The Life and Adventures of Joaquín Murieta was first published by John Rollins Ridge, writing under his Cherokee name of “Yellow Bird,” in 1854. It is considered one of the first literary texts to take California as its setting and the first novel published by an Indigenous American. It is a fictional biography of the legendary bandit Joaquín Murieta, a Mexican man who travels to California during the Gold Rush and builds up a considerable criminal empire after being corrupted by the brutal, racist society that he finds there. The novel was hugely influential and inspired a large number of spinoffs, including Johnston McCulley’s Zorro.

This guide uses the 2018 Penguin Classics edition The Life and Adventures of Joaquín Murieta: The Celebrated California Bandit, edited by Hsuan L. Hsu. For convenience, the Chapter Summaries and Analyses section will adopt the divisions of the text present in the third, revised edition, published in 1871.

Content Warning: The novel includes racist language and stereotypes and episodes of racially motivated violence, including sexual assault. It also contains incidences of domestic violence.

Plot Summary

Joaquín is born to a respectable Mexican family in Sonora. He moves to California during the Gold Rush as a consequence of his growing disillusionment with his own country’s political turbulence in the wake of the Mexican War. He is also inspired to move by his high opinion of the American character, but his views soon change, as each attempt he makes to establish himself in an honest occupation is met with racist violence.

After his stepbrother is lynched, Joaquín brings together a criminal group that first sets out to avenge Joaquín’s wrongs and then begins a broader campaign of theft and murder targeting Americans in general. At the peak of his campaign, Joaquín envisions arming 2,000 men in a full-scale battle to take back California from the Americans. Joaquín travels the country in disguise and is easily able to pass for a white American, commanding respect due to his superior education.

The banditti are involved in many robberies and brutal murders, although Joaquín tends to leave the most brutal acts of violence to his sadistic henchman, Three-Fingered Jack. He also frequently restrains Jack’s worst excesses of violence. Various lawmen take up the chase, and Joaquín’s allies fall one-by-one to police bullets and judicial and extrajudicial hangings.

Eventually, shortly before Joaquín’s planned coup, a group led by a war hero named Harry Love is commissioned to track down and eliminate the banditti. They manage to kill Joaquín after they shoot his horse from under him. Three-Fingered Jack is also gunned down. To preempt rumors of the banditti’s survival, Love has Joaquín’s head and Jack’s hand removed and preserved. Love receives a large financial reward. Leaderless, Joaquín’s organization dwindles. His mistress, Rosita, returns to Joaquín’s parents’ home, where she mourns for the rest of her life.