Outside the Law

Several bandits of Mexican outlaws included members who were dispossessed miners. In the two years following the passage of the California tax law, these thieves maintained an intensive program of horse stealing, running off cattle, holding up stagecoaches, robbing saloons and stores. Nobody knew who was in these bands, but when their depredations occurred hundreds of miles apart people came to the conclusion that there were at least five bands. The name of the leader of each was said to be Joaquin-a common Mexican name-and it is noticeable that no surnames were mentions. In fact, no one knew any of the bandits’ names. Outlawry became so frequent that, in the spring of 1853, a bill was introduced in the California legislature offering a reward for the head of “Joaquin,” no last name given. It was pointed out that a law putting a price on the head of a man who was unknown except by the popular sobriquet, “Joaquin,” would be unconstitutional, and the bill failed to pass. However, the legislature did authorize a former Texan, Harry Love, to raise a small company of mounted rangers to capture the “robbers commanded by the five Joaquins.” Governor John Bigler, on his own authority, offered a reward of $1,500 for any Joaquin killed or captured. For about two months the rangers did little but chase rumors. Then one day they came on a group of Mexicans sitting around a campfire. After the rangers had asked a few questions, both groups began shooting. The rangers killed two of the band and captured two. One of the dead was identified as Manuel Garcia, a notorious thief and murderer better known as Three-Fingered Jack; the other, though not identified, was said to have referred to himself as the leader. Since the reward offered had been only for a Joaquin, the rangers quickly decided that the dead leader was a Joaquin. They cut off his head and the hand of Three-Finger Jack. These mementos were taken to Sacramento. A grateful legislature added $5,000 to the government’s reward and the grisly relics, preserved in jars of alcohol, were exhibited in various California towns. It should be noted that the first reports said only that this head belonged to Joaquin. No last name was mentioned. Later, however, the rangers obtained affidavits that the head belonged to Joaquin Murieta, a man wanted for murder. Three Mexicans in the party who had escaped said later that the beloved man was Joaquin Valenzuela. The Alta California, a San Francisco newspaper, denounced the ranger action as a humbug. The Joaquin fiasco might have been forgotten except for the appearance in 1854 of a fictional paperback entitled the Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta, the Celebrated California Bandit by John Rollin Ridge. The lurid word made Murieta a legendary Robin Hood who suited the romantic tastes of the readers of his time. The work was pirated by many other hack writers until the fictitious and heroic Joaquin Murieta became, in many people’s minds, a historic character-so historic that two of California’s best early-day historians, H.H. Bancroft and Theodore Hittell, put him in their serious texts as a real person.