The Robin Hood of El Dorado: The Saga of Joaquin Murrieta Famous Outlaw of California's Age of Gold (Historians of the Frontier and American West Series)
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About this book
First published in 1932 and never reprinted since this historical drama re-creates the life and adventures of Joaquin Murrieta a Hispanic social rebel in California during the tumultuous Gold Rush. Published during the Great Depression at a time of mass deportations of Hispanos to Mexico this sympathetic portrait of Murrieta and Mexican Americans was a unique voice of social protest. The author romanticizes the pastoral society of Mexican California into which Murrieta was born and introduces the protagonist as a quiet honest unpretentious and reserved resident of Saw Mill Flat California. But the rape and murder of his wife Rosita by racist Anglo miners unleashes his vengeful rage. Picking up his pistols Murrieta tracks and kills Rositas murderers and defends Hispanos against violence and dispossession by rampaging gold rush miners. Richard Griswold del Castillo discusses the significance of Murrieta to twentieth-century Mexican Americans and Chicanos and of Burnss history to contemporary understanding of the mysterious social bandit.
