By Ross Eric Gibson

Tiburcio Vasquez was a well-dressed Spanish rogue, a dangerous Joaquin Murrieta-type, who melted the hearts of señoritas and wives everywhere. For all Joaquin Murrieta’s thefts and murders, many saw him as a man of the people, righting wrongs and helping his people. Vasquez was always flattered to be considered the next Joaquin Murrieta, whom he claimed to have known, yet Vasquez seems to be citing the fictionalized Murrieta.

In 1854, newspaperman John Rollin Ridge published the “Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murrieta.” a story based on unrelated news items and telescoping all five of the Joaquin bandits into one notorious but sympathetic outlaw. The legend makes Murrieta a once law-abiding Mexican, who was assaulted by an anti-Mexican gang who tied him to a tree and whipped him while he watched them rape his wife. In his 1949 book “Bad Company,” historian Joseph Jackson cites a letter in the 1853 Pioneer Magazine, signed by “Dame Shirley,” which denounces an incident of a gold country Mexican tied to a tree and whipped by Americans. This may have influenced the fictionalized Joaquin Murrieta story printed a year later, but the Dame Shirley incident may have been part of the gold country hysteria against Mexicans that happened AFTER the five Joaquins staged their murders and robberies of gold miners. In his story, Ridge tried to show that Murrieta was justified seeking vengeance only against those who did the rape and whipping, yet it doesn’t explain the antipathy of the five Joaquins against Chinese, Chileans and fellow Mexicans.

Cherokee story

Yet the author, John Rollin Ridge, was a Cherokee called Yellow Bird, and the story may be partly auto biographical. The Cherokees served proudly with Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812. Then gold was discovered in Georgia in 1828 on Cherokee land, leading to white squatters who called for Cherokee removal. This resulted in Andrew Jackson’s backstabbing Indian Removal Act of 1830, which was opposed by Chief John Ross and the majority of Cherokees. Then in 1835, Cherokee minority leader Major Ridge decided removal was inevitable, and they should get the best conditions possible. With 20 like-minded Cherokees in the Ridge-Treaty Party, and over the objection of the Cherokee majority, the New Echota Treaty was signed, approving what became known as The Trail of Tears. These signers included Major Ridge and Stand Watie (both relatives of J.R. Ridge), and Tom Starr (ancestor of Santa Cruzan Frank Latta, author of “Joaquin Murrieta and his Horse Gangs,” 1980).

A Cherokee secret society was formed, called Pin Cherokee for the crossed pins on their shirts. They opposed removal and slavery, and defended Cherokee traditions and morality, plus Christian and Masonic ideals. Their anger was directed internally, killing Tom Starr’s father, Sen. James Starr, and several of Tom Starr’s brothers; and in his vengeance, Tom Starr tried to wipe out the Pin Cherokees and nearly killed Chief John Ross.

John Rollin Ridge wrote that he, his brother Andrew Jackson Ridge, and mother saw his father John Ridge Sr. murdered by the Pins. The witnesses would have been killed as well, but they escaped out the back window, hid in the brush, and were given refuge in Arkansas at the log cabin of John Latta. When J.R. Ridge later became a 49er, he was reacquainted with John Latta in California, and their friendship lasted until Ridge’s death in 1869.

So J.R. Ridge’s saw the California Gold Rush from a Cherokee point of view: Gold found, settlers arriving and chasing off the Indians and Mexicans, cruelties by the white people and righteous revenge by the Mexicans. Out of his own emotional history, Ridge identified with his composite Joaquin Murrieta, a righteous murderer like Ridge, although he portrayed Murrieta as corrupted by his revenge, and justly brought down by Santa Cruz’s Capt. Harry Love. In reality, Ridge had killed four Pins who murdered his father, grandfather and uncle, then fled to California, regretting not having killed more.

After writing his book, Ridge complained to his cousin, Stand Watie, that the publisher ran off with the earnings of his popular book. Ridge was hoping Watie would help fund a Cherokee newspaper in Missouri, likely to highlight Ridge’s conservative Southern Democratic beliefs. While this didn’t happen, when the Civil War started, Watie became a general leading a Cherokee unit in the Confederacy, while Ridge opposed secession.

A new Murrieta

Meanwhile, the Joaquin Murrieta of Lodge’s 1854 semi-fantasy, became a highly influential story. It begat the activities of Tiburcio Vasquez, not your typical desperado. He was a spoiled member of the Spanish gentry, proud of his great grandfather arriving in California with the historic De Anza Exposition of 1876. Tiburcio Vasquez grew up in a middle-class family on a land-grant awarded for his father’s military service, a ranch in the Pajaro Valley, and a Monterey townhouse. Tiburcio Vasquez was taught Spanish and English, singing, dancing, playing guitar, writing poetry, and excelled at marksmanship, horseracing (as a horseman) and gambling. He was the life of any fandango, every man aspiring to his gallantry, and every woman to his affections. He was a Don Juan, who always had one or more new girlfriends.

But locals were unhappy that new American laws made it hard for Californios to hang onto their land, and easier for Anglos to take over. According to legend, the last straw for Vasquez was when non-Hispanics began dominating the Spanish women at dances. In pioneer California, there were fewer women to go around, so this was a misappropriation. Vasquez felt a growing hatred and revenge and vowed to take up banditry (sometimes against Mexicans) to teach Gringos a lesson.

At age 19, a fight in a Monterey fandango hall led to the killing of a constable, by Vasquez and his cousin Anastacio Garcia. Both fled, and Garcia was captured, then lynched for six murders. Vasquez was captured in L.A. in 1857 and sentenced to five years in San Quentin for rustling and gangsterism. He fled jail in a general prison break in 1859, but was back in prison after seven weeks, now serving an added year for larceny, plus the three years left on his sentence.

Discharged in 1863, the Civil War caused a mercury demand for questionable battlefield medicines. Vasquez became a well-dressed gambler at the New Almaden Quicksilver Mines in the Santa Cruz Mountains. In 1864, an Italian butcher was murdered and robbed of $400. The inquest used an interpreter for the Hispanic witnesses, but insufficient information was obtained to make an arrest. Later the sheriff realized that the interpreter had been Vasquez, who had supposedly robbed and murdered the Italian with his Santa Cruz friend, Faustino Lorenzana.

After the Civil War, the Vasquez gang specialized in rustling, stagecoach hold-ups, and robbing country merchants. Vasquez always bound people face down on the ground, as part of his propaganda that he never killed anyone. When a young lady he was robbing cried over the sentimentality attached to her watch, he returned it to her, and ladies hearing the story would sign that it was a pleasure to be robbed by him. He also paid for meals when people housed him, promising he wouldn’t steal from them. One time Vasquez had broken his arm and was cared for by a Mount Diablo rancher. His daughter nursed Vasquez back to health, at which point he eloped with the daughter, then discarded her unwed when Vasquez got her pregnant, a common pattern. Vasquez was frequently sheltered from his various crimes in the house of Abelardo Salazar. When Vasquez ran off with Salazar’s wife, Salazar shot Vasquez through the neck. Seduced wives were always discarded for the impertinence of getting pregnant.

Santa Cruz

The trouble with ill-gotten gains, is finding somewhere to spend it. In 1871, Vasquez went to Watsonville, but the sheriff had an alert out for him, so the gang quietly went north, crossing the Soquel Avenue ford into downtown Santa Cruz. Vasquez sought out a fancy brothel, but they wouldn’t let the gang in, so they shot out all the windows. This panicked some rather respectable clients, who departed in an undignified manner. Meanwhile, the gang raced up the street. Night watchman Bob Liddell came out of the Flat Iron Building to see what the commotion was and found the Vasquez gang racing into the Lower Plaza. Liddell shot at them and missed, and they shot Liddell in the leg with a bullet embedding itself in the brick building. The gunfire brought armed men out of the Pacific Ocean House, so Vasquez was about to turn and leave when Liddell shot Vasquez in the chest. Yet Vasquez remained mounted, and he and his gang retreated across the Water Street ford.

Charlie Lincoln, the “Boy Sheriff” of Santa Cruz (the state’s youngest sheriff) formed a posse with deputies Charles Haynes, Bill Dickerman, and Marshall Bob Majors. They got a tip Vasquez was at the Matias Lorenzana Ranch in Blackburn Gulch, and they explored the barn, and its hay loft. Suddenly a bullet shot Sheriff Lincoln’s hat off but miraculously missed Lincoln’s head. Lincoln returned fire, shooting the bandit Francisco Barcena in the brain. But Vasquez was not found, having been spirited away hidden in a hay wagon, by the three Perez brothers of Paul Sweet Road. What should have been a fatal wound was reduced in severity by the chain-mail undershirt Vasquez wore. He hid out at New Idria Mercury Mine (San Benito area), where he convalesced for several months. Always looking for the vulnerable and gullible, he recruited a New Idria blacksmith, Abdon Leiva from Chile.

Downfall

On Aug. 26, 1873, the Vasquez gang went to Tres Pinos (now Paicines) to rob the Andrew Snyder store. They tied-up everyone inside, then lost control of the robbery, and Vasquez joined in killing two of three slain bystanders. Vasquez’ popularity was damaged by the Tres Pinos Massacre, plus his young niece having his baby. In Fresno County that December, he robbed another store, then sacked an entire town. Gov. Newton Booth put a reward on Vasquez of up to $8,000. When Leiva learned Vasquez was having an affair with his wife, Levia cooly turned himself in to the authorities, and told them where to find Vasquez.

Vasquez was sent to San Jose to answer for his crimes. On Jan. 5, 1875, his defense presented him as a victim, a persecuted martyr wanting to make California Hispanic again. Yet the jury believed the witnesses and convicted Vasquez for two of the Tres Pinos murders. Gov. Romualdo Pacheco denied Vasquez a pardon. Yet Vasquez was widely loved (except in Tres Pinos). Publicity seekers, adoring fans, infatuated women and an evangelist all came to be part of the Vasquez story. His gang said they would seek vengeance if he was harmed, but Vasquez said not to. He advised parents to tell their children not to keep company with the immoral and vicious (whom once he had loved for doing his bidding). He joked that he hoped to be reunited with all his old girlfriends. He was hanged, and his body sat in state like a martyr, then buried in sanctified mission ground. But hating to leave the spotlight, Vasquez lived six-and-a-half minutes after being hanged.