Victory in the Mexican-American War brought vast new territories in the West into the United States. The gold rush of 1849 transformed the sleepy frontier of California into a booming economy (see “Golden California” in chapter 12). The 1850s witnessed new “rushes,” for gold in Colorado and silver in Nevada’s Comstock Lode. The phenomenal economic growth of the West demanded the attention of the federal government, but it quickly became clear that Northerners and Southerners had very different visions of the West, particularly the place of slavery in its future. From 1846, when it first appeared that the war with Mexico might mean new territory for the United States, politicians battled over whether to ban slavery from former Mexican land or permit it to expand to the Pacific. In 1850 Congress patched together a plan that Americans hoped would last. This plan for expansion envisioned stability only for the Anglo-Americans, however. Native Americans in the West would soon see their traditional way of life disrupted.