Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta: Celebrated California Bandit (Volume 4) (The Western Frontie

In 1854, a Cherokee Indian called Yellow Bird (better known as John Rollin Ridge) launched in this book the myth of Joaquin Murieta, based on the California criminal career of a 19th century Mexican bandit. Today this folk hero has been written into state histories, sensationalized in books, poems, and articles throughout America, Spain, France, Chile, and Mexico, and made into a motion picture.

The Ridge account is here reproduced from the only known copy of the first edition, owned by Thomas W. Streeter, of Morristown, New Jersey. According to it, the passionate, wronged Murieta organized an outlaw company numbering over 2,000 men, who for two years terrorized gold-rush Californians by kidnapping, bank robberies, cattle thefts, and murders. So bloodthirsty as to be considered five men, Joaquin was aided by several hardy subordinates, including the sadistic cutthroat, "Three-Fingered Jack." Finally, the state legislature authorized organization of the Mounted Rangers to capture the outlaws. The drama is fittingly climaxed by the ensuing chase, "good, gory" battle, and the shocking fate of the badmen.

• Life Among the Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims
• From Coveralls to Zoot Suits: The Lives of Mexican American Women on the World War II Home Front
• Nat Turner
• Sidewalk
• Bartleby and Benito Cereno
• American Indian Stories, Legends, and Other Writings (Penguin Classics)
• A Son of the Forest" and Other Writings (Native Americans of the Northeast)
• The Coquette (Early American Women Writers)
• Ceremony: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
• Just Kids