CHAPTER XVIII
THE BANDIT MOURIETTA
RACIAL antagonism has ever been a source of human ills, and California was not without this trouble breeding factor. The Anglo-Saxon seeking gold, and the Latin on pleasure bent found it difficult to harmonize their views of life. The native Californians, accustomed to pastoral plenty, and the care-free pleasures of peaceful days, felt and somewhat resented the spirit of restless hurry and commercial greed introduced by the swarming invaders of their land of sweet content. On the other hand, the gold seekers had little patience with the seeming indolence and industrial backwardness of the Californian. Thus developed a race antagonism that in the years immediately following Marshall’s discovery of gold and the mad rush to California, made the epithets “gringo” and “greaser”’ antithetically opprobrious terms. This race antagonism gave birth to one of the most remarkable and extraordinary bandit careers of which any accurate and dependable record has ever been preserved. The story, interesting on its own account, is here related because of the illuminating picture it presents of the fundamental opposition of the two strains, Nordic and Latin, that in the early years of American occupation, met in California. The change to AngloSaxon rule had been sudden and complete; the gold rush in 1849 and 1850 had brought thousands of adventurers, whose sole aim was the acquirement of sudden wealth; and in those first mad years, love for California, which grows in the heart of everyone who comes within the alluring embrace of her magic charm, had to yield to the lure of gold. Joaquin Murietta was born in Mexico, in the State of Sonora, in 1832.
He came
of a good family, and was
educated in the schools of his native state. As a youth, he was genial and companionable and a favorite among his fellows. When a boy of seventeen, he fell desperately in love with a beautiful, black-eyed Mexican senor-
ita of Castilian descent, named
Rosita Felix, who returned his love with equal ardor. Rosita was then sixteen, and her proud father not only frowned on the courtship, but made it so unpleasant and disagreeable for Murietta that the youthful lover left Sonora for the goldfields of California. In accordance with their agreed plans, Rosita followed him. They were married, and began life in a mining camp on the Stanislaus river. This was in the early months of 1850, Joaquin then being eighteen and Rosita seventeen. All accounts agree that they were then a happy couple. Murietta, according to the historian Bancroft, was of medium height, somewhat slender in figure, extremely active and athletic, and no less graceful in movement than handsome in person. He had a high forehead, an intellectual cast of countenance, large, black, blazing eyes that could kindle with enthusiasm, or melt with tenderness,
and a well shaped mouth
that showed
at
once firmness and sensuality. His manner was frank and cordial, and he had a pleasing voice. Though youthful in appearance, he had the faculty of commanding both fear and respect. He took up a placer mining claim on the Stanislaus river, which proved to be quite rich, and which he was successfully working when the incident occurred that changed the current of his life. One evening there came to the cabin where he and Rosita were living, a party of Americans somewhat under the influence of alcoholic stimulants, and ordered him to leave the camp, telling him a Mexican had no right to mine there, and saying that they didn’t propose to have any Greaser around their diggings. Pointing to Rosita, one of the visiting party with an added sneering remark said, “And take
her with you.”
This enraged Murietta, and he hotly told the intruders that they must not speak so of his wife. A fight ensued in which Murietta was knocked senseless and Rosita was roughly handled. They left the mining camp, and went further up in the mountains, but were again commanded to clear out, which they did. In other camps to which they wandered, Murietta found small remuneration
for his toil, and it
is said that he became a monte dealer, at which he prospered. This occupation was not then deemed lacking in respectability in California’s mining camps. Then occurred the final act that converted a _ hotblooded, but theretofore law-abidinig Mexican, into a daring and desperate king of lawless bandits. While riding a horse he had borrowed from his half-brother, who lived on a ranch, Murietta was accosted by a party of horsemen, and charged with having stolen the animal.
One of the men in the party claimed ownership, and they took the young Mexican to the ranch where the half-brother lived, hung the half-brother to a tree, and,
tying Murietta to the same tree, flogged him severely. The horse had probably been stolen, but whatever may
have been the truth in that regard, Murietta was innocent even of a guilty knowledge of the offense. Suffering from the physical torture of the undeserved flogging, and smarting under the humiliations to which he and Rosita had been subjected, Murietta swore an oath of vengeance, and declared war on the gringo. Then followed a series of desperate deeds covering nearly three years of time that for boldness, daring and swiftness of execution marked Murietta as the master highwayman of a time when highway robbery was a
conspicuous feature in the current news. He organized Page:Dawn and the Dons.pdf/195 Page:Dawn and the Dons.pdf/196 Page:Dawn and the Dons.pdf/197 Page:Dawn and the Dons.pdf/198 Page:Dawn and the Dons.pdf/199 Page:Dawn and the Dons.pdf/200 Page:Dawn and the Dons.pdf/201 Page:Dawn and the Dons.pdf/202 Page:Dawn and the Dons.pdf/203 CHAPTER XIX
A CONTENTED ARCADIA
A remote Mexican province became a great American commonwealth. With characteristic American haste and expedition, a state constitution was adopted, members of Congress chosen, a state legislature
elected
and
convened,
a
code
of
state laws enacted, and United States Senators selected and their credentials presented at Washington, all before our national Congress had admitted California into the Union, or even provided a territorial form of government. Indeed, so urgent and insistent were California’s impetuous pioneers that on September 9, 1850, without territorial probation, the new Eldorado was en-
dowed by Congressional authority with all the powers and privileges of a sovereign state. The Argonauts of *49 found some twenty thousand contented Californians enjoying the delightful tranquil182 Page:Dawn and the Dons.pdf/205 Page:Dawn and the Dons.pdf/206 Page:Dawn and the Dons.pdf/207 Page:Dawn and the Dons.pdf/208 Page:Dawn and the Dons.pdf/209 Page:Dawn and the Dons.pdf/210 Page:Dawn and the Dons.pdf/211 Page:Dawn and the Dons.pdf/212 Page:Dawn and the Dons.pdf/213 Page:Dawn and the Dons.pdf/214 cupation, and still retained much of the flavor of the pastoral days of Spanish California.” ‘Then remembering the girlhood days spent there in the time of Stevenson and Stoddard, she adds, “Those were dolce far niente days at Monterey, dreamy romantic days, spent beneath the bluest sky, beside the bluest sea, and in the
best company on earth, and all glorified by the rainbow hues of youth.”
And the spell that caught and held Vizcaino three hundred years ago, and which is so feelingly expressed by Mrs. Sanchez, still lives at Monterey. The Monterey peninsula has ever been, and probably will ever be a playground. Stock raising has been driven into the near-by mountains, whence radiates something of the old pastoral charm of equestrian days. The numerous fishing fleet of small boats that daily rides at anchor in the Monterey harbor adds a peculiar and pleasing picturesqueness to the town. There is no other industry on the peninsula of sufficient importance to merit special attention. The call of the Monterey peninsula was never industrial.
Its lure has ever been a genial sky, a delightful
playground and pleasure loving companions. Its dwellers have increased in number; outdoor pleasures have multiplied; and this perennial playground of the Don has taken on new life and color. But the spirit of the Don still abides, and old Spain lingers on.