Murieta, Joaquín, << moo ree AY tah, hwah KEEN, >> also spelled Murrieta, was the name given to a famous bandit during the California gold rush of the mid-1800’s. He became a hero of Spanish-speaking people who had been discouraged from entering the gold fields because of a $20 monthly tax placed on foreign miners in 1850. No one knows if a real Joaquín Murieta existed. There were as many as five bandits in the gold fields known only as Joaquín. In July 1853, California rangers killed two Mexicans and later identified one of them as Joaquín Murieta. But this person’s true background is unknown.
The legend of Murieta grew after publication of the book The Life and Adventures of Joaquín Murieta, The Celebrated California Bandit (1854) by the American writer John Rollin Ridge. Ridge described Murieta as a peaceful miner who became an outlaw after white Americans stole his claim and attacked his family. The story became believable because of later references to Murieta in works by several respected writers, including American historians Hubert H. Bancroft and Theodore Hittell and the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda.
