ALL THAT GLITTERS
During the 19th century, the discovery of gold in far-flung corners of the world could literally put a place on the map. Overnight, anonymous stretches of America, Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand became powerful vortexes, sucking in thousands of fortune hunters from around the globe in a frenzy of fossicking.
This itinerant rabble of gold rushers were an excitable and eclectic bunch, encompassing Cornish tin miners, Scottish crofters, Irish labourers, Chinese fishermen, Chilean farmers, Australian clerks, emancipated African-heritage slaves, Mexican soldiers, German blacksmiths, Italian aristocrats and American authors. They spoke many languages in an even greater variety of accents, but almost exclusively they were male. And they all had one thing on their mind: gold. Such a kaleidoscopically colourful collection of humanity, suddenly converging on the very edge of nowhere, populating pop-up towns and cities with no infrastructure, accommodation or law enforcement, sounds like a recipe for disaster. And often it was.
No matter where in the world these stampeders rushed off to – California, Victoria, Otago, Witwatersrand, the Klondike – the story that unfolded once they arrived was always similar. Though a few got lucky and became rich, most saw their dreams die and their savings evaporate. Illness, destitution and death were common outcomes, and many of those who escaped such misfortunes never returned home, despite families and workplaces awaiting them, inflicting a hidden cost on communities worlds apart.
Reality very rarely met expectation, and the only distractions from digging dirt and sifting silt involved gambling, boozing, brawling and prostitution – the latter sometimes involving indentured labour. As hastily thrown-up towns rapidly boomed (and then often
