1.
Yuba River
–
The Yuba River is a tributary of the Feather River in the Sierra Nevada and eastern Sacramento Valley, in the U. S. state of California. The main stem of the river is about 40 miles long, the confluence of the former two is considered the beginning of the Yuba River. The river drains about 1,339 square miles of the slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountain range as well as a small portion of the Sacramento Valley. It contributes about a third of the flow of the Feather River, and almost 10 percent of the flow of the Sacramento River, the rivers name comes from a Maidu village, spelled in early records as Yubu and applied to the river by 1844. Some claim the name is a variant of Spanish uba or uva, most of the Yuba Rivers flow is incorporated from its three main tributaries, the North Yuba, Middle Yuba and South Yuba. All three rivers run westwards from the crest of the Sierra Nevada to form the stream of the Yuba. The beginning of the stem is defined as the confluence of the North and Middle Yuba Rivers. The North Yuba River,61.0 miles long, rises near the border of the Tahoe National Forest. It flows southwest then west through a 3, 000-foot-deep canyon past the villages of Downieville, where it receives the Downie River. Very soon after leaving the dam it joins with the Middle Yuba to form the Yuba River, originating in a bowl-shaped valley in Moscove Meadow, the 55. The river bends to the southwest, then west again, receiving Kanaka Creek from the right and it intersects California State Route 49 about 2 miles northwest of North San Juan, then a few miles after joins with the North Yuba River. The river briefly enters Placer County, then flows into Lake Spaulding, canyon Creek enters from the right, then Poorman Creek also from the right near the town of Washington. The river continues west into the foothills, crossing under State Route 49 and its mouth is on the east shore of upper Englebright Lake, formed by a dam across the Yuba River. | From the joining of the North and Middle forks, the Yuba flows southwards, then southwest, through the Sierra Nevada foothills, the river widens into the main arm of Englebright Lake near French Bar, and is joined by the South Yuba within the reservoir. The Yuba leaves the Englebright Dam near Lake Wildwood, California and is joined by Deer Creek. The river then turns southwest, flowing through irrigated farmland and it then skirts the south side of Marysville and reaches its destination at the Feather River between the cities of Marysville, Yuba City and Linda. The Yuba River valley was situated in one of Californias largest Native American population centers. Historians divide the living in the Yuba area into several groups – the Konkow, Maidu, Nisenan
2.
Aboriginal title
–
Aboriginal title is a common law doctrine that the land rights of indigenous peoples to customary tenure persist after the assumption of sovereignty under settler colonialism. Nearly all jurisdictions are in agreement that aboriginal title is inalienable, except to the government. Aboriginal title was first acknowledged in the early 19th century, in decisions in which peoples were not a party. Significant aboriginal title litigation resulting in victories for indigenous peoples did not arise until recent decades, the majority of court cases have been litigated in Australia, Canada, Malaysia, New Zealand, and the United States. Aboriginal title is an important area of law, with many cases being cited as persuasive authority across jurisdictions. Many commentators believe that the doctrine is applicable in all common law legal systems, Aboriginal title is also referred to as indigenous title, native title, original Indian title, and customary title. Aboriginal title jurisprudence is related to indigenous rights, influencing and influenced by non-land issues, while the judge-made doctrine arises from customary international law, it has been codified nationally by legislation, treaties, and constitutions. The Doctrine of Continuity presumed that the Crown did not intend to extinguish private property upon acquiring sovereignty and its mirror was the Recognition Doctrine, which held that private property rights were presumed to be extinguished in the absence of explicit recognition. In 1608, the year in which the Doctrine of Continuity emerged. Cokes view was not put into practice, but was rejected by Lord Mansfield in 1774, the two doctrines were reconciled, with the Doctrine of Continuity prevailing in nearly all situations in Oyekan v Adele. Other important Privy Council decisions include In re Southern Rhodesia and Amodu Tijani v. Southern Nigeria, such a gulf cannot be bridged. Subsequently, the Privy Council issued many opinions confirming the existence of aboriginal title, Modern decisions have heaped criticism upon the views expressed in Southern Rhodesia. Aboriginal title does not constitute allodial title or radical title in any jurisdiction, especially in Australia, the content of aboriginal title varies with the degree to which claimants are able to satisfy the standard of proof for recognition. In particular, the content of aboriginal title may be tied to the traditions and customs of the indigenous peoples, Aboriginal title can be extinguished by the general government, but again, the requirement to do this varies by country. Some require the legislature to be explicit when it does this, in Canada, the Crown cannot extinguish aboriginal title without the explicit prior informed consent of the proper aboriginal title holders. New Zealand formerly required consent, but today only a justification. Jurisdictions differ on whether the state is required to pay compensation upon extinguishing aboriginal title, theories for the payment of compensation include the right to property, as protected by constitutional or common law, and the breach of a fiduciary duty. Native title in Australia -1,228,373 km2 Indian reserves in Canada -28,000 square kilometres Native Community Lands in Bolivia -16, in 1971, Blackburn J of the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory rejected the concept in Milirrpum v Nabalco Pty Ltd
3.
Western Sahara
–
Its surface area amounts to 266,000 square kilometres. It is one of the most sparsely populated territories in the world, the population is estimated at just over 500,000, of which nearly 40% live in Laayoune, the largest city in Western Sahara. Occupied by Spain until the late 20th century, Western Sahara has been on the United Nations list of non-self-governing territories since 1963 after a Moroccan demand and it is the most populous territory on that list, and by far the largest in area. In 1965, the UN General Assembly adopted its first resolution on Western Sahara, one year later, a new resolution was passed by the General Assembly requesting that a referendum be held by Spain on self-determination. In 1975, Spain relinquished the control of the territory to a joint administration by Morocco. A war erupted between those countries and a Sahrawi nationalist movement, the Polisario Front, which proclaimed the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic with a government in exile in Tindouf, Algeria. Mauritania withdrew its claims in 1979, and Morocco eventually secured de facto control of most of the territory, including all the major cities and natural resources. The United Nations considers the Polisario Front to be the representative of the Sahrawi people. As of 2017, no member state of the United Nations has ever recognized Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara. However, a number of countries have expressed their support for a recognition of the Moroccan annexation of the territory as an autonomous part of the Kingdom. Overall, the annexation has not garnered as much attention in the community as many other disputed annexations. Internationally, countries such as Russia have taken a generally ambiguous and neutral position on each sides claims, both Morocco and Polisario have sought to boost their claims by accumulating formal recognition, essentially from African, Asian, and Latin American states in the developing world. The Polisario Front has won recognition for SADR from 37 states. Morocco has won recognition or support for its position from several African governments and from most of the Muslim world, in both instances, recognitions have, over the past two decades, been extended and withdrawn according to changing international trends. Western Sahara is located in Northern Africa, bordering the North Atlantic Ocean and it also borders Algeria to the northeast. The land is some of the most arid and inhospitable on the planet, the land along the coast is low, flat desert and rises, especially in the north, to small mountains reaching up to 600 metres on the eastern side. While the area can experience flash flooding in the spring, there are no permanent streams, at times a cool off-shore current can produce fog and heavy dew. The earliest known inhabitants of Western Sahara were the Gaetuli, depending on the century, Roman-era sources describe the area as inhabited by Gaetulian Autololes or the Gaetulian Daradae tribes
4.
Colonialism
–
Colonialism is the establishment of a colony in one territory by a political power from another territory, and the subsequent maintenance, expansion, and exploitation of that colony. The term is used to describe a set of unequal relationships between the colonial power and the colony and often between the colonists and the indigenous peoples. The European colonial period was the era from the 16th century to the century when several European powers established colonies in Asia, Africa. At first the countries followed a policy of mercantilism, designed to strengthen the economy at the expense of rivals. By the mid-19th century, however, the powerful British Empire gave up mercantilism and trade restrictions and introduced the principle of free trade, collins English Dictionary defines colonialism as the policy and practice of a power in extending control over weaker peoples or areas. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary offers four definitions, including something characteristic of a colony, in the book, Osterhammel asks, How can colonialism be defined independently from colony. He settles on a definition, Colonialism is a relationship between an indigenous majority and a minority of foreign invaders. The fundamental decisions affecting the lives of the people are made. Rejecting cultural compromises with the population, the colonizers are convinced of their own superiority. Historians often distinguish between two overlapping forms of colonialism, Settler colonialism involves large-scale immigration, often motivated by religious, political, exploitation colonialism involves fewer colonists and focuses on access to resources for export, typically to the metropole. Surrogate colonialism involves a settlement project supported by a colonial power, internal colonialism is a notion of uneven structural power between areas of a state. The source of exploitation comes from within the state, as colonialism often played out in pre-populated areas, sociocultural evolution included the formation of various ethnically hybrid populations. In fact, everywhere where colonial powers established a consistent and continued presence, notable examples in Asia include the Anglo-Burmese, Anglo-Indian, Burgher, Eurasian Singaporean, Filipino mestizo, Kristang and Macanese peoples. In the Dutch East Indies the vast majority of Dutch settlers were in fact Eurasians known as Indo-Europeans, the Other, or othering is the process of creating a separate entity to persons or groups who are labelled as different or non-normal due to the repetition of characteristics. Othering is the creation from those who discriminate, to distinguish, label, several scholars in recent decades developed the notion of the other as an epistemological concept in social theory. For example, postcolonial scholars, believed that colonizing powers explained an ‘other’ who were there to dominate, civilize, political geographers explain how colonial/ imperial powers othered places they wanted to dominate to legalize their exploitation of the land. During the rise of colonialism and after, post colonialism, the Western powers perspectives of the East as the other, different and this viewpoint and separation of culture had divided the Eastern and Western culture creating a dominant/ subordinate dynamic, both being the other towards themselves. The word metropole comes from the Greek metropolis —mother city, the word colony comes from the Latin colonia—a place for agriculture
5.
California Gold Rush
–
The California Gold Rush began on January 24,1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutters Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought some 300,000 people to California from the rest of the United States, the Gold Rush initiated the California Genocide, with 100,000 Native Californians dying between 1848 and 1868. By the time it ended, California had gone from a thinly populated ex-Mexican territory to the state of the first nominee for the Republican Party. The effects of the Gold Rush were substantial, whole indigenous societies were attacked and pushed off their lands by the gold-seekers, called forty-niners. The first to hear confirmed information of the rush were the people in Oregon, the Sandwich Islands, and Latin America. While most of the newly arrived were Americans, the Gold Rush attracted tens of thousands from Latin America, Europe, Australia, agriculture and ranching expanded throughout the state to meet the needs of the settlers. San Francisco grew from a settlement of about 200 residents in 1846 to a boomtown of about 36,000 by 1852. Roads, churches, schools and other towns were built throughout California, in 1849 a state constitution was written. The new constitution was adopted by vote, and the future states interim first governor. In September,1850, California became a state, at the beginning of the Gold Rush, there was no law regarding property rights in the goldfields and a system of staking claims was developed. Prospectors retrieved the gold from streams and riverbeds using simple techniques, although the mining caused environmental harm, more sophisticated methods of gold recovery were developed and later adopted around the world. New methods of transportation developed as steamships came into regular service, by 1869 railroads were built across the country from California to the eastern United States. At its peak, technological advances reached a point where significant financing was required, Gold worth tens of billions of todays dollars was recovered, which led to great wealth for a few. However, many returned home with more than they had started with. The Mexican–American War ended on February 3,1848, although California was firmly in American hands before that, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo provided for, among other things, the formal transfer of Upper California to the United States. The California Gold Rush began at Sutters Mill, near Coloma, on January 24,1848, James W. Marshall, a foreman working for Sacramento pioneer John Sutter, found shiny metal in the tailrace of a lumber mill Marshall was building for Sutter on the American River. Marshall brought what he found to John Sutter, and the two tested the metal. However, rumors started to spread and were confirmed in March 1848 by San Francisco newspaper publisher
6.
Australian gold rushes
–
During the Australian gold rushes, significant numbers of workers relocated to areas in which gold had been discovered. A number of gold occurred in Australia prior to 1851. This is mainly because, prior to 1851, the government of New South Wales had suppressed news of gold finds which it believed would reduce the workforce. The first gold rush in Australia began in May 1851 after prospector Edward Hargraves claimed to have discovered gold near Orange. Hargraves had been to the Californian goldfields and had learned new gold prospecting techniques such as panning and cradling, Hargraves was offered rewards by the Colony of New South Wales and the Colony of Victoria. Before the end of the year, the rush had spread to many other parts of the state where gold had been found, not just to the west. The Australian gold rushes changed the convict colonies into more cities with the influx of free emigrants. These hopefuls, termed diggers, brought new skills and professions, the mateship that evolved between these diggers and their collective resistance to authority led to the emergence of a unique national identity. Although not all diggers found riches on the goldfields, many decided to stay, in July 1851, Victorias first gold rush began on the Clunes goldfield. Gold, just as in New South Wales, was found in many other parts of the state. When the rush began at Ballarat, diggers discovered it was a prosperous goldfield, lieutenant-Governor, Charles La Trobe visited the site and watched five men uncover 136 ounces of gold in one day. Mount Alexander was even more rich than Ballarat, with gold sitting just under the surface, the shallowness allowed diggers to easily unearth gold nuggets. In 7 months,2.4 million pounds of gold was transported from Mount Alexander to nearby capital cities, the gold rushes caused a huge influx of people from overseas. Australias total population more than tripled from 430,000 in 1851 to 1.7 million in 1871, Australia first became a multicultural society during the gold rush period. Between 1852 and 1860,290,000 people migrated to Victoria from the British Isles,15,000 came from other European countries, non-European immigrants, however, were unwelcome, especially the Chinese. The Chinese were particularly industrious, with techniques that differed widely from the Europeans and this and their physical appearance and fear of the unknown led to them to being persecuted in a racist way that would be regarded as untenable today. In 1855,11,493 Chinese arrived in Melbourne, Chinese travelling outside of New South Wales had to obtain special re-entry certificates. In 1855, Victoria enacted the Chinese Immigration Act 1855, severely limiting the number of Chinese passengers permitted on an arriving vessel
7.
Oriental Claims
–
The Oriental Claims are a former gold mining operation, or claim, located 2 km south of Omeo, Victoria, Australia. The Oriental Claims are named in reference to The Oriental Company which mined in the area from 1876 to 1904, and also in memory of the many Chinese miners that worked the area for over 50 years. During the main years of operation it is estimated that 58,000 ounces of gold was extracted from the area, the Oriental Claims are currently preserved as a Parks Victoria Historic Area covering about 202 hectares. Contrary to the popular belief due to its name that it was a company, The Oriental Company was a European company that mined the area from 1876 to 1904. The Oriental Company was established by five shareholders and altogether the company leased two areas containing 43 hectares and rightfully owned another 25 hectares of mining land. However towards the last years of the companys operations disputes occurred between shareholders, mining was eventually halted in 1904 when environmental issues drew concern for the state of the Livingstone Creek and the Oriental Company went out of business. Prior to 1876 when the Oriental Company started to mine the claims the area was first mined by early squatters, other companies also invested interest in the area at this time as did a number of individual miners. Chinese miners also made the best of the gold at the claims. Ah Fong and his group of about four miners proved the most successful of the Asian miners. Currently there is a track that views Ah Fongs Claim. As a result of the rush there were plenty of criminals eager to rob a miner of his hard earned gold. The few troopers assigned to the area were too busy settling mining disputes, murderers, con men and women and professional gamblers all utilized the gold rush to their own ends. However these criminals were a minority in the Omeo district, the majority of the people being hardworking miners, magistrates were brought into the area to help minimize crime. One of the magistrates Mr. Brown is said to have described Omeo as the roughest and toughest goldfield in Australia as recorded in A. M Pearson’s historical recording ‘Echoes From The Mountains’. Before the European settlement of the Omeo district it was inhabited by an Aboriginal clan numbering at approximately two hundred and fifty. There is little reported of people in the years that the district was settled, although it is said that they were somewhat territorial. However they had an alliance with the Bongillo clan who occupied the Wodonga district, the two tribes met annually to engage wives to the young men of the tribe at the Bogong High Plains. Here they also indulged in the Bogong moths that hatched at the High Plains in great number which served as a delicacy in their diets, the environment was changed massively with the settlement of Europeans and the introduction of pests such as rabbits
8.
Victoria (Australia)
–
Victoria is a state in southeast Australia. Victoria is Australias most densely populated state and its second-most populous state overall, most of its population is concentrated in the area surrounding Port Phillip Bay, which includes the metropolitan area of its state capital and largest city, Melbourne, Australias second-largest city. Prior to British European settlement, the area now constituting Victoria was inhabited by a number of Aboriginal peoples. With Great Britain having claimed the entire Australian continent east of the 135th meridian east in 1788, Victoria was included in the wider colony of New South Wales. The first settlement in the area occurred in 1803 at Sullivan Bay, and much of what is now Victoria was included in the Port Phillip District in 1836, Victoria was officially created as a separate colony in 1851, and achieved self-government in 1855. Politically, Victoria has 37 seats in the Australian House of Representatives and 12 seats in the Australian Senate, at state level, the Parliament of Victoria consists of the Legislative Assembly and the Legislative Council. Victoria is currently governed by the Labor Party, with Daniel Andrews the current Premier, the personal representative of the Queen of Australia in the state is the Governor of Victoria, currently Linda Dessau. Local government is concentrated in 79 municipal districts, including 33 cities, although a number of unincorporated areas still exist, Victorias total gross state product is ranked second in Australia, although Victoria is ranked fourth in terms of GSP per capita because of its limited mining activity. Culturally, Melbourne is home to a number of museums, art galleries and theatres and is described as the sporting capital of Australia. The Melbourne Cricket Ground is the largest stadium in Australia, and the host of the 1956 Summer Olympics, Victoria has eight public universities, with the oldest, the University of Melbourne, having been founded in 1853. Victoria, like Queensland, was named after Queen Victoria, who had been on the British throne for 14 years when the colony was established in 1851. The first British settlement in the later known as Victoria was established in October 1803 under Lieutenant-Governor David Collins at Sullivan Bay on Port Phillip. In the year 1826 Colonel Stewart, Captain S. Wright, fly and the brigs Dragon and Amity, took a number of convicts and a small force composed of detachments of the 3rd and 93rd regiments. Victorias next settlement was at Portland, on the south west coast of what is now Victoria, edward Henty settled Portland Bay in 1834. Melbourne was founded in 1835 by John Batman, who set up a base in Indented Head, from settlement the region around Melbourne was known as the Port Phillip District, a separately administered part of New South Wales. Shortly after the now known as Geelong was surveyed by Assistant Surveyor W. H. Smythe. And in 1838 Geelong was officially declared a town, despite earlier white settlements dating back to 1826, days later, still in 1851 gold was discovered near Ballarat, and subsequently at Bendigo. Later discoveries occurred at sites across Victoria
9.
Territorial claims in Antarctica
–
Seven states maintain a territorial claim on eight territories in Antarctica. These countries have tended to site their scientific observation and study facilities in Antarctica within the claimed territory, according to Argentina and Chile, the Spanish Empire had claims on Antarctica. The capitulación granted to the conquistador Pedro Sánchez de la Hoz explicitly included the south of the Straits of Magellan. This grant established, according to Argentina and Chile, that an animus occupandi existed on the part of Spain in Antarctica. Spains sovereignty claim over parts of Antarctica was, according to Chile and Argentina, internationally recognized with the Inter caetera bull of 1493, Argentina and Chile treat these treaties as legal international treaties mediated by the Catholic Church that was at that time a recognized arbiter in such matters. The United Kingdom reasserted sovereignty over the Falkland Islands in the far South Atlantic in 1833, all these territories were administered as Falkland Islands Dependencies from Stanley by the Governor of the Falkland Islands. The motivation for this lay in the need to regulate. Commercial operators would hunt whales in areas outside the boundaries of the Falkland Islands and its dependencies. In 1917, the wording of the claim was modified, so as to include all the territory in the sector stretching to the South Pole. It was the ambition of Leopold Amery, then Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, in a memorandum to the governor-generals for Australia and New Zealand, he wrote that with the exception of Chile and Argentina and some barren islands belonging to France. It is desirable that the whole of the Antarctic should ultimately be included in the British Empire, the Order in Council then went on to appoint the Governor-General and Commander-in Chief of New Zealand as the Governor of the territory. In 1930, the United Kingdom claimed Enderby Land, in 1933, a British imperial order transferred territory south of 60° S and between meridians 160° E and 45° E to Australia as the Australian Antarctic Territory. Following the passing of the Statute of Westminster in 1931, the government of the United Kingdom relinquished all control over the government of New Zealand and this however had no bearing on the obligations of the Governors-General of both countries in their capacity as Governors of the Antarctic territories. Meanwhile, alarmed by these unilateral declarations, the French government laid claim to a strip of the continent in 1924. The basis for their claim to Adélie Land lay on the discovery of the coastline in 1840 by the French explorer Jules Dumont dUrville, the British eventually decided to recognize this claim and the border between Adélie Land and Australian Antarctic Territory was fixed definitively in 1938. The whale-ship owner Lars Christensen financed several expeditions to the Antarctic with the view to land for Norway. The first expedition, led by Nils Larsen and Ola Olstad, landed on Peter I Island in 1929, on 6 March 1931, a Norwegian royal proclamation declared the island under Norwegian sovereignty and on 23 March 1933 the island was declared a dependency. The 1929 expedition led by Hjalmar Riiser-Larsen and Finn Lützow-Holm named the land mass near the island as Queen Maud Land
10.
Homestead Acts
–
The Homestead Acts were several United States federal laws that gave an applicant ownership of land, typically called a homestead, at little or no cost. The first of the acts, the Homestead Act of 1862, any adult who had never taken up arms against the U. S. government could apply. Women and immigrants who had applied for citizenship were eligible, the 1866 Act explicitly included and encouraged blacks to participate. Several additional laws were enacted in the half of the 19th. The Southern Homestead Act of 1866 sought to land ownership inequalities in the south during Reconstruction. The Timber Culture Act of 1873 granted land to a claimant who was required to plant trees—the tract could be added to a homestead claim and had no residency requirement. The Kinkaid Amendment of 1904 granted a section to new homesteaders settling in western Nebraska. An amendment to the Homestead Act of 1862, the Enlarged Homestead Act, was passed in 1909, another amended act, the national Stock-Raising Homestead Act, was passed in 1916 and again increased the land involved, this time to 640 acres. The Homestead Act of 1860 did pass in Congress, but it was vetoed by President James Buchanan, after the Southern states seceded from the Union in 1861, the bill passed and was signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln. Daniel Freeman became the first person to file a claim under the new act, between 1862 and 1934, the federal government granted 1.6 million homesteads and distributed 270,000,000 acres of federal land for private ownership. This was a total of 10% of all land in the United States, Homesteading was discontinued in 1976, except in Alaska, where it continued until 1986. About 40% of the applicants who started the process were able to complete it, the Donation Land Claim Act allowed settlers to claim land in the Oregon Territory, then including the modern states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and parts of Wyoming. Settlers were able to claim 320 or 640 acres of land for free between 1850 and 1854, and then at a cost of $1.25 per acres until the law expired in 1855. Southern Democrats had continually fought previous homestead law proposals, as they feared free land would attract European immigrants, after the South seceded and their delegates left Congress in 1861, the Republicans and other supporters from the upper South passed a homestead act. The intent of the first Homestead Act, passed in 1862, was to liberalize the homesteading requirements of the Preemption Act of 1841 and its leading advocates were Andrew Johnson, George Henry Evans and Horace Greeley. The homestead was an area of land in the West granted to any US citizen willing to settle on. The law required a three-step procedure, file an application, improve the land, and file for deed of title. Any citizen who had never taken up arms against the U. S. government and was at least 21 years old or the head of a household, could file an application to claim a land grant
11.
General Mining Act of 1872
–
The General Mining Act of 1872 is a United States federal law that authorizes and governs prospecting and mining for economic minerals, such as gold, platinum, and silver, on federal public lands. All citizens of the United States of America 18 years or older have the right under the 1872 mining law to locate a lode or placer mining claim on federal lands open to mineral entry and these claims may be located once a discovery of a locatable mineral is made. Locatable minerals include but are not limited to platinum, gold, silver, copper, lead, zinc, uranium, miners and prospectors in the California Gold Rush of 1849 found themselves in a legal vacuum. California miners spread the concept all over the west with each new mining rush, although the practices for open mining on public land were more-or-less universal in the West, and supported by state and territorial legislation, they were still illegal under existing federal law. In June 1865, Representative George Washington Julian of Indiana introduced a bill for the government to take the mines from their discoverers. He advocated that the government itself work the mines for the benefit of the treasury. Western representatives successfully argued that western miners and prospectors were performing valuable services by promoting commerce, in 1864, Congress passed a law that instructed courts deciding questions of contested mining rights to ignore federal ownership, and defer to the miners in actual possession of the ground. The following year, Congressional supporters of western miners tacked legislation legalizing lode mining on public land onto a law regarding ditch and canal rights in California, Oregon, the legislation, known as the Chaffee laws after Colorado Territorial representative Jerome B. Chaffee, passed and was signed on July 26,1866, Congress extended similar rules to placer mining claims in the placer law signed into law on July 9,1870. The Chaffee law of 1869 and the law of 1871 were combined into the General Mining Act of 1872. The mining law of 1866 had given discoverers rights to mining claims to extract gold, silver, cinnabar. When Congress passed the General Mining Act of 1872, the wording was changed to or other valuable deposits, the 1872 law was codified as 30 U. S. C. §§ 22-42 The 1872 act also granted rights to lode claims. The Act of 1872 also set the price for land assumed under the mining act, FORTY-SECOND CONGRESS. A patent shall issue for the placer-claim, including such vein or lode, upon the payment of five dollars per acre such vein or lode claim and it set the price of the land claim to range $2.50 to $5.00 per acre. This price set by law has remained the same since 1872, the Mineral Policy Center estimates that mining companies extract $2 billion to $3 billion in minerals from public lands every year. From 1872 to 1993, mining companies produced more than $230 billion from lands claimed under the Act, a mining claim is the right to explore for and extract minerals from a tract of land. Claim staking is the procedure of marking the boundaries of the mining claim
12.
Gold placer claim
–
In the United States, a placer claim grants to the discoverer of valuable minerals contained in loose material such as sand or gravel the right to mine on public land. Other countries such as Canada, Mexico, and Australia grant similar rights, in the United States, the valuable mineral in a placer claim is almost always gold, although other nations mine placer deposits of platinum, tin, and diamonds. Another type of mining claim is a lode claim, a mining claim allows some security of tenure for the owner, providing an incentive to invest time and money developing the deposit. Mining claim laws vary from state to state, but claims staked over federal minerals follow federal mining law, Federal minerals are managed by the U. S. Bureau of Land Management. Mining claims staked under either State or federal laws are limited to lands available for claim staking at the time the claims are staked, thus, if the land is not available for mineral entry, then the claim is said to be invalid ab initio. An additional requirement is Discovery, which follows the Prudent Man Rule and this means that a sufficient indication of valuable mineral would encourage a Prudent Man to further invest time and money developing the deposit towards the goal of mining it. The holder of a claim does not own the surface. A mining claim grants the holder with the right to extract the valuable minerals within the claim. Gold mining is one of the most common uses for the staking of mining claims, in Alaska, state mining claims may be up to 160 acres, and there is no distinction between lode or placer claims. The boundaries of the claim must follow the 4 cardinal directions, Claim jumping, which happens to this day, is a case where one person overstakes the claims of another. This results in action, and sometimes violence. Claims staked on Federal-managed lands fall under Federal rules, typically, the claim size is limited to 660x 1320, or 20 acres. The claim must be either placer or lode, and the point must be clearly marked. The claim staking procedure includes setting a monument at the NE corner of the claim and this is known as the Number 1 corner, and it is here that the claimant places the location notice. Three additional monuments, one at each corner of the claim, must be set. Copies of the documents must be filed in the local offices of the land managers. This must be completed within 45 days of the staking, in addition, fees for annual rental, filing, and work to fulfill requirements of annual labor must be completed by the deadlines set by the regulations in order to hold the claim. During this time, the claim may be relocated by others, general Mining Act of 1872 Alaska Department of Natural Resources How To Stake a Mining Claim How to Find Gold Mining Claim Definition
.jpg)
