Legends of the Old West - OUTLAWS Ep. 2 | Joaquin Murrieta: “The Five Joaquins”

Episode Date: January 25, 2023

Joaquin Murrieta’s gang dominates central California for more than two years. To stop the bandit king, the governor authorizes the formation of the special unit. Captain Henry Love and his new California Rangers confront Murrieta and claim victory over the most famous outlaw in the region. But doubts about Love’s story persist to this day. Many still wonder if Joaquin Murrieta survived… Join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join Apple users join Noiser+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons. Click the Noiser+ banner on Apple or go to noiser.com/subscriptions to get started with a 7-day free trial. For more details, visit our website www.blackbarrelmedia.com and check out our social media pages. We’re @OldWestPodcast on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. On YouTube, subscribe to LEGENDS+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: hit “Join” on the Legends YouTube homepage. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Warning. This episode contains scenes and images of graphic violence that may not be suitable for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised. On June 18, 1852, bounty hunter Henry Love and his friend appeared before a justice of the peace in the small town of Los Angeles. In 1852, L.A., as it would eventually be known, was a little backwater village of about 1,600 people. Henry Love explained that he and his friend were in the area to capture a couple of men from Sonora, Mexico. The Sonorans were charged with committing murders and robberies in Mariposa County, 250 miles north of Los Angeles, between the towns of Modesto and Fresno. The most egregious of the murders was that of Alan Ruddle, an innocent and wealthy pioneer. Love and his

colleague tracked the two bandits to a roadhouse north of present-day Los Angeles. The bounty hunters confronted the bandits, and after a brief exchange of gunshots, the hunters had captured one of the two bandits, but the other escaped. Love and his friend started trekking back to Los Angeles, herding their captive on foot while they rode on horseback. The prisoner, a member of Joaquin Murrieta's gang, complained of fatigue and made several attempts to escape. At one point, he complained of thirst and pointed to a nearby ravine. He told the bounty hunters that there was plenty of water near the ravine.

Henry Love gave in. He dismounted and walked with the prisoner until they came upon a small clump of bushes. The prisoner suddenly darted toward the bushes in an effort to escape. Henry Love knew his clunky boots and spurs would have prevented him from easily chasing the prisoner through the bushes. So, in that split second when he realized what would happen, Love pistol-whipped the prisoner. He intended to stop the man from running, but the weapon discharged and shot the prisoner through the head. The prisoner died instantly.

So Henry Love had no prisoner, and thus no reward money from the Ruttle family. He had botched his first attempt to stop part of Joaquin Murrieta's gang, but the failed effort only tightened his resolve. He decided that he would dedicate himself to tracking down all of the members of the now infamous crowd of horse thieves and murderers who plagued California. Love sent a message to the governor. Love told the governor, When you can't take the crime anymore, let me raise a militia. Then, Love waited. He knew it was just a matter of time before the outlaws murdered more people.

Then he would have his militia, and he would take care of Joaquin Murrieta once and for all. From Black Barrel Media, this is Legends of the Old West. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer, and this season we're telling the stories of three outlaws, California bandit Joaquin Murrieta, Texas killer Jim Miller, and train robber Black Jack Ketchum. This is Joaquin Murrieta, Part 2 of 2, The Five Joaquins. Henry Love didn't have to wait very long for another murder to capture the attention of Californians. In November 1852, six months after Love's fiasco with the prisoner, a relatively well-known man was killed near Mission San Gabriel. The religious outpost and military fortress was the fourth that was built by Spanish friars and soldiers

as they marched north into present-day California from Mexico. The original location is east of downtown Los Angeles in the modern-day neighborhood of Alhambra, just south of Pasadena. The old Spanish mission was the heart of the community, and in that community, there was a saloon that was owned by two brothers, Joshua and Roy Bean. Roy Bean would be better known as Judge Roy Bean of West Texas fame and infamy, but that story is 30 years in the future and one for another time. For now, his brother Joshua was the famous one in the family. Joshua Bean fought in the Mexican-American War and then drifted west to California. He became the general of the California State Militia and the first mayor of a small town south of Los Angeles called San Diego.

When Joshua was the mayor in California's first year of statehood, from 1850 to 1851, there were only about 650 people in San Diego. It was less than half the size of Los Angeles. Joshua became notorious in San Diego for illegally selling city hall and city lands to himself and one of his friends. After that escapade, Joshua and his younger brother Roy moved up to Los Angeles and opened a saloon near Mission San Gabriel. On the night of November 7th, 1852,

Joshua walked out of his saloon and someone crept out of the darkness and shot him. Joshua managed to pull his pistol and fire three times at the assassin, but he missed with all three shots. He died shortly thereafter. No one saw the actual killing, but rumors swirled that Bean's saloon was a hangout for the deadly outlaw Joaquin Murrieta. Murrieta's sister lived at the mission, so it wasn't crazy to think that he would have a drink or two in Bean's saloon. The Los Angeles Star and other newspapers named several Mexican men as the killers and said they were confederates of Murrieta. One witness said that Joshua Bean had been drunk and dragging a Native American woman around by the hair in the saloon. That was the kind of thing that would have outraged Joaquin Murrieta, and the rumor was that he gave his lieutenant, Manuel Garcia, permission to kill

Joshua Bean. Garcia was better known as Three-Fingered Jack, and if he pulled the trigger, he didn't suffer for it, at least not right away. A young man from Sonora, Mexico, who was probably 17 years old, told a vigilance committee that he'd heard third-hand that one of Murrieta's lieutenants had killed Joshua Bean. The hearsay statement might have been dismissed, but the boy kept talking. For some reason, maybe false bravado, he talked about a murder he'd committed the year before. He said it was in self-defense, up in the Central Valley, but he also blurted out that he had been part of Murrieta's horse-stealing ring.

That sealed his fate, as a hundred horses had been stolen from the area, and authorities were sure it was the work of Joaquin Murrieta's gang. The young man was Reynaldo Felix, the younger brother of Murrieta's dead wife. The next day, with no trial or hearing, Felix was taken to a hill by the mission and hanged. Bounty hunter Henry Love was in Los Angeles at the time and took great interest in the hanging of Rinaldo Felix. Love had lost out on the reward money for capturing one of the men who reportedly killed Alan Ruttle up in the Central Valley. And maybe that was the murder Felix had referred to in vague terms. Who knew? But it became clear to Henry Love that the white

settlers and all the authorities in California wanted to put an end to Joaquin Murrieta and his band of outlaws. They had ranged over hundreds of miles of territory and committed countless crimes. Henry Love had failed to capture one of Murrieta's underlings, but now he resolved himself to aim higher. He would go after Joaquin Murrieta himself and earn all the fame and fortune he could handle. As a podcast network, our first priority has always been audio and the stories we're able to share with you. But we also sell merch, and organizing that was made both possible and easy with Shopify. Shopify is the global commerce platform

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at shopify.com slash realm all lowercase go to shopify.com slash r-e-a-l-m now to grow your business no matter what stage you're in shopify.com slash realm introducing the miller optics 2kw handheld laser welder it's so simple to use even a rookie can weld like an expert allowing you to boost your shop's productivity up to five to ten times more than with traditional arc welding processes. Expand your workforce so you can start doing more and making more. Get the Optics Laser Advantage now and start changing the welding game. The newspapers called Henry Love the celebrated express rider of the Rio Grande. He was born in Vermont sometime around 1818 and supposedly left home in his early teenage years.

He claimed he fought in the Black Hawk Indian War of 1831, at a time when he would have been 13 or 14. He claimed he personally knew Davy Crockett and Sam Houston, and he allegedly joined the Texas Rangers. So, like many other adventurers of the Old West, much of Henry Love's backstory is probably myth or hyperbole. But he did fight in the Mexican-American War and worked as a courier along the Rio Grande River. When this job came to an end, he drifted up to San Francisco like so many other men of the era.

From there, he traveled inland to Mariposa County to strike it rich in the gold mines. He failed, but then the unlucky pioneer Alan Ruttle was murdered, and Henry Love thought of a new idea to make money. Bounty Hunter. Love's time in the Mexican-American War and as a courier along the Rio Grande turned him into a good tracker. He was able to find two men who might have been responsible for Ruttle's murder,

or were at least part of Murrieta's gang. But one escaped, and Love accidentally killed the other. Now Love wrote to the governor of California with a larger plan. If the state would give him some men, some supplies, and a decent wage, he would find the people who killed Ruddle. He wasn't off to the greatest start, but he had the governor's attention. And while Henry Love negotiated with the state of California, Joaquin Murrieta supposedly hid out in his canyon stronghold of Arroyo Cantua. Then he left with a crew for Calaveras County, two counties to the north,

in the hopes of stealing fresh horses. On the way there, the men were traveling along a highway when they crossed paths with a man named Joseph Lake. Murietta recognized Lake from his early days in California, before his wife Carmen was murdered. Apparently the two men had been friendly, because Murietta now asked Lake to remember the old days, which were only a couple years ago, and to know that Murietta was only now an outlaw because of injustice. Murietta's wife, his brother, and his brother's friend had all been murdered in a short space of time. Whatever Joseph Lake's opinion of him was, Murietta asked Lake not to tell anyone that they had met on the road. Lake agreed, more for his safety than friendship with Murietta.

They parted ways, and Lake headed to his home in Mariposa County. When Lake agreed, more for his safety than friendship with Murrieta. They parted ways, and Lake headed to his home in Mariposa County. When Lake arrived, he couldn't help himself. He told his friends that he had seen the legendary Joaquin Murrieta and that the outlaw wasn't far away. It's impossible to know the truth of what happened next, but the story goes like this. Joseph Lake was loafing with some friends in front of a store when a man on a horse approached. The man's face was hidden beneath a thick black beard and mustache.

With the utmost politeness, the man asked Lake to come closer. Lake walked up to the man on horseback and the man asked Lake if he recognized his voice. It took Lake a minute, but then he stammered and said the man sounded like his old friend, Murrieta. The man with the thick beard said, You know me, Joe. I am Joaquin, and you have betrayed me. And then he shot Joseph Lake in the head. Murrieta galloped out of town.

He may or may not have had some of his gang members with him. This is one of those stories where the details are hard to pin down, but apparently 50 men from the town chased Murrieta. However long the chase lasted, it ended like all the others. The outlaw was too fast and too good at hiding. After that, between November of 1852 and January of 1853, dozens of unsolved murders piled up in California. No community was immune. Six Chinese gold miners were killed in Trinity County, way up north near the Oregon border.

Another group of Chinese miners was robbed in Murrieta's stronghold of Calaveras County. Further south, in San Luis Obispo near the California coast, Murrieta and the gang ran into two French miners who were eating lunch. Murrieta's brutal lieutenant, Manuel Garcia, better known as Three-Fingered Jack, robbed the miners. But when they didn't have as much money as he expected, he slit their throats. But when they didn't have as much money as he expected, he slit their throats. White settlers and authorities didn't pay much attention to those crimes. But the turning point for the gang came at the end of January 1853.

Stolen horses led to a gun battle. The gun battle led to a hanging. The hanging led to a new wave of fear. And the fear led the governor to finally authorize Henry Love to assemble the California Rangers. Toward the end of January 1853, horses went missing from a camp of American miners. They formed a posse and started to track the animals. On January 21st, the posse captured a young bandit, but then three Mexican men rode up with their revolvers drawn and the young bandit escaped. Sheriff Charles Ellis, his two deputies, and two citizens chased

the three men. By the time the sheriff and his small posse were close enough to think about making a move on the three men, they were no longer three. The group had grown to nine or ten, and the sheriff's posse was now outnumbered two to one. The five-man posse quietly advanced to a small grove of trees to use as cover. One of the deputies fired at the outlaws. He missed, and the Mexicans found their own cover. Then, the bandits mounted a charge, swept past the posse, and both sides exchanged fire. No one was hit, the bandits escaped, and the posse retreated back to its home base in the small town of San Andreas in Calaveras County.

in Calaveras County. In San Andreas, the lawmen learned that the outlaws had killed another American at a camp at a nearby quartz mill. Sheriff Ellis and his deputies hanged a Mexican man and shot another. The second man escaped, though he was badly wounded. By that time, the whole scene was starting to look much more like retaliation than an attempt at justice through the legal system. And it was about to get worse. The injured man who had escaped from the lawman fled toward a settlement called Angel's Camp, which still exists today at the intersection of Highway 4 and Highway 49 east of Stockton, California. The lawman followed the man's blood trail, captured him, and hanged him. Before the man died, he revealed that the leader of their outlaw band was named Joaquin.

The men probably assumed that the man was talking about the elusive bandit king Joaquin Murrieta, but the name Joaquin was fairly common, and it would help confuse the story for all of history. In that moment, the lawmen likely believed that they were on the trail of the most wanted Joaquin, and they tore through Angel's camp, sacking it and burning it. Then they posted an edict in Calaveras County that said all foreigners, Mexican or otherwise, had to leave the county. They were serious, and the exodus began. Men, women, and children streamed out of the county. Most walked 40 miles to Stockton while vigilantes patrolled the area and made arrests.

The vigilantes hanged a Mexican man in San Andreas and another at Angel's camp. A mile to the south, Sheriff Ellis arrested a Mexican man who was suffering from shotgun wounds. Before the man was hanged, he, too, said Joaquin led his band of outlaws. The man supposedly removed any doubt about which Joaquin he was referring to by naming the two brothers of Joaquin's dead wife Carmen. But that didn't mean there wasn't confusion in general. The dead bodies of white miners and pioneers were found on roads all over the region. 40 miles north near Placerville, 100 miles southwest near Santa Cruz, and so on. People started to wonder, was all this chaos really the work of one Joaquin and one band of outlaws?

In theory, yes. Joaquin Murrieta supervised a huge gang of outlaws, and he had divided the gang into three units. With three separate groups roaming the hills and highways, they could cover a lot of ground and cause a lot of damage throughout Central and Northern California. a lot of ground and cause a lot of damage throughout Central and Northern California. But at the same time, it was just as likely that other outlaws had adopted the name Joaquin and were using it to disguise their identities. And it was equally possible, and probably true, that several outlaws really were named Joaquin. And so, it's likely that the actions that have been passed down through history and attributed to Joaquin Murrieta are a mashup of several men. Either way, the state of California wasn't taking any chances.

The governor feared there were at least five deadly outlaws named Joaquin, and he wanted all of them arrested. He gave Henry Love the green light, and the manhunt began. He gave Henry Love the green light, and the manhunt began. Introducing the Miller Optics 2KW Handheld Laser Welder. It's so simple to use, even a rookie can weld like an expert, allowing you to boost your shop's productivity up to 5 to 10 times more than with traditional arc welding processes. Expand your workforce so you can start doing more and making more. Get the Optics Laser Advantage now and start changing the welding game.

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Even if there were multiple outlaws using the name Joaquin, Murrieta's gang was still responsible for the majority of cattle rustling, horse stealing, robberies, and murders in Central California since 1850. In May of 1853, the governor authorized bounty hunter Henry Love to organize a new militia called the California Rangers to stop Murrieta, and the California legislature authorized a $5,000 reward for any

Joaquin, dead or alive. That was in addition to the $1,000 offered by Alan Ruttle's family. Today, this $6,000 would be worth about $200,000. In addition to potentially sharing the reward, every man on Love's team earned $150 per month. The only catch was, the government gave Henry Love just three months to complete his mission. Love needed to find Murrieta by August 1853, or the money was gone.

He hired 20 roughneck deputies, and they rode out in search of fame and fortune. Over the next two months, they captured several minor horse thieves and criminals, but found no trace of any of the five Joaquins. In mid-July, Love and the Rangers arrested a cattle thief and shot and killed two more. They felt like they were on the right track, but still didn't have a good line on any of the Joaquins. Then they received a tip that led them to the area of one of the most scenic locations in California, Monterey Bay. It was a hundred miles to the southwest, and they began prowling the area around the towns of Hollister and San Juan Bautista. San Juan Bautista grew up around another Spanish mission and is about 30 miles northeast of the

famous Pebble Beach golf course. Early on the morning of July 25, 1853, with just a couple weeks to go before the deadline to capture the bandits, the Rangers stumbled upon a group of Mexican vaqueros who were camped along a creek. William Burns, one of the Rangers who actually knew Joaquin Murrieta, suddenly spotted the bandit leader standing by his horse. Byrne shouted, we've got him at last. Murrieta leapt on his horse and galloped away from the camp. Several rangers chased him, and according to Ranger Bill Henderson, Henderson and another ranger both shot Joaquin Murrieta in the back. The bullets knocked Murrieta off his horse,

shot Joaquin Murrieta in the back. The bullets knocked Murrieta off his horse, and as he lay on the ground, Henderson fired a shot into the outlaw's chest and killed him. Back at the camp, the rest of the Rangers battled the rest of the outlaws. The militia killed several outlaws and captured two, but the rest escaped. By that point, the ones who escaped didn't really matter. Henry Love and the Rangers believed they had killed Joaquin Murrieta and his brutal lieutenant, Manuel Garcia, who was known as Three-Fingered Jack. There was lots of cheering and celebrating. The Rangers were about to be famous and rich from the reward money, and then they realized they had a problem. They were out in the wilds, miles from the nearest

community and many miles from the nearest city. The state capital of California in 1853 was Benicia, which is on a little peninsula about 25 miles from San Francisco. To get to the governor's office in Benicia to collect the reward, the rangers would have to travel about 90 miles. in Benicia to collect the reward, the rangers would have to travel about 90 miles. The distance wasn't necessarily a problem. The problem was, how would they prove they'd killed the notorious Joaquin Murrieta and his top lieutenant? Photography existed in 1853, but it would be decades before things like crime scene photographs were even considered by law enforcement. They could haul the bodies of the dead outlaws up to Benicia, but it was deep in the summer, and temperatures had already hit 100 degrees

Fahrenheit in California. Even if the rangers could find blocks of ice, they would be talking about hitching wagons to horses, piling blocks of ice into the wagons, loading the bodies onto the ice, and then hauling them almost 100 miles over rough terrain. That wasn't practical either. Ranger William Burns had a grisly idea. He simply cut off Joaquin Murrieta's head. Then he severed the head and mutilated hand of Manuel Garcia, three-fingered jack. Burns stuffed the gruesome trophies slash evidence into sacks, and the Rangers prepared for a long, hot ride. They would eventually reach the governor, but they had several stops to make before then.

The Rangers had taken two prisoners during the gunfight with the outlaws, and now the group began its circuitous route up to the San Francisco area. First, they traveled inland across the Central Valley to Fort Miller, which was northeast of Fresno. During that first leg of the journey, one of the prisoners drowned when they crossed a river that was swollen from recent flooding. As the rangers traveled, the heads of Murrieta and Garcia decomposed rapidly. Before the rangers reached Fort Miller, they could no longer stand the smell that oozed out of the sacks. They decided to bury the head of Three-Fingered Jack, but they had to keep the disfigured hand to prove they had killed the right man.

Then they bought a keg of whiskey and put Murrieta's head and Garcia's hand inside to preserve them for the next leg of the trip. They made it to the fort, but didn't stay long. They continued north

to the town of Mariposa, in the heart of Mariposa County, where all the violence began three years earlier. The Rangers made a triumphal entry into Mariposa on July 31st, six days after they killed Murrieta. They deposited their remaining prisoner, and Captain Henry Love began collecting sworn statements from people in the area who knew Murietta and could identify the head. Love filled a jar with clear alcohol and transferred the head and the hand to the jar. Then the Rangers headed northwest to Stockton and repeated the process. They first exhibited

Murietta's head and three-fingered Jack's hand in Stockton on August 12, 1853. It was a resounding success, and Captain Love collected more sworn statements that testified to the identities of the body parts. A few days later, in mid-August, they were all in San Francisco, and the jar began its time on display in John King's Saloon. The governor was across San Francisco Bay in Benicia, and Captain Henry Love arrived at the governor's office to collect his reward and tell the story of the blazing gunfight that killed the most wanted man in California. By that time, there were plenty of people who doubted the truth of Love's story. The governor might have been one of them, but he also wanted to win re-election, so he needed the outlaw to be dead, whether he really was or not.

Some newspapers were the most vocal opponents of Love's story. Murrieta and his gang prided themselves on wearing disguises, so newspapers wondered how many people had really seen the true face of Joaquin Murrieta. Who was to say that the Rangers didn't kill a random man and pass his head off as that of Joaquin Murrieta. Who was to say that the Rangers didn't kill a random man and pass his head off as that of Joaquin Murrieta? Or worse, that the Rangers dug up the corpse of a man who was already dead? One of the Rangers wrote a rebuttal, and Henry Love presented more than 200 sworn statements that testified to the identity of the head in the jar. In October 1853, the California legislature gave Captain Love a $5,000 bonus for his work,

which he distributed among his rangers. For the rest of his life, Henry Love defended his position as the jar with the head of Joaquin Murrieta began its travels around California. But now, 170 years later, there are still questions like the ones that exist for other prominent figures, chief among them Billy the Kid. Did Joaquin Murrieta really die that day in late July 1853? Did all the terrible things that reportedly happened to his family early in his life really happen? How many of the crimes that were attributed to him did he really commit? Is the legend of Joaquin Murrieta actually a combination of the lives of several different men? We know it was at least part of the inspiration for the legendary character of Zorro.

But as the character said in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, when the legend becomes fact, print the legend. Next time on Legends of the Old West, we begin the story of Texas killer Jim Miller. He was part John Wesley Harden and part Tom Horn. He looked and talked like a preacher, but he was far more sinner than saint. His story starts next week on Legends of the Old West.

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