Before property -- Powerless judges and discharged soldiers -- Indian miners -- The mining codes -- Resolving disputes -- Cooperation and conflict with mining companies -- Lynch trials and frontier criminal law -- Trial by Judge Lynch -- Whipping, branding, and hanging -- The end of the Hangtown Oak -- Massacring Indians and ejecting Spanish speakers -- Capitalist investment and the end of the gold rush.

"The California Gold Rush is thought to exemplify the Wild West, yet miners were expert organizers. Driven by property interests, they enacted mining codes, held criminal trials, and decided claim disputes. But democracy and law did not extend to "foreigners" and Indians, and miners were hesitant to yield power to the state that formed around them"