Joaquin Murrieta came to California in 1850, probably from Sonora, Mexico, with his wife Rosa, his half-brother Jesus, and perhaps other brothers and cousins. Like most Mexican gold seekers they settled in the Southern Mines. They found rich deposits along the Stanislaus River, but they encountered resistance from Anglo American miners.
Opposition to Mexicans in the mines took three forms: individual incidents of harassment, local mining district laws excluding foreigners, and a statewide foreign miners’ tax of $20 per month. According to legend, Anglo ruffians raped Rosa, and English-speaking toughs lynched Jesus and horsewhipped Joaquin in a dispute over a horse or a mule. Joaquin, at this point, may have given up mining altogether.
It is generally accepted that by early 1853 there was a gang of Mexican bandits, consisting of one or more men named Joaquin, roaming the Southern Mines, stealing livestock and occasionally killing people.
Those sympathetic to the Mexicans say that Joaquin sought vengeance only against the men who shamed his family. If he stole, it was only for survival. On the other hand, contemporary Anglo accounts tell of a band of desperados led by a man named Joaquin who stole livestock, gold, and committed random and unprovoked acts of murder.
To rid themselves of this menace, Anglo men raided several Mexican mining camps and signed petitions asking California Governor John Bigler to offer a reward for the capture of Joaquin. The first reward, $1,000, failed when local posses were not successful. Then, in May 1853, Governor Bigler approved an act to raise a company of Rangers to hunt down Joaquin and his band of outlaws. The new reward was $5,000.
On July 25, 1853, the Rangers rode into a camp at Arroyo Cantua on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley, where one of the Rangers is said to have recognized Joaquin. Four men were killed by the Rangers, two suspects were detained, and the rest escaped. The heads of two of the four dead men were sent to Fort Miller to be preserved in alcohol. Harry Love, commander of the Rangers, wrote to Governor Bigler: “there is not the least doubt that the head now in my possession is that of the noted Joaquin Muriatta the Chief and leader of the murderers and Robbers of the Calaveras and Mariposa.”
There were those who doubted that the head actually belonged to Joaquin Murrieta. One young woman who claimed to be his sister, said that it did not have her brother’s scar, and others reported seeing Murrieta in various places after his supposed death.
Joaquin’s grisly head was taken to San Francisco, Sacramento, Marysville, and other parts of California where many curious spectators paid to see the dead bandit’s remains.
The jar containing Murrieta’s head was located behind the bar of the Golden Nugget Saloon in San Francisco until the building was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake.
The head that you see here in Smartsville’s Pioneer Day festival is probably not Joaquin Murrieta’s real head, but we hope it gives you a chance to see an example of what lots of other curious people saw in California between 1853 and 1906.
