Bandits, Prostitutes, and Preachers: Isabel Allende on the Surprising History of the Gold Rush

Why should we care about the Gold Rush today? >> You know, I care about the Gold Rush because when I came to this country in 1987, I learned that San Francisco, this wonderful sophisticated cosmopolitan town was created by bandits, by adventurers, greedy people, prostitutes, preachers, and it's only 150 years old. Um the Gold Rush was what brought all these people here. And the Gold Rush is a time and of extremes, like the war. A time where the best and the worst can happen. So, for a novelist, it's a perfect time to write about. >> What would you say were are the biggest perhaps misconceptions that people have about the California Gold Rush? >> I think that one of the greatest misconceptions about the Gold Rush is that it was a a white man's adventure. A year before the the white people crossed the continent from the East Coast to California, people were here, people of color.

Mexicans, whose land this was. Um Peruvians and Chileans that came by sea. Uh Chileans are miners, and for us the trip was only 2 months long, while for people who came from Boston, for example, it would be 6 months. So, we were here first, and then the Chinese. We can't forget the Chinese. And then the the the white people crossed the continent, the 49ers. And the story is told always by the voice of the 49ers, but there were people here who were kicked out when they came. >> Tell me about California pre-1848. What was it like? >> California pre-Gold Rush was uh a wild land. There were cows, uh there were a few Indian tribes that were scattered and small, and had been totally dominated by the whites. And it was Mexican land, so there were huge haciendas who had many families lived. Sometimes 200, 300 people lived in a hacienda. So, it was like a large community that belonged to a landowner. But, the people lived in a sort of safe, secure place in very very rural.

California was very rural. And there was, of course, a few towns. San Francisco San Francisco was called Yerba Buena. And it had a community of 300 Mormons, mainly. And Mexicans, of course. Who belonged to the land. It was their land until a few until 6 days after the discovery of gold. Because gold was discovered in January of 1848. Six days later, the Mexicans signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which gave California to the United States, among other many other territories. And they didn't know that there was gold here. And then immediately, this this news about the the gold exploded in the area first, but it took some time to reach the East Coast. >> Yeah, how did this discovery of this gold in the remote foothills of the of the Sierra Nevadas turn into this international event?

>> It was the the captains of the ships that the trading ships and the whalers that took the news to the world, the the news of the gold rush. In Chile, we received the news by the end of No, by by October of 1848. And immediately, it was pandemonium. Uh because people thought that you could find gold lying on the streets. They didn't know where California was, really. Um everybody signed up to come to California. And people would sell everything to to to be able to travel. There were ships that that were immediately set up just to bring people to the gold rush. And it was an incredible thing because many landowners in Chile, aristocrats, high-class people, decided to come with their own servants so that they would pick up the gold while they thought that they would rest in a hotel or something. There was nothing here.

So, it was quite an adventure. >> What were the you know, the what were the economic condition conditions in Chile that you know, at the time of the gold rush and then what were sort of the expectations or hopes of how this would change their lives? >> You know, in Chile people have the idea that Chile is a poor country which really it's not that poor. But at the time it was a very rural place and um so, everything was concentrated in Santiago. There was of course a middle class, a class of of bureaucrats and and people from the government, but it was a very rural place. And um we have the mines in the north in Chile, but the mines are copper. Um They are they are not really gold. And and so, people thought that they could make a killing very fast. And that was the news that the sailors were bringing. That that you could really make a killing in in less than 3 months and go back and be rich. So, that's what people expected to do and that's what they did.

They came. This was a year before the 49ers came because the news of the gold rush had not reached the East Coast yet. >> How does for example the poorer people in Chile afford passage to California? >> Well, one way that the poor people afforded passage to to California would be debt. They would they would be in debt with the captain of the ship. They would get credit sometimes and other times they would be hired by some some bigger by a company or by someone who had money and that you the idea was that they would have to share whatever profit they had with the mines in California with the person who facilitated the trip. >> And how did that work out when they actually got there? >> It it it didn't work out that well because most of the people who came realized first of all that it wasn't as easy to get the gold. It wasn't lying in the streets of San Francisco. You had to go to the Sierras and get it.

And then many people died. It Everything was very expensive. If you wanted to get a anything to eat, you had to pay in gold and it was very expensive. And then life was much harder than they had thought. So they couldn't really become rich in in 3 months as as they thought and pay back their debts. And the What was funny also is that most of the captains of the and the sailors of those ships abandoned the ships in the harbor and they and they went to look for gold themselves. So there was a a a vast city of masts and old ships in the in the San Francisco Bay. >> What was San Francisco like when you know, the miners arrived in in I know it changed probably fairly quickly from when the Chileans first arrived and the 49ers arrived, but kind of give us a sense of what the sites and sounds and >> San Francisco before the gold rush was a sleepy town um with dirt roads, a few wooden buildings, very few, and and huts mainly.

And then when the the adventurers came to the gold rush, they set up camp because everybody was moving toward the Sierras. So it was not a place where people would build houses yet because the idea was that they were just passing by. And they were separated in in shantytowns made of canvas and and pieces of wood and whatever they could find, sometimes pieces of the ships. Um and they were separated by nationalities. You had the You had the beginnings of Chinatown already. You had Chilesito, which was little Chile, in one in one corner. Then you had the Mexican community. You had the Russians um and the Irish, the Australians, they were all separated. The Australians, by the way, were the worst. So, and they were all the time fighting against each other, and it was a very unsafe place to be. Very dirty, full of rats. And it was a place where you would hear shooting all the time, because people would kill each other very easily.

Not for real crimes, but for petty theft. If you would, for example, take some some nails from someone who was building something, that the person felt entitled to take out a gun and shoot you. But if there was a major thing, like like a fight or whatever, then the law would intervene. Petty theft was not allowed. >> How would San Francisco have been different from other cities? >> At the beginning, San Francisco wasn't even a city. It was a place where people just gathered. And it was muddy, dusty, and in summer, it was um wild, because it was a male There was male energy there, very few women. Before the 49ers came, there were a few Mexican women, a few women that came with Chileans families, but very very few. And prostitutes that came from all over, from Panama, from Chile, from Peru, some from from the United States, too.

But it was a male place, where there was all this testosterone in the air, you know, just shooting and drinking and betting and gambling and That's what it was about. And everything was paid in gold, and so um It It was a place where everything everything happened, and at the same time, you could hear all the languages of the world, smell different foods. You could You could hear the noises of different musical instruments. It was full of of dogs, by the way. Wild dogs that would be barking all the time. And And you could hear the hammering and the and the cutting of wood, and I think it must have been a a very noisy place. And at night, you could see the tents transparent because they would be illuminated by the lamps inside, so that the the the the fabric would become a little transparent and yellow. So, I think it must have looked beautiful at night. >> Sound like it was >> And the fog, can you imagine? It was beautiful.

>> What would that experience must have been like in that moment of of entering into the San Francisco Harbor? >> The San Francisco Harbor had been there for many many years, and people had sort of ignored it because it had not been uh really discovered, I would say, by by traders. It was just a place where they traded hides or whatever. But then with the gold rush, people started exploring the whole of the bay, and they realized how big it was and how beautiful. And it must have been a magical moment when you entered the bay in this very narrow 3-mi passage that the the ship would go into. Many of the ships had to wait in the ocean 2 or 3 days because of the fog. They couldn't find the entrance to to the bay, so they had to wait until the fog calmed down, and then they would come in. >> How do you imagine those saloons? What would a you know a typical saloon like had been like in in San Francisco, that experience for somebody who had whether it was a Chilean coming up from Valparaiso or a somebody from England who's just stepping off the boat, and then you entering into this kind of uh new environment.

>> The saloons were part of the I mean, was the only center of the cultural and social life. Everything happened in the saloons, and there were many different kinds. The high-quality ones and the very poor ones and the ones in Chinatown. Gambling was the most important thing, and people would make some fortune with the gold and then lose it gambling. A lot of liquor, and uh and men, it was a very masculine environment. Lot of smoking. And um And there were all kinds of saloons. Some of them very elegant or more elegant. And in some of them you could find French champagne. You could find French women, by the way, which were the most appreciated of all for some reason. And if you went for example to Chilecito, little Chile, the saloon would be a tent with empanadas and probably some cheap, rough Chilean wine and very poor.

So it depended. >> And what's the attraction of gambling? Why would they risk what they did earn? >> I think the attraction of gambling, first of all, is that there's nothing else to do. So that's the only diversion they had, the only entertainment. But also because it was so hard to make the money in the mines, they thought they could make it gambling. I mean, I think why people go to Las Vegas? Because they think that they will make a killing. And they all lose, but but you always expect to be the one who makes the killing. And that's what That was the attraction. >> For many of the the Americans coming in in into to California, there was a lot of concerns and warnings about going to California and getting involved with these kinds of vices and so on. Was there a similar kind of reaction for Chileans and for that culture in terms of what you know, what sort of environment they were entering into in California? >> I think that everybody was aware that the environment was pretty wild.

And that the the the chances of getting killed in a in a duel or in a fight were pretty high also. And and also everybody knew that that it was that it was a place where you could get ill very easily because many people died of even of a cold and typhoid and all kinds of things. Um so people were aware of that. And let us not forget that this was a a wild place, but also it was a place of of utopians, revolutionaries, idealists, and a lot of preachers. So, while all this wild life was going on, there were these preachers standing in the corners talking about Jesus and being saved or about whatever. So, that's very interesting, too, because some some people who were running away from from from Europe for political or religious reasons, they came to the United States to California at the time with the idea that they could create the utopian place where where all their ideas that were banned elsewhere could flourish here.

So, that was also a a very interesting part of the of the Gold Rush that not everybody that came came because of the gold. Some people came because this was a land of opportunity where you could you could be whatever you wanted. >> And then you have the the the tens of thousands of American miners who flood into the the gold fields in in 1849 and 1850. How did that change the dynamics of of of the relationships in the diggings? >> When the 49ers came, at the beginning, many of the Mexicans and the Chileans and the Peruvians who had been in the mines many months before maybe a year before, taught them how to do the how to use the water and how to dig and how to wash the the sand to get the gold. So, they were taught by the by them. And at the beginning, in the first few weeks, it was fine. But then, as more and more people came to the mines, um there was less space. So, they divided the space. And you could have, I think, 100 ft. I don't remember exactly, but it was um a piece that was assigned to every miner.

What happened was that many of the Chilean and some of the Peruvian miners were land owners in Chile who had brought several men with them to work for them. They were not really digging. It was their servants who were digging and they got each one a piece. So, the landowner who who had hired all these people to work for him would have a huge piece to dig. And that really made very made the Americans very angry. So, the conflict started. Um there was also many other reasons for conflict and very soon they started pushing away the create First, they created laws. Laws, for example, that if you were a person of color you would have to um register your mine every month. You had to go to an office somewhere, usually very far away, and fill up a a piece of paper, a form. To then you had to abandon your mine while you did the trip to this place to get your mine registered every month. And if you left your mine for more than 3 days, someone else could step in.

So, how could you how could you do it? It was almost impossible. So, people would would associate. One would stay and the other one would come. That would create conflict, too. Uh the the space that they were digging was too small for two people. So, it was very hard. And that created a lot of of problems. >> Mhm. >> And eventually uh just many people just gave up and and they left. >> Um what what forms of intimidation were used to threaten the foreign miners? >> There were many forms of intimidation, but shooting them was the the easiest. Anything would would would sparkle uh a fight and and uh and usually the the Americans were worked in groups. They were many. And um and they were the ones who made the laws. So, um people could be flogged. They could be um hanged and shot, of course. Um beating them up was another way.

So, there were many ways of of doing it. Um I think that that what I forgot to mention also is that when the Americans came and I mean thousands of people came to the same place looking for gold. The land changed because because everything was upside down. And then they brought these huge water machines that they would blast the the land with water or with or with gunpowder. And so the beauty of of the Sierras and the and the and the beauty that was there at the beginning along the shores of the rivers, all that changed very soon and it was a place of mud and and dirt and and barren just just dirty and awful. >> So what are what are the forces that allow that kind of behavior to happen? >> Greed. Greed is the great motivator in the world and it's a wonderful subject to write about. >> So how how how does So is she could you elaborate on that a little bit as how how greed is is fits into the into this event this gold rush and and how >> Well, why did people come to the gold rush? Most of the people who came were young men and they came because they thought that they were going to become rich. It was greed the the great motivator of the gold rush as it always is.

Of course some other people came came for other reasons, but mainly it was greed. So uh when I think of San Francisco that thinks of itself as so sophisticated and it was just founded on the on on a very basic sin, vice, which is which is greed. And it's it's wonderful, I think. >> Does that um reason for people coming to San to California San Francisco allow them to behave in ways that they wouldn't normally behave otherwise? >> Yes, in some of the letters written by miners uh when they say how wild San Francisco and all the all of California was at the time, they say that they missed the presence of women. That it is women and families that that create the basis of a civilized and decent society. That if you put a bunch of young men who are fighting for gold in in a place without women, they go wild. The the then then there's no way that you can that you can establish a certain social decorum because it's women who who really bring that into the society. And sure enough, after the 49ers came and some teachers came, women teachers or nurses and housewives and mothers, it changed. I mean, men behaved differently when the women were there.

It is said that men would travel miles and miles to just take a look at a decent woman at a teacher that was teaching some kids in a school because the sight of of of a woman was was enough to make them feel better about themselves. Feel them they would feel that that there was some something something sweet and nice about the world, about life that they did not have in their daily lives. >> Why would some men travel 40 miles just to gaze at a woman? >> Men would travel 40 miles to gaze at a woman even if she wasn't very handsome because there were not many around. And they reminded them of home. A woman who could make pancakes, I mean, she would be a hero a heroine. The idea that that that you could see a woman and think of your sisters, of your wife, of your maybe daughters.

Just soften something inside the men, that's why they did it. >> And you said that there was women that would be in saloons and the men would just pay to sit next to them. >> Yes. >> Could you describe that scene and what and what that sort of represented for the man to come in and >> Yeah, there were as I said before, there were very few women and most of them were in saloons and men would sometimes pay just to hear them talk or sing and not necessarily to to have sex with them. It was just the idea of being in the company of women. There was a a famous Chinese uh woman who was a widow, actually, and uh she realized very soon, and she was very smart, that women just wanted to look. And so, she created little a place with little holes on the wall, and men would stand behind the wall and look through these little holes, and she would just sit there. Not naked or anything. She was just move a little bit, and this beautiful Chinese woman would just move a little bit, and the men would just peep through these holes and pay just to look at her. So, that gives you an idea of how scarce women were.

I wish I had been there, God. >> What the type of woman that's willing to make that kind of treacherous journey overland to California, what are the kinds of opportunities that they find when they get to California? >> Uh some of the women who came with the 49ers lost their husbands in the way. And they arrived to California widowed with children. And they had to make a living. They couldn't go back. And so, they they set up bed and breakfast, uh laundries, um schools, uh all all hotels, all kinds of businesses. And uh most of them remarried, and they did well. I think that the character of a woman that does that long trip is very strong. They are pioneer women, very, very strong. They lose children on the way, their husbands. But at the same time that they're very desperate. They come from poverty, and they come looking for a new life.

And they find it in California. >> I know it's sort of a very basic emotional response to want to get a letter from home, but if you could describe sort of what that might have meant to some miner who'd been in California for the last 4 months to get >> You know, we live we live in a time of communication, when we pick up a cellular phone or the email, and we communicate immediately with anybody anywhere in the world. This 150 years ago, it was quite different. Uh letters were the way that people communicated. And so, the mail was extremely important. To write a beautiful letter with a nice handwriting with in a beautiful paper, it was very important. It was it was part of the culture, part of your education. Now, for a miner who came many of the miners were academics in in in the East Coast or they were um engineers or doctors or whatever and they ended up digging for gold. So, they were educated people. Not everybody was illiterate. They Many were very educated. And they had left behind wives or mothers or whatever that would write these letters. Many of the letters were full of preaching, you know, how they had to take care of themselves, what to eat, how to praise the Lord, how to don't forget your your prayers, and the letters were full of that stuff.

But, also news of the children and the family and what it was Sometimes just it's spring out here and and the trees are blooming. Those were the news that that would warm the heart of a man that that had been for months in the snow with water up to his waist looking for gold, desperate and lonely. So, the the letter was was was a window to the past, to the family, to relationships, to another kind of life, to the kind of life they wanted to go back to. >> So, was California a place of empowerment or repression for women? >> It was a place of empowerment, I think, for women. They were very badly treated uh if you because the life of a prostitute is never easy. And there were it was a place of violence where where everything was difficult. But, it was also a place of empowerment and and a place where where women had opportunities they didn't have elsewhere.

Uh in in many places in as I said, it was Victorian times. Women worked, for example, in England or in Chile. Women worked and it was the husband or the brother who would who would collect the the salary. Women didn't own anything. They couldn't inherit. They had no freedom at all. They lived in a corset inside the home. And so free the freedom of California was very tempting. I would have come. Of course I would have. >> And what were the notions of of of identity and race that a lot of the the white miners or Anglos were coming into California with? And you know, why there was such great animosity that is engendered against the Chileans, the Mexicans, the Chinese? >> Um quite the when the white came when the Americans came um and they found the people of color there was not much animosity at the beginning. It started soon after they came because um well, racism was uh part of the culture in in the United States at the time much more than today. The I think that one of the worst problems that the United States has ever had and still has is racism. But today we are we fight against it. We think it's not it it's not allowed. It's not permitted.

At the time it was not that like that at all. It It was assumed that the white race was superior. And that they had rights and that they could impose their laws. And also it was 49 I mean 50,000 people almost. No, 40,000 people. So it was a huge amount of people that came in a month. So So that changed the the balance completely. Um they they created laws that were very racist laws. People of color could not go into the saloons. They had special places where they could tie their horses or whatever. Um the if you were a person of color, you could not own land. You could not marry someone that was not from from your same race. Um There was There were signs in the in the bars, no dogs or Mexicans allowed. So um it it was taken for granted that people of color were inferior.

Amazingly, however, some blacks came looking for freedom because it was a place where there was no slavery. And they did make money and and they had a life. >> Was there something particularly there about the California or just sort of the culture at the time that would have allowed these types of sort of devolving behavior? >> I said I said before that the Gold Rush to me is a time of extremes. Um it's like the war. And it's a time when everything happens, but usually there is the lowest common denominator that establishes the rules. So, you have a lot of rowdy Australians or or Peruvians or Mexicans or whatever that that come and they they're very violent. Very violent people. And they they come and they have left behind every every all the structure they had in their own places and they come to a wild place. And it's like the war.

There's violence and then there's brutality. And that happens when you have a large group of men that that are that have no no control. Unfortunately, but that's the truth. That's what always happens. And I think that happened during the time of the Gold Rush that people who were very decent teachers, for example, in Massachusetts or some place like that turn out to be brutal people in California because it was allowed. There was impunity. I think that when there is power with impunity, people do horrible things. I've seen it all over the world, not only here. >> How did justice work in Gold Rush California? >> Um justice was very unfair in times of the Gold Rush because it was imposed by the whites. Um you could be hanged for petty theft. If you were white, you had the right to choose your jewelry. And if you were a person of color, uh you couldn't even have another person of color testify for you. So, not only would you have to face a jury that was all white, but you couldn't have anybody defending you.

And many many people of color were hanged, many. And for for nothing. They were flogged also. That was part of the of the justice system. It was very unfair. >> You you wrote in your novel as I recall, I think it was through the character of Jacob Todd. Um but you wrote that uh gold has brought out the worst of the American character, greed and violence. I'm wondering if, you know, and I know you're it was it was a it was a it was a voice of a character that was speaking this through your novel, but I'm curious what you know, what your thoughts are on that statement. >> Um I wrote in in my novel that um the gold rush brought out the worst of the American character, greed and violence. It's said by one of the characters, but I do believe that it is true. That um there is Americans have great virtues and terrible defects. And some of the defects are everything is measured in terms of profit.

And in the name of profit and capitalism, you are free to commit the most horrible violence. And uh that is something that always shocked me when I came to this country. And it still does. >> In a society where violence was a rule, you write that racial hostility turned into blind hatred. >> I think that the what During the gold rush that that racial hostility became um became hatred and and and extreme violence because uh whites were not used to the idea that people of color were their equals. And when they had to rub elbows with them and work side by side in they got very angry. They they felt that they had privileges and and rights that the others did not and that created a state of resentment because because the people of color felt equal to them when they came. Of course that changed later because the balance was totally shifted later.

>> In the early 1850s there was this I'm sure that I mean the whites in the in these mining communities viewed it as a terrorism at that time that they were being the groups of bandits were rampaging through the countryside. Um who who was blamed for many of these crimes and who and if you have a sense in terms of and and what were they doing? >> Uh around 1850 um the white community made a law that several laws that almost that really made it impossible for the people of color to have a mine, to profit from the mine, or even to stay in their own land. And so as I said many people went back to their countries of origin, many of the people of color, but not the Mexicans because they had been born in this territory for generations. It was their land. And they couldn't understand this Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. They couldn't understand why the whites were there.

And the haciendas were dismantled and they were left with no protection. These were people who had for generations lived in a social structure in which the landowner owned the land but protected all the people who lived in the hacienda and they were left dangling, really. And so many of them became bandits and they these gangs of Mexican bandidos were all over the the place and so the miners when they would for example bring the gold to the city or they would leave the mine for any reason, the bandits would come and take it. Because they felt that it had been taken away from them before so they were just getting back to to to people that had already robbed them. That's not the way the whites saw it, of course. And many of these crimes were attributed to a Joaquin. He It was a Joaquin Valenzuela, a Joaquin Mendoza, and then a Joaquin Murrieta. There were several Joaquins, and um in the minds of the white community in San Francisco by 1853, there was this bandit that was like like the symbol of all bandits, the metaphor for crime, that was Joaquin Murrieta. There is absolutely no proof that Joaquin Murrieta existed. It's a legend. Most probably um there were several Joaquins, several gangs, and um they

in in they were all attributed to the same Joaquin, Joaquin Murrieta. Sometimes a crime was committed in Los Angeles in the morning, and another crime committed in Sacramento at noon, and they would say it was Joaquin Murrieta. How could Joaquin Murrieta get from Los Angeles to Sacramento in 3 hours? I don't know, but that that that was in the mentality of people. >> So, what what is the attraction of this figure of Murrieta for the the Chileans or for the Mexicans? Why is he such a >> Joaquin Murrieta was a hero because he took from the whites to give to the people of color. He would take from the miners to distribute the money among the poor. So, he was a Robin Hood of of the time. >> According to legend, why does Murrieta resort to violence? >> According to legend, a Joaquin Murrieta was a a noble man, um who had a fiance, a girlfriend, and he was going to marry her. She was very beautiful or whatever.

And uh a group of white men came and raped the girl, and flogged him. And um and then killed the girl. Or the girl committed suicide or something like that. And so, he became the avenger after that. >> So, what what are his motivations in in terms of his behavior? >> According to the a little book that was written about Joaquin Murrieta, his motivation is broke a broken heart and and the humiliation of an noble man being flogged and the loss of his bride and and it's the motivations are more idealistic than just greed or just taking the money away from somebody else or robbing. Um but the truth is that what makes him the hero is that he takes away from the rich to give to the poor. >> So, why has his story then persisted till today? What do you know what does he >> I think that the story persists until today because in many ways um people of color, the the Latinos, the Hispanics in California feel that they are abused. They feel that they are the last of the last in the social scale.

That they do the heavy work and get very few rewards. Um so so the idea of Joaquin Murrieta is always in the back of the of your mind. It's like the idea of Zorro, you know? The the the avenger with a with a black cape and a mask that comes and defends the Indians, defends the poor. And remember that most of those uh Latino Latinos that come to this country are Indians, uh pure blood Indians most of them. So, they feel that these characters represent them. They are the Robin Hoods for them. >> So, it's sort of a very seductive kind of >> Of course, very seductive. >> How would you say California reflects its Gold Rush beginnings? >> Probably California reflects its beginnings by the fact that it attracts people from all over the world. Um many people end up here seduced by the freedom, by the by the vastness, by the chances that it offers, the opportunities.

Um maybe there's no gold anymore, but there's other things that people think that they can do here, the Silicon Valley, the whatever. They they they find that California is a place of opportunities for people of all races. And you you don't feel like a foreigner in California. You are always part of it because everybody is somehow a foreigner. Who was born here, by the way? I mean, everybody I meet has come here. Few are born here. >> This very small event of somebody reaching down and picking up and finding a small piece of gold changed things for for California and for for the world. >> In January of 1848, someone found a little flake of gold the size of a nail. And it changed changed California. Changed the minds of many people. Changed thousands of people. And created this place that we call today California. Now, what did that represent? I think it's a metaphor for hope.

Um it was a time in which the world seemed very constricted. Where it where where everything was structured. Where you belonged where you were born in a social class or in a place and you stayed there. Uh this this little piece of gold represented the possibility of starting anew. Of of being a new person. Inventing a new self. It was going to to a place that was empty. And and maybe founding a dynasty there. Who knows? Everything was possible. And I think that's what the gold represented. It that it was a metaphor for that. For the for for a new life.