How a Mexican forty-niner turned into the legend of Zorro

Published March 21, 2023

by Sheryl Losser

The story of Joaquín Murrieta — the legendary Mexican Robin Hood who inspired the story of El Zorro — has endured and evolved over almost 200 years. To the American authorities in California during the Gold Rush, he was a notorious criminal, but to Mexicans, he was El Patrio: the patriotic avenger who came to symbolize defiance of U.S. oppression.

The facts of Murrieta’s life are elusive, but the story really begins with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed on February 2, 1848, between the United States and Mexico.  The terms which ended the Mexican-American war forced Mexico to cede more than 50% of its territory — including the present-day states of California, Nevada, Utah and New Mexico; most of Arizona and Colorado; and parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming.

That same year, Murrieta, at age 18, migrated from Sonora, Mexico, to California with his wife, brothers and three of his brothers-in-law to prospect for gold during the California Gold Rush.  By all accounts, Murrieta was a successful forty-niner, but as a Mexican, he suffered persecution and discrimination.

Cherokee novelist John Rollin Ridge (Yellow Bird), who wrote “The Life and Adventures of Joaquín Murieta: The Celebrated California Bandit” in 1854, says an assault in 1849 changed Murrieta from a peaceful miner into an outlaw.

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