The Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta, the Celebrated California Bandit

PUBLISHER'S PREFACE.

The undersigned, having purchased the copyright of the Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta, deem it proper to preface this publication of this latest edition by some brief mention of the lamented author, JOHN R. RIDGE, who was a Cherokee Indian. His Indian name was Chee-squa-tah-lo-nee, which, being interpreted into English, is Yellow Bird, and this name, which the reader will perceive is not a fictitious signature, was that adopted by Mr. Ridge in the title page of most of his works.

The father of Yellow Bird was a Chief, his mother, a white woman, a native of Connecticut, in which State she married the young Chief, he being at the time at the institution of Cornwall, where he had just finished his English education. When Yellow Bird was ten years of age his father was assassinated, at the instigation of a rival Chief, and his mother fled with her children from the Indian territory. Yellow Bird was sent to school in Massachusetts. At the age of seventeen he returned to the Cherokee Nation, which had been ever since his father's death the scene of fierce contentions between rival factions. In these contests, which were bloody, the young man mingled, with varied fortune, until the age of twenty-three, when, his patrimony being wasted in the struggle and the scale turning against him, the power of his father's enemies being too firmly secured to be shaken without a strong military force with which to operate against them, and he being himself hunted from pillar to post by the stronger party, he turned his steps once more to California. Doubtless he cherished still some plan for obtaining what he considered his just rights in the Cherokee Nation, but what they are none now can tell. His sudden death, while he was yet in the full vigor of manhood, took him away from many unfinished and long-cherished plans. In California his career was a literary and political one, and many of his poems will always remain as an enduring portion of American literature. Before his death he had prepared a revised edition of his story of Joaquin Murieta, to which he had added much new and heretofore unpublished material. The manuscript has been purchased by the undersigned, and with the following preface, written by the author for this edition, the narrative is laid before the public. FRED'K MACCRELLISH & Co.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE PRESENT EDITION.

The continued and steady demand for the Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta induces the author to issue a third edition, revised and enlarged, according to the scope of additional facts, the knowledge of which has been acquired since the publication of preceding editions. This would seem to be the more necessary, as a matter of justice both to the author and the public, inasmuch as a spurious edition has been foisted upon unsuspecting publishers and by them circulated, to the infringement of the author's copyright and the damage of his literary credit, the spurious work, with its crude interpolations, fictitious additions and imperfectly disguised distortions of the author's phraseology, being by many persons confounded with the original performance.

CHAPTER I. HIS BOYHOOD, EARLY EDUCATION AND PERSONAL APPEARANCE—HIS ACQUAINTANCE WITH AMERICANS IN MEXICO—HIS WINNING OF THE BEAUTIFUL ROSITA—HIS ARRIVAL IN CALIFORNIA—HIS HONEST OCCUPATION AS A MINER—HIS DOMICIL INTRUDED UPON BY LAWLESS MEN—THEIR OUTRAGES UPON HM AND HIS MISTRESS—HIS REMOVAL TO A NEW LOCALITY—NEW INTRUSIONS AND OPPRESSIONS.

Sitting down, as I now do, to give to the public such events of the life of Joaquin Murieta as have come into my possession, I am moved by no desire to administer to any depraved taste for the dark and horrible inhuman action, but rather by a wish to contribute my mite to those materials out of which the early history of California shall be composed. Aside from the interest naturally excited by the career of a man so remarkable in the annals of crime—for in deeds of daring and blood he has never been exceeded by any of the renowned robbers of the Old or New World who have preceded him—his character is well worth the scrutiny of the intelligent reader as being a product of the social and moral condition of the country in which he lived, while his individual record becomes a part of the most valuable, because it is a part of the earliest history of the State. We must here premise that there existed another Joaquin, contemporaneously with the subject of this narrative, who bore the several titles of O'Comorenia, Valenzuela, Botellier and Carillo. His true surname was Valenzuela, and he was a distinguished subordinate of Joaquin Murieta. He used, however, by many persons to be mistaken for his chief; and certain individuals who knew him simply as Joaquin, and who saw him after the announcement of Murieta's death, insisted with great pertinacity that the terrible bandit was still alive. Joaquin Murieta was a Mexican of good blood, borne in the province of Sonora, of respectable parents, and educated to a degree sufficient for the common purposes of life in the schools of his native country. While growing up, he was remarkable for a very mild and peaceable disposition, and gave no sign of that indomitable and daring spirit which afterwards characterized him. Those who knew him in his school-boy days speak affectionately of his generous and noble nature at that period of his life, and can scarcely credit the fact, that the renowned and bloody bandit of California was one and the same being. The first considerable interruption in the general smooth current of his existence, occurred in the latter portion of his seventeenth year.

Near the rancho of his father resided a packer, one Feliz, who, as ugly as sin itself, had a daughter named Rosita. Her mother was dead, and she, although but sixteen, was burdened with the responsibility of a house keeper in their simple home, for her father and a younger brother, whose name will hereafter occasionally occur in the progress of this narration. Rosita, though in humble circumstances, was of Castilian descent, and showed her superior origin in the native royalty of her look and general dignity of her bearing. Yet she was of that voluptuous order to which so many of the dark-eyed daughters of Spain belong, and the rich blood of her race mounted to cheeks, lips and eyes.

Her father doted upon and was proud of her, and it was his greatest happiness, on returning from occasional packing expeditions through the mountains of Sonora he was simply employed by a more wealthy individual to receive the gentle ministries of his gay and smiling daughter.

Joaquin having nothing to do but ride his father's horses, and give a general superintendence to the herding of stock upon the rancho, was frequently a transient caller at the cabin of Feliz, more particularly when the old man was absent, making excuses for a drink of water or some such matter, and prolonging his stay for the purpose of an agreeable chit-chat with the by no means backward damsel.

She had read of bright and handsome lovers, in the stray romances of the day, and well interpreted, no doubt, the mutual emotions of loving hearts. Indeed Nature herself is a sufficient instructor, without the aid of books, where tropic fire is in the veins, and lowing health runs hand in hand with the imagination. It was no wonder, then, that the youthful Joaquin and the precocious and blooming Rosita, in the absence, on each side, of all other like objects of attraction, should begin to feel the presence of each other as a necessity. They loved warmly and passionately. The packer being absent more than half the time, there was every opportunity for the youthful pair to meet, and their intercourse was, with the exception of the occasional intrusion of her brother Reyes, a mere boy, absolutely without restraint. Rosita was one of those beings who yield all for love, and, ere, she took time to consider of her duties to society, to herself, or to her father, she found herself in the situation of a mere mistress to Joaquin. Old Feliz broke in at last, upon their felicity, by a chance discovery. Coming home one day from a protracted tour in the mountains, he found no one in the cabin but his son Reyes, who told him that Rosita and Joaquin had gone out together on the path leading up the little stream that ran past the dwelling. Following up the path indicated, the old man came upon the pair, in a position, as Byron has it in the most diabolical of his works, 'loving, natural and Greek.'

His rage knew no bounds, but Joaquin did not tarry for its effects. On the contrary, he fled precipitately from the scene. Whether he showed a proper regard for the fair Rosita in so doing, it is not our province to discuss. All we have to do is to state what occurred, and leave moral discrepancies to be harmonized as they best may.

At any rate, the loving girl never blamed him for his conduct, for she took the earliest opportunity of a moonlight night, to seek him at his father's rancho, and throw herself into his arms. About this time, Joaquin had received a letter from a half brother of his, who had been a short time in California, advising him by all means to hasten, to that region of romantic adventure and golden reward.

He was not long in preparing for the trip. Mounted upon a valuable horse, with his mistress by his side upon another, and with a couple of packed mules before him, laden with provisions and necessaries, he started for the fields of gold.

His journey was attended with no serious difficulties, and the trip was made with expedition. The first that we hear of him in the Golden State is that in the spring of 1850, he is engaged in the honest occupation of a miner in the Stanislaus placers, then reckoned among the richest portions of the mines.

He was then eighteen years of age, a little over the medium height, slenderly but gracefully built, and active as a young tiger. His complexion was neither very dark nor very light, but clear and brilliant, and his countenance is pronounced to have been at that time, exceedingly handsome and attractive. His large black eyes kindling with the enthusiasm of his earnest nature, his firm and well-formed mouth, his well-shaped head, from which the long, glossy black hair hung down over his shoulders, his silvery voice, full of generous utterance, and the frank and cordial manner which distinguished him, made him beloved by all with whom he came in contact.

He had the confidence and respect of the whole community around him, and was fast amassing a fortune in his rich mining claim. He had built him a comfortable mining residence, in which he had domiciled his heart's treasure the beautiful girl whom we have described.

The country then was full of careless and desperate men, who bore the name of Americans, but failed to support the honor and the dignity of that title. A feeling was prevalent among this class, of contempt for any and all Mexicans, whom they looked upon as, conquered subjects of the United States, having no rights which could stand before a haughtier and superior race.

They made no exceptions. If the proud blood of the Castilian mounted to the cheek of a partial descendant of the Mexiques, showing that he had inherited the old chivalrous spirit of his Spanish ancestry, they looked upon it as a saucy presumption in one so inferior to them. The prejudice of color, the antipathy of races, which are always stronger and bitterer with the ignorant and unlettered, they could not overcome, or if they could, would not, because it afforded them a convenient excuse for their unmanly cruelty and oppression.

One pleasant evening, as Joaquin was sitting in his doorway, after a hard day's work, gazing forth upon the sparkling waters of the Stanislaus River, and listening to the musical voice of Rosita, who was singing a dreamy ditty of her native land, a band of the lawless men above alluded to approached the house and accosted its owner in a very insulting and supercilious manner, asking him by what means he, a d-d Mexican, presumed to be working a mining claim on American ground.

Joaquin, who spoke very good English, having often met with Americans in Sonora, replied that, under the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, he had a right to become a citizen of the United States, and that as such he considered himself. Well, sir, said one of the party, we allow no Mexicans to work in this region, and you have got to leave this claim.

As might have been expected, the young Mexican indignantly remonstrated against such an outrage. He had learned to believe that to be an American was to be the soul of honor and magnanimity, and he could hardly realize that such a piece of meanness and injustice could be perpetrated by any portion of a race whom he had been led so highly to respect.

His remonstrances only produced additional insult and insolence, and finally a huge fellow stepped forward and struck him violently in the face. Joaquin, with an ejaculation of rage, sprang toward his bowie-knife, which lay on the bed nearby where he had carelessly thrown it on his arrival from work, when his affrighted mistress, fearing that his rashness, in the presence of such an overpowering force might be fatal to him, frantically seized and held him.

At this moment his assailant again advanced, and, rudely throwing the young woman aside, dealt him a succession of blows which soon felled him, bruised and bleeding, to the floor. Rosita, at this cruel outrage, suddenly seemed transformed into a being of a different nature, and herself seizing the knife, she made a vengeful thrust at the American.

There was fury in her eye and vengeance in her spring, but what could a tender female accomplish, against such ruffians? She was seized by her tender wrists, easily disarmed, and thrown fainting and helpless upon the bed.

Meantime Joaquin had been bound hand and foot, by others of the party, and, lying in that condition he saw the cherished companion of his bosom deliberately violated by these very superior specimens of the much vaunted Anglo-Saxon race.

Leaving him in his agony, they gave him to understand that, if he was found in that cabin, or upon his claim after the expiration of the next ten days, they would take his life. The soul of the young man was from that moment darkened, and, as he himself related afterwards, he swore, with clenched hands, as his mistress unbound him, that he would live for revenge.

She, weeping, implored him to live for her, as he knew she only lived for him, and try to forget in some other and happier scene the bitter misery of the present. He was prevailed upon by her kindness and her tears, and soon after the young couple took their