ABSTRACT
Enshrined in Mexican folk song and in California lore, the story of the ruthless, Anglo-punishing Joaquín Murieta became popular in 1854 when John Rollin Ridge (known among his Cherokee kin as Yellow Bird) published his highly fictionalized account of the outlaw, The Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta. Ridge’s Murieta parallels traditional outlaw heroes such as Robin Hood, but Ridge paints Murieta as particularly bloodthirsty, motivated only by revenge. Despite this characterization, Murieta maintains folk hero status for many. Ridge’s novel portrays a culture of pioneer feasting that not only complicates Lowe’s claim but also questions the sustainability of envisioning American opportunity as feast-like. The feast in Ridge’s novel structures the rest of the work: the ‘bloody narrations’ of ‘daring deeds’ that circulate among the men as they eat epitomize the novel’s bid to romanticize acts of masculine bravery in frontier culture. In this space where the distinction between outlaw and frontiersman is blurred, the novel critiques the ravenous hunger of American opportunism so embodied in the Gold Rush.
