[6] The squatters were roused initially by an October 1849 lawsuit filed against a logger named Z. M. Chapman, who had constructed a log cabin nearby Sutter's Fort on Priest, Lee, & Company-owned land.
[8] The settlers who supported government recognition of squatters' rights began to host public meetings in the spring of 1850, at which they swore to defend their lands if confronted.
When the court ruled against Madden on August 8,[9] squatter-sympathetic settlers charged the speculators with "brute force" in handbills distributed across the city.
Protracting peace for an additional day, mayor Hardin Bigelow promised that writs for arrest against those who joined Robinson would not be issued.
Along with others who had opposed the sheriff's decision to execute the writ, McClatchy and Moran were jailed aboard a ship that served as the city's prison brig, the La Grange.
[1] Fearing a full-scale uprising, Bigelow marched with his fellow settlers and confronted Maloney and Robinson at the corner of streets Fourth and J.
[1] Meanwhile, as Bigelow recovered from his wounds, Joseph McKinney led a party of twenty men and attacked a squatter camp at Brighton, a settlement to the east of Sacramento.
Charles Robinson, although tried for murder, remained extremely popular with the populace of Sacramento, and was elected to the California State Legislature while still in prison, after supporters placed his name on the ballot.