gunfighter Benjamin F. Thompson established a reputation for himself by participating in at least 14 shootouts over the next three decades. California passed the Foreign Miners Tax. As a result of the population explosion after the Gold Rush, a wave of violence hit California. In one fifteen-month span in Los Angeles 44 homicides occurred. As a part of the Compromise of 1850, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act in September. On July 23, 1851, members of the Sioux nation signed the Treaty of Traverse des Sioux, ceding to the U.S. government much of their land in Iowa and Minnesota. In 1853, the U.S. and Mexico negotiated the Gadsden Purchase, whereby the former received 29,644 square miles of territory (the southernmost areas of present-day Arizona and New Mexico) for $15 million. The purchase established the final boundaries of the continental U.S. and provided the needed land for a railroad route. The U.S. Senate approved the purchase in June 1854. In People v. Hall, the California Supreme Court held that no Chinese witnesses would be allowed to give testimony against a white man. In Clarke County, Missouri, David McKee organized the Anti- Horse Thief Association. In 1855, California counted 370 homicides in the first eight months of the year. In 1856, the Committee of Vigilance held sway in San Francisco. Led by the wealthy and powerful William Tell Coleman, its objective was to attack Irish Catholics, Chinese, and Mexican Americans as well as “punishing criminals.” The Apache killed the U.S. Indian agent Henry Dodge. Because of the efforts of Dodge, Navajo-U.S. relations had been fairly peaceful for the last six-year. In 1857, the decision of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case in effect ruled that slaves were property and could not be considered citizens under the Constitution. In 1858, Kansas repealed its antimiscegenation law. (Chronicle of America; American Eras) In 1853, John Sweet became pr...
