Joaquin Murieta

I rather enjoyed reading Joaquin Murieta. I was quite surprised how Joaquin descended from his relatively honest living as a miner and farmer to become one of the most feared and revered bandits of California. However, given his treatment by white Americans, the rape of his wife, the loss of his homes and the death of his brother drive him to the revenge-killings of any white man he comes across. All he had wanted to do was to settle in California and raise a family, he was pushed to crime by white Americans.

Even with this though, he still maintains a certain sense of his prior moral ethics. Generally he does not murder people who have done him no harm and in fact goes so far as to protect the innocent victims who find themselves in the middle, like the ferry man and Rosalie.

His story is very similar to other bandits of American history, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid quickly come to mind. Slightly different circumstances, but neither outwardly punish innocent people and they all seem to meet the same end at the hands of the authorities, their luck finally running out.

What I found most lacking about the story was the lack of character development on the part of Joaquin's partners in crime. People like Claudio and Reyes are given very little backstory, we have little idea what their lives were like before they joined the bandit group. I suppose it is entirely possible that the author had no information on them, and rather than fabricate their stories to make for a better novel he merely omitted them. However they all seem united to commit crimes, whereas their leader Joaquin has a somewhat more dedicated purpose.

Even the Captain, Love is given a little backstory, a dispatch rider during the Mexican War. Of all the characters I think I like Love the most. He has no qualms about fighting fire with fire, using Joaquin's brutal tactics against him like when he executed one of Joaquin's number, Gonsalez. Even with his early failures, Love manages to continue chasing Joaquin, forcing the outlaw and his gang to go on the defensive for a time.

It is difficult for me to figure out which character is the hero of the story, or if there is even a hero. I do not consider Joaquin to be a hero, murdering white men just because they are white, robbing them and torturing them is hardly the mark of a hero. Love could be considered a hero, but we do not get a chance to really see what goes on in his mind or what his beliefs are. Perhaps there is just no hero in the story, and it is just a story that tells the events as they happened.


Brian Rush