Joaquin Murrieta

Joaquin Murrieta Carrillo (sometimes spelled Murieta or Murietta) (1829 – July 25, 1853), also called the Robin Hood of the West or the Robin Hood of El Dorado, was a Mexican figure of disputed historicity. The novel "The Life and Adventures of Joaquín Murieta: The Celebrated California Bandit" (1854) by John Rollin Ridge ostensibly recounts his story.
Legends subsequently arose about a notorious outlaw in California during the California Gold Rush of the 1850s, but evidence for a historical Murrieta is scarce. Contemporary documents record testimony in 1852 concerning a minor horse thief of that name. Newspapers reported" banditos" named Joaquin, who robbed and killed several people during the same time. A California Ranger named Harry Love was assigned to track down Murrieta and was said to have brought his head in for the bounty.
The popular legend of Joaquin Murrieta was that he was a forty-niner, a gold miner and a "vaquero "from Sonora. Peace loving, he was driven to revenge after his brother and he were falsely accused of stealing a mule. His brother was hanged and Murrieta was horse-whipped. His young wife was raped, and in one version, she died in Murrieta's arms. Swearing revenge, he hunted down the men who had violated her. He embarked on a short but violent career to kill his Anglo tormentors. The state of California offered a reward up to $5,000 for Murrieta, "dead or alive." He was reportedly killed in 1853, but the news of his death was disputed. Myths arose about him and his possible survival.
Controversy over his life.
Controversy surrounds the figure of Joaquin Murrieta—who he was, what he did, and many of his life's events. Historian Susan Lee Johnson says:
"So many tales have grown up around Murrieta that it is hard to disentangle the fabulous from the factual. There seems to be a consensus that Anglos drove him from a rich mining claim, and that, in rapid succession, his wife was raped, his half-brother lynched, and Murrieta himself horse-whipped. He may have worked as a monte dealer for a time; then, according to whichever version one accepts, he became either a horse trader and occasional horse thief, or a bandit."
John Rollin Ridge, grandson of Cherokee leader Major Ridge, wrote a dime novel about Murrieta. This fictional account contributed to his legend, especially as it was translated into various European languages. A portion of Ridge's novel was reprinted in 1858 in the "California Police Gazette". This story was picked up and subsequently translated into French. The French version was translated into Spanish by Roberto Hyenne, who took Ridge's original story and changed every "Mexican" reference to "Chilean".
Early 20th-century writer Johnston McCulley was said to have based his character Don Diego de la Vega—better known as Zorro in his 1919 novel of that name—on Ridge's 1854 novel about Murrieta.
Early life and education.
Most biographical sources hold that Murrieta was born in Hermosillo in the northwestern state of Sonora, Mexico. Historian Frank Forrest Latta wrote "Joaquín Murrieta and His Horse Gangs" (1980) based on decades of investigation of the Murrieta family in Sonora, California, and Texas. He said that Murrieta was from the Pueblo de Murrieta on the Rancho Tapizuelas, across the Cuchujaqui River (known locally as the Arroyo de [los] Álamos). This was north of Casanate, in the southeast of Sonora and near the Sinaloa border, within what is now the Álamos Municipality, of Sonora. Murrieta was educated at a school nearby in El Salado.
1849 migration to California.
Murrieta reportedly went to California in 1849 to seek his fortune in the California Gold Rush. His older Carrillo stepbrother Joaquin Manuel Carrillo Murrieta, who was already in California, had written him about the discovery of gold and urged him to come. Like many Sonorans, Murrieta and a party including his new wife Rosa Feliz, traveled there across the Altar and Colorado Deserts in 1849. This large family expedition included Joaquin's younger brother (Jesus Murrieta); Jesus Carrillo Murrieta, his other Carrillo stepbrother; three Feliz brothers-in-law (Claudio, Reyes, and Jesus); two Murrieta cousins (Joaquin Juan and Martin Murrieta; four Valenzuela cousins (including Joaquin, Theodoro, and Jesus Valenzuela); two Duarte cousins (Antonio and Manuel); and a few other men from Pueblo de Murrieta or nearby.
Five Joaquins Gang.
Murrieta encountered prejudice and hostility in the extreme competition of the rough mining camps. While mining for gold, his wife and he were supposedly attacked by American miners jealous of his success. They allegedly beat him and raped his wife. However, the only source for this account was a dime novel, "The Life and Adventures of Joaquín Murieta", written by John Rollin Ridge and published in 1854.
Historian Latta wrote that Murrieta formed a gang, with well-organized bands, one led by himself and the rest led by one or two of his trusted Sonoran relatives. Latta documented that the core of these men had gathered to help Murrieta kill at least six of the Americans who had lynched his stepbrother Jesus Carrillo and whipped him on the false charge of the theft of a mule. The gang began to engage in illegal horse trade with Mexico, using stolen horses and legally captured mustangs. They drove herds of stolen horses from as far north as Contra Costa County, the gold camps of the Sierras, and the Central Valley via the remote La Vereda del Monte trail through the Diablo Range, then south to Sonora for sale.
At other times, the bands robbed and killed miners or American settlers, particularly those returning from the California goldfields. The gang is believed to have killed up to 28 Chinese and 13 Anglo-Americans. This figure is based on accounts of their raids in early 1853.
By 1853, the California state legislature listed Murrieta as one of the so-called "Five Joaquins", suspected criminals in a bill passed in May 1853. The legislature authorized hiring for three months a company of 20 California Rangers, veterans of the Mexican War, to hunt down "the five Joaquins, whose names are Joaquin Muriati [sic], Joaquin Ocomorenia, Joaquin Valenzuela, Joaquin Botellier, and Joaquin Carillo, and their banded associates." On May 11, 1853, the governor, John Bigler, signed an act to create the "California State Rangers," to be led by Captain Harry Love (a former Texas Ranger and Mexican War veteran).
The state paid the California Rangers $150 a month, and promised them a $1,000 governor's reward if they captured the wanted men. On July 25, 1853, a group of rangers encountered a band of armed Mexican men near Arroyo de Cantua on the edge of the Diablo Range near Coalinga. In the confrontation, three of the Mexicans were killed. The rangers claimed one of the dead was Murrieta, and another Manuel Garcia, also known as Three-Fingered Jack, one of his most notorious associates. Two others were captured.
A California Historical Landmark plaque has been installed near Coalinga at the intersection of State Routes 33 and 198 to mark the approximate site of the incident.
As proof of the outlaws' deaths, the Rangers cut off the hand of Three-Fingered Jack, and the alleged head of Murrieta. They preserved these in a jar of alcohol to bring to the authorities to claim their reward. Officials displayed the jar of remains in Mariposa County, Stockton, and San Francisco. The rangers took the display throughout California; spectators could pay $1 to see the relics.
Love and his rangers received the $1,000 reward money. In August 1853, an anonymous Los Angeles-based man wrote to the "San Francisco Alta California Daily", claiming that Love and his rangers had murdered some innocent Mexican mustang catchers, and bribed people to swear out affidavits as to their identities. Later that fall, California newspapers carried letters by a few men falsely claiming that Capt. Love had failed to display Murrieta's head at the mining camps. On May 28, 1854, the California State Legislature voted to reward the Rangers with another $5,000 for their defeat of Murrieta and his band.
Some 25 years later, myths began to form about Murrieta. In 1879, O. P. Stidger reportedly heard Murrieta's sister say that the displayed head was not her brother's. At around the same time, numerous sightings were reported of Murrieta as a middle-aged man. These were never confirmed. His preserved head was destroyed during the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and subsequent fire.
Murrieta's nephew, known as Procopio, became one of California's most notorious bandits of the 1860s and 1870s. He was said to have wanted to exceed the reputation of his uncle.
The Real Zorro.
Murrieta is believed to have inspired the fictional character of "Zorro", the lead character in the five-part serial story, "The Curse of Capistrano", written by Johnston McCulley, and published in 1919 in a pulp fiction magazine.
For some political activists of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, Murrieta has symbolized Mexican resistance against Anglo-American economic and cultural domination in California, as Spanish colonists, Native Americans, "mixtos", and independent Mexicans were there first. The "Association of Descendants of Joaquin Murrieta" says that Murrieta was not a ""gringo" eater", but "He wanted to retrieve the part of Mexico that was lost at that time in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo" (after the Mexican-American War).
Representations in media.
Joaquin Murrieta has been used frequently as a romantic outlaw figure in novels, stories, and comics, and in films and TV series.
Music.
In the late 20th century a Los Angeles Chicano community center was named Centro Joaquin Murrieta de Aztlan.