Gold rush histories are usually written as though they were unique events in
the development of a region or nation. While this is a valid way of looking at
gold rushes, it is not the only way. This paper is a brief attempt to relate the
West Coast rushes to a wider context.
During the second half of the nineteenth century the lure of gold transformed
the Pacific Rim. Gold rushes drew more than half a million Europeans and
Americans to lands bordering the Pacific. By 1900 a chain of mining, industrial
and urban centres ran from California to Alaska; from Ballarat to New Guinea,
and on to Western Australia. The New Zealand rushes were a significant chapter
in this story.
People, cargo and information passed from rush to rush. Techniques learned on
earlier goldfields were imported; those developed in New Zealand were, in turn,
taken up elsewhere. Administrative systems and regulations developed in
Australia were implemented in New Zealand, improved and passed on to Canada.
This interconnectedness was so strong that gold-seekers thought of the mining
regions as a distinct culture, 'the whole digging world'.
Much can be made of the similarities shared by rushes. But comparison can
also highlight the individuality of each rush. The early days of the West Coast
rushes were perhaps the strongest assertion of a diggers' culture. A brief
period in which a remarkable orderliness was created through mateship,
self-regulation, and the occasional threat of rough justice.
The West Coast rushes were both a unique experience and an integral part of a
process which transformed the Pacific Rim during the nineteenth century.
Understanding their part in that bigger story highlights just how unique they
were.