Joaquin Murrieta

Murrieta, Joaquin (c.1832–53),California bandit leader, probably emigrated from Mexico during the gold rush, and because of some real or imagined grievance swore vengeance against the Americans, whom for two years he and his gang indiscriminately murdered, robbed, and terrorized. He, or an individual supposed to be him, was killed in 1853. The legendry that transformed him from a border ruffian to a Robin Hood and gave various men's exploits to him alone began with Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta (1854) by John R. Ridge. Joaquin Miller got his first name as a result of writing a similar defense in his youth.

Joaquín Murrieta , 1829?-1853, California bandit, b. Mexico. From 1849 to 1851 he mined in the California gold fields. After he and members of his family had been mistreated by American miners and driven from their claim, he became the leader of a band of desperadoes. For two years his robberies and murders terrorized California, until the legislature authorized Capt. Harry Love, deputy sheriff of Los Angeles co., to organize a company of mounted rangers to exterminate Murrieta's band. Surprised at his camp near Tulare Lake, Murrieta was shot, and most of his followers were killed or captured. Romanticization of his career began with the publication (1854) of John R. Ridge's The Life and Adventures of Joaquín Murieta.