Term Paper
on Joaquin Murieta
Joaquin Murieta was the person's name given to a prominent bandit all through
the California gold rush of the mid 1800's. He turned into a hero of Spanish
speaking people who had been disheartened from receiving the gold fields for the
reason of a $20 monthly tax placed on foreign miners during 1850.
“No one can be familiar with a real Joaquin Murieta survival. There were as many
as five bandits in the gold fields acknowledged simply as Joaquin. In July 1853,
California rangers killed two Mexicans and later recognized one of them as
Joaquin Murieta. However this person's true background is mysterious”. (Robert
Glass Cleland, Pg 64 – 65) Joaquin Murieta was born in 1830, in the Mexican
state of Sonora. In 1850, Murieta along with his bride, Rosita Feliz, were
traveling to Northern California. The colliery fields tempted the Murietas. The
white miners didn't like the consideration of the share of the gold fields with
Mexicans, so they beaten up the couple. Murieta was trampled and his wife was
raped. They left Stanislaus County and traveled to Calaveras County, where
Joaquin’s brother met them.
“Americans did not like Mexicans working in the mine additionally beat him as a
warning. The couple moved to a distant area and took up farming. They were
cautioned there too. They moved yet again to Murphy’s Diggings, where he worked
in a mine and a gambling hall”. (Jack D. Forbes, PG 98 – 99) Joaquin rented his
brother's horse and was unaware that it had been stolen from a member of the
society. The horse's possessor charged Murieta of the robbery. Joaquin told the
possessor he had rented the horse, and his brother could give details. A crowd
shaped and wouldn't take note to the clarification. They hung the brother, and
Joaquin was horse thrashed. Murieta was determined to get revenge, when his
brother was trodden and killed for a crime he did not consign. He swore revenge
against those who killed him. He simply turned to a life of crime subsequent to
American miners who strike him, tied him up, hanged his brother and ravished his
wife.
“After these carnage he affirmed that he would from now on live for revenge, and
that his path must be marked with blood.” (Carey McWilliams, p. 32) “According
to legend Murieta had been a passive gold miner until Anglos jumped his assert
and killed his brother”. (Julian Samora, Joe Bernal, and Albert Pena, p. 41)
Rapidly afterward a miner, who was concerned with the killing, was found dead
outside his campground. One more man was shot as he was walking down a road.
Within a month, fifteen men were murdered. The preceding five left the country.
Lots of the towns’ people were so frightened that they fled the region. The left
over members of the lynch gang were all murdered by Murieta and other Mexicans.
Murieta rode north with his wife to Marysville, where he conscripted and
prohibit gang to take retaliation on all Americans. Quickly he had 50 men. Among
them were Manuel Garcia, Joaquin Valenzuela, Pedro Gonzalez, Luis Vulvia, and
Claudio. Even Rosita rode with them on instance.
Murieta and his gang turned into mainly feared gangs who were banned in
California. Manuel Garcia, also familiar as "Three Fingered Jack" and Reyes
Feliz, his wife's brother. The gang frightens Northern California, cheating
miners, holding up horse-drawn carriages, and prowling farmhouses. They murdered
seven people in twelve days near Marysville, California.
They began a control of terror in which they robbed villagers, wrap animals,
blazed houses, and killed people. And he constantly got away while other
villagers had avowed devotion and held him conceal out, gave him provisions, or
gave fake information.
About 1852, he turned his thought to robbing carriages. Through all the gold
coming out of the hills, it was supposed to be very beneficial. He began
striking stages in the Mokelumne Hill area. He never robbed the California Stage
Company as the driver, Joe Bryan, rarely supplied him with provisions. They in
addition killed and robbed a number of Chinese prospectors. He murdered a Los
Angeles sheriff named Wilson, who had endangered to get him in.
"He rides through settlements slaughtering the weak and unprotected, as if a
mania for murder possessed his soul. So daring and reckless is he that he
marches in the day time... and actually corrals the Chinese by the score, and
yet so fertile is he in expedients, and so accurate in his knowledge of that
wild region, that he baffles his pursuers and defeats the plans of the many
thousands who are lying in wait for him." San Joaquin Republican, a Stockton
paper, on March 2, 1853. (Tom Pendergast)
They moved north to Shasta County, where they murdered some miners as well as
stole their horses. Chief Sapatorra imprisoned Murieta as he and his men were
trying to take the Indian's horses. The chief detailed capturing the Mexicans to
the establishment. The authorities uninformed it was Murieta that had been
imprisoned, ordered the Chief to discharge his prisoners. Subsequent to
punishing the men, he let them go. After releasing him, they found that Murieta
is actually head of bandit gang. They set a reward against Murieta and his gang,
because of that reward many lawmen were after the outlaws.
”In his effort to get even himself on the gringos, Murieta was soon accredited
with almost every crime dedicated in California. He was a lot compared to Robin
Hood. Though, his activities often brought reprisal against innocent Mexican
Americans. The California parliament posted a $1,000.00 reward for his capture
and sent an unusual force to track him down”. (Carey McWilliams, p. 32)
Lastly, Major General Joshua H. Bean, from the state militia, set out subsequent
to the bandit. He sent men out over a broad area. But Murieta found out
concerning it and trapped the general. Texan captain Harry Love took over and in
fact captured and killed one of the leaders named Gonzales. They as well
imprisoned and slay Reyes Feliz, Rosita’s brother, for the death of the general.
Soon after that a gunfight followed and twenty more bandits lie dead.
Legislature's Committee on Military Affairs expressed, referring to the many
rumors floating around at the time: "Unless said the Joaquin be endowed with
super-natural qualities, he could not have been seen at the same time in several
places, widely separated from each other. The offer of such a reward would be
likely to stimulate cupidity, to magnify fancied resemblance, and dozens of
heads similar in some respects to that of Joaquin might be presented for
verification."(Tom Pendergast)
An Aug. 4 letter from Love to Bigler details his version of the encounter that
followed as they rode up on the Mexican's camp:
”Joaquin was immediately recognized and on his being aware of the fact,
immediately sprang to his horse and endeavored to escape. He was closely pursued
... and his horse shot from under him. When he took flight on foot and he being
wounded, some of the men shot him dead before going far ... the remaining part
of the gang, who fought bravely while retreating, each of them being armed with
two six shooters, and three of their numbers killed, while the remainder
escaped, some badly wounded. Immediately after returning from the pursuit we
beheaded Joaquin and one of his main men, and I dispatched Captain Burns and
John Sylvester to fort Miller (being the nearest point) with the heads, in order
to be put in liquor for preservation." (Tom Pendergast)
Some member of the gang kept away from being arrested for a while, but then
California Governor endorsed Captain Harry Love to sort out a gang to hunt down
the bandits. Love's gang cornered the bandits in June 1853 along Arroyo Cantoova.
They came ahead the gang's camp as Murieta was watering his horse. Murieta saw
the gang as well as screamed to the rest of his men to run for; both Manuel
Garcia and Murieta rode their horses and road angrily out of camp. The gang
opened up ahead the fleeing fugitives with their guns, Murieta and his horse
were shot to parts and Murieta fell to the floor. As the gang packed around the
fallen Murieta, he endeavored to say something, but didn't have the potency. A
few minutes later, he yielded to his wounds. Manuel Garcia had rode off in the
conflicting way, but his fortune had too run out. The gang shot him numerous
times as he was trying to run away, but he constantly riding for five miles
until he fell off his horse fatally injured. The gang found his body an hour
later. To gather his reward and not have to haul the bodies back to town,
Captain Love cut off the head of Murieta as well as the hand of Manuel Garcia
for recognition. Father Dominic Blaine recognized the head on August 11th, 1853.
Captain Love was rewarded $6,000 by the California State legislature. Murieta's
head was positioned in a jar moreover taken to San Francisco. The head was place
on exhibit and sent to restricted fairs and revels, where for a dollar we could
see the disreputable bandit king together with the hand from Manuel Garcia.
As early as July 30, newspapers hostile to Bigler began attacking the claim. One
of the most skeptical was the Los Angeles Star, which dropped a bombshell on
Aug. 18. "A few weeks ago a party of native Californians and Sonorans started
for the Tulare Valley, for the express and avowed purpose of running mustangs.
Three of the party have since returned, and report that they were attacked by a
party of Americans, and that the balance of their party, four in number, had
been killed; that Joaquin Valenzuela, one of them, was killed as he was
endeavoring to escape and that his head was cut off by his captors as a trophy.
It is too well known that Joaquin Murietta is not the person killed by Capt.
Harry Love's company ... the head recently exhibited in Stockton bears no
resemblance to that individual and this is positively asserted by those who have
seen the real Murietta and the spurious head." (Tom Pendergast)
In the next two weeks he held public viewings of the gruesome artifact --
charging each person $1 -- in Mariposa County, Stockton and San Francisco. The
purpose was presumably to attract people who had known Murietta and would sign
an affidavit saying it was his head. Seventeen people signed, including a
priest, all of them claiming to have known Murietta or seen him before, and that
he was the same Murietta who was the terror of Calaveras County.
But of those who signed, none wrote that they'd actually seen the owner of the
head in the jar rob or kill anyone. One person who signed, supposedly the
prisoner captured and hanged in Martinez, who had been a member of the gang,
might have been able to positively identify the head had he not been hanged. All
the others just said they knew it was Murietta without offering any evidence
that the individual they called Murietta was actually seen committing a criminal
act. (Tom Pendergast)
Works Cited
Cleland, Robert Glass. From Wikierness to Empire: A History of California. New
York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1962, pg. 64 - 65
Forbes, Jack D. The Indians in America's Past, Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall,
1964, pg. 98 - 99
McWilliams, Carey. North from Mexico, Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1949, pg.
32
Samora, Julian, Joe Bernal, and Albert Pena. Gunpowder Justice: A Reassessment
of the Texas
Rangers. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979, pg. 41
Tom Pendergast of the decapitated Joaquin Jan 17, 2002 http://www.benicianews.com/articles/index.cfm?artOID=4770&webpage=0
