Question

How did the California gold rush create major problems between Northern free states and Southern slave states?

Answer 1

"Large numbers started heading West, and territories like Kansas and Nebraska began to acquire signficance as future states of the Union. This provoked a heated debate as to whether they would be slave-states or free soil."

Answer 2

Answer:

The California Gold Rush began in 1848, when a large gold mine was discovered in the vicinity of what is now San Francisco. From that moment on, huge numbers of people from all over the world began to travel to California, with the aim of exploiting the gold mines and becoming rich. These people, the 49ers, were the pioneers in the exploitation of gold and the urbanization of the territory.

Once these people arrived in California, they began to create cities and settle in them. This caused that, due to the magnitude of its wealth and its population size, California was admitted as a state in 1850. Then, the problem arose because the majority of the Californian population was against slavery, but its entry to Congress would unbalance the balance between the slave and non-slave states. Therefore, the Compromise of 1850 was reached, by which the entry of California was admitted and Utah and New Mexico were allowed to adopt slavery, by the principle of popular sovereignty.