Here is the dime-novel-esque biography of the most infamous bandit in the history of the West, for decades a source of fear and legend in the newly founded state of California. To both Mexicans and Indians, Murrieta became a symbol of resistance to the displacement and oppression visited on them in the wake of the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), particularly by the “Forty-Niners” who flooded into the region during the California gold rush.
In his introduction, literary critic Luis Leal has researched and written the first definitive history of the Murrieta legend in its various incarnations. The Ireneo Paz biography was first published in Mexico City in 1904; it was subsequently translated into English by Frances P. Belle in 1925. This edition, entirely in Spanish, includes several line-drawings that appeared in the original publication, adding to the strong sense evoked here of this turbulent period in U. S. history.
