Answer:
A.) They levied a heavy tax on foreign miners.
Explanation:
California gold rush was a social phenomenon occurred in the United States between 1847 and 1855, characterized by the large number of immigrants who came to the vicinity of San Francisco (California) in search of the metal. This phenomenon began near the town of Coloma, when gold was discovered in Sutter's Mill. When the news of the discovery spread, around three hundred thousand people emigrated to California from the rest of the United States and other countries.
The first gold seekers, called forty-niners, traveled to California by boat on the Cape Horn route or in caravans crossing the continent, facing a very hard trip most of the time. Most immigrants were Americans, but the gold rush also attracted tens of thousands of people from Latin America, Europe, Australia and Asia. At first, gold seekers collected gold in streams and riverbeds using simple techniques such as screening, but later developed more sophisticated methods for extracting gold that were adopted throughout the world. Some of these seekers of fortune became millionaires, but most were left with little more of the goods they had when the fever began.
The effects of this sudden migration were spectacular. Before the gold rush, San Francisco was a tiny village, and with the fever the village became a city. Schools, roads and churches were built, and other towns were founded. A legal and governmental system was created, which led to the admission of California as a state of the Union in 1850. New means of transportation, such as the steamboat, entered service in the state, and railway lines were laid . The business of agriculture was also started, the second fastest growing item in California.
The gold rush also had other effects: the aborigines of the region were attacked and expelled from their traditional lands. Important was also the environmental impact that mining produced.
