The first people to rush to the gold fields, beginning in the spring of 1848, were the residents of California themselves—primarily agriculturally oriented Americans and Europeans living in Northern California.
This group of people were called the 49ers. These people were lucky that they were residents of California because they were the first people to be able to search for gold in the mines. This group of people were very unhappy when the word of gold started to spread throughout the world and people began travling to California