The Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta

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.