Book Description

The California Gold Rush of 1848-1852 transformed San Francisco into a major city. This rapid rise, often attributed by historians to the accident of the gold discovery, is more a result of centuries-long processes of integration of the Pacific into the European world system. Integration of the Pacific occurred through maritime exploration, trade and commerce. By the mid-nineteenth century, California and its gold was another commodity in the longue durée of Pacific integration. Ships responding to the gold discovery brought mass-produced industrialized goods as well as commodities to support the growing city and its surrounding region. The role of shipping underscores how San Francisco's rise reflects the role of entrepôts, or zones of free exchange, as a model for integration, and as a new way of assessing a "frontier". San Francisco is not only an American settlement on the Pacific Coast of North America, but also a globally-linked port on the edge of the Pacific Rim. This dissertation assesses the rise of San Francisco and the role of a maritime system as an agent of the world system through historical archaeological examination of the buried Gold Rush waterfront of the city. A 9-square block area, partially burned and covered by landfill, includes well-preserved sites including partly burned fallen buildings and buried ships filled with cargo. These demonstrate how the rapidly constructed Gold Rush waterfront of moored ships, piers and buildings are macro-artifacts reflecting economic, social and political agendas in Gold Rush San Francisco. The waterfront provided the means for an ostensible mining settlement to survive the pattern of "boom or bust", and to become a critical entrepôt for United States interests in and ultimate command of Pacific and Asian trade. Analysis of these sites through a study of archival evidence, recovered artifacts and buried features interprets the maritime cultural landscape of the Gold Rush waterfront. While the Pacific by 1850 falls beyond the range of Wallerstein's original thesis for a World System, San Francisco's rapid rise is part of a frontier process linked to a "maritime system" that in itself can be incorporated within world systems theory.