Joaquin Murrieta, The Mexican Robin Hood Who Inspired Zorro
Wikimedia CommonsAn illustration of Joaquin Murrieta, who formed a robber gang and plundered American miners.
If you’re familiar with the famous story of Zorro, the name Joaquin Murrieta might ring a bell. Indeed, Murrieta’s alter-ego might be more popular than the man himself but this true revenge story has certainly stood the test of time.
Joaquin Murrieta was born in northwestern Mexico in the state of Sonora around 1829. During the California Gold Rush, Murrieta and his wife set up a small home in the hills of California and Murrieta spent his days panning for gold.
By 1850, he was a successful prospector despite the competition from the growing number of Americans who had also traveled to the formerly Mexican territory. Inevitably, clashes soon erupted between the Mexican and American prospectors over the area’s gold deposits. During one particularly brutal conflict, Murrieta’s wife was raped and murdered right in front of him.
Even after the now-widowed Murrieta quit mining and settled into life as a card dealer, he continued to endure the often-violent racism of white men. When a mob accused him of stealing a horse that Murrieta had borrowed from his half-sibling, they lynched both Murrieta and Murrieta’s brother for the alleged offense.
The ordeal killed his brother but Joaquin Murrieta survived and the incident was the final straw that launched Joaquin Murrieta on the path of revenge. He hunted down his brother’s killers and murdered them one by one while recruiting other Mexican fighters to form a gang of vigilantes to protect the Mexican community from the violence perpetrated by the Americans.
Exhibitors Herald/ Wikimedia Commons
Joaquin Murrieta’s revenge story inspired the creation of Zorro.
One of his recruits was a Mexican army veteran named “Three-Fingered Jack” who lost two fingers in a firefight during the Mexican-American War. Together, they targeted American miners, rounding them up like cattle before murdering them and plundering their gold.
Word soon got out that Murrieta’s gang were pillaging American miners and giving the loot to the Mexican families, and Joaquin Murrieta quickly became a local legend.
His bandits became so feared that the government finally put a bounty on Murrieta’s head. He was later killed in a gunfight between his gang and a group of California rangers led by military veteran Harry Love.
Nevertheless, Murrieta’s Robin Hood reputation lived on. His life story was picked up by pulp writer Johnston McCulley, who introduced the American public to the character Zorro which was loosely based off Joaquin Murrieta. McCulley’s first Zorro book, The Curse of Capistrano, was widely successful and helped to solidified Murrieta’s tale of revenge.
