chileans can be proud of their 1848 achievements. We have judges, congress men; one of the judges at Nuremburg was a Chilean,” Lopez said.

With that quote Lopez transferred the presentation into the raffle. This went almost 2 minutes before anyone actually won something.

The next presentation will be on October 23rd on the Chinese in the gold fields.