[California Gold Rush]:

$6,500 · Offered by William Reese Company

COLUMBIA MINING LAWS [caption title]. A rare broadside printing of the laws of the Columbia Mining District in California in 1853, created and enforced by the miners for their own self-government. The seventeen articles all deal with regulations for mining and claims. The first nine set out rules for making and operating claims. The next three address foreign ownership of claims. Article 10: "None but Americans and Europeans who have or shall declare their intentions of becoming citizens, shall hold claims in this district...." Article 11: "Neither Asiatics nor South Sea Islanders shall be allowed to mine in this district, either for themselves or for others." Article 12 sets out a punishment for any miner who sells a claim to an Asian or a Polynesian. The final five articles set out rules for enforcing the laws, including the creation of a Miners Committee, and a system of binding arbitration. According to the text, the laws were adopted "at a meeting of the Miners of the Columbia Mining District, held Oct. 1st, 1853...," and the laws are signed in print by "C.H. Chamberlain, Pres." and "R.A. Robinson, Sec'y.""The item is of basic importance...as an example of how the California miners - or men beyond the reach of government anywhere else in our States and Territories, for that matter - banded together and enacted and enforced codes of law for their own protection" - Eberstadt. The COLUMBIA GAZETTE (which printed this broadside) was, according to Kemble, the second newspaper

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