Joaquin Miller

Joaquin Miller , pseud. of Cincinnatus Heine (or Hiner ) Miller, 1839?-1913, American poet, b. Liberty, Ind. In 1852 his family moved to frontier Oregon. He lived in gold-mining camps, later with Native Americans, and was in turn an express rider, an editor, and an Oregon judge. His first two volumes of poems, Specimens (1868) and Joaquin et al. (1869), contained energetic, rhetorical celebrations of frontier life. They brought him only local acclaim, but in England, where he went next, his colorful personality, his dramatic Western costume, and his Songs of the Sierras (1871) made him famous as a frontier poet. See his autobiography (1898; ed. by S. G. Firman, 1930).

Miller, Joaquin, pseudonym of Cincinnatus Hiner (or Heine) Miller (1841?–1913), at first a nickname, as his earliest writing was a defense of the Mexican bandit Joaquin Murietta. His early biography is cloaked in exaggeration; he was born in Liberty, Ind., supposedly went West in a covered wagon, lived in frontier Oregon and with the Indians in northern California, was at various times horse thief, Portland lawyer, pony‐express messenger, newspaper editor, and Indian fighter, before turning to the poetry published as Specimens, (1868) and Joaquin et al (1869). He drifted to San Francisco to enter literary society, and to London, where his private printing of Pacific Poems (1870) and Songs of the Sierras (1871) brought him acclaim from the English, who were fascinated by the discovery of a “frontier poet.” Hailed as “the Byron of Oregon,” he dramatically attempted to live up to his title. He soon returned to America, where his energetic rhetorical poems continued to appear, although later his bombast, coupled with his imitativeness and metrical weakness, caused him to lose the acclaim he first received. The Danites in the Sierras (1877), a Mormon play, was the most popular of his dramas, and besides several novels he wrote the autobiographical Life Amongst the Modocs (1873) and Memorie and Rime (1884).

Miller, Joaquin. See Danites, The.