All language subtitles for Kevin Costners The West S01E05 WEBRip

The West has always been
America's fabled promised land,

a place where ordinary people

dreamed of carving their destiny

on land of their own.

In the first half
of the 19th century,

settlers seeking that dream

fueled a violent clash
with Native nations

protecting their way of life.

Then in 1848, California
offers up a new kind of dream:

The chance to get
rich without land,

by finding gold.

New migrants flock
west from every corner

of the country and globe,

but in this lawless land,
for every man making a buck,

there are three men
bent on stealing it.

That's doubly true
for Mexican outlaw,

Joaquin Murrieta.

He came to California
seeking a fortune

and found his calling
as a common criminal.

His life and death
forged a legend

inspiring fictional heroes
like Zorro and Django.

His story begins
with a fleck of gold.

[gentle music]

People live on myths,

and the myths that really stick

in the American experience
are the myths of the West.

[dramatic music]

The mountains were taller.

The deserts were harsher.

The snows were deeper.

The American West conjures

wonder, possibility, opportunity.

The figure of
the mountain man.

[Clay] Notorious outlaws.

The cowboy.

The discovery of
gold in California.

[Expert] This train of wagons
trailing across the prairie.

Everybody has a reason
for wanting this land.

But most of that land
was already occupied.

[dramatic music]

We have been residents
for more than 10,000 years.

But this is a clash
of two different ways

of seeing life itself.

Fighting for the future of
your homeland on the one side,

[warriors shouting]

and fighting for the
destiny of the New Republic

on the other side.

[dramatic music]

[Elliott] The history of
the West is a creation story.

It's the creation of what we
think of as modern America.

The West is a place
where anything is possible.

It is the essence of
the American dream.

The core of this is, what
are we to be as a nation?

The reckoning is coming.

[H.W.] The West is this canvas

on which American dreams
become larger than life.

[resolvent music]

[Kevin] From the earliest
days of independence,

the United States has
been looking West.

By the mid 1840s,

thousands of Americans
have crossed the Rockies

and settled in Oregon country,

giving the nation a
foothold on the Pacific.

And in 1845, newly elected
president James Polk

has his sights set on
securing the West Coast.

That same year, the
press coins a phrase

that captures the spirit of
the age, "manifest destiny."

When you take that phrase
apart, "manifest destiny",

it's saying on the one hand,
"destiny," this is inevitable,

because these are
a superior people

moving into this country.

And "manifest," that
is just obvious.

Anyone who looks
at this will see

the inferiority of those
whom they are conquering.

That's the way it was seen.

That's the way American
expansion was justified.

James K. Polk made a pledge,

that if he's President
of the United States,

that he was going to
resolve our border issues

both in the Pacific Northwest
and on the U.S.-Mexico border.

[Kevin] Within a year
of Polk's election,

the U.S. turns the Republic
of Texas into its 28th state.

Mexico is powerless to
stop its former province

from joining the Union,
and Polk wants more.

The motivation for the U.S.

behind the Mexican War primarily

is this desire to
fulfill manifest destiny.

It had their eye on this
territory for a long time,

and they were intent on taking
it by any means necessary.

The Mexican-American
War is a naked land grab.

It's caused by the
demand for more land.

The Treaty of
Guadalupe Hidalgo

ends the Mexican-American War,

and formally cedes
what is a third

or more of Northern Mexico
to the United States.

[Kevin] In 1848, the United
States gains an additional

525,000 square
miles of territory,

land that will eventually
be known as Utah, Arizona,

Nevada, Colorado,
and New Mexico.

But the greatest
prize is California.

California has
great natural ports,

Monterey, and in San
Francisco, and near San Diego.

America wants very much
to have a trade with Asia,

and so there is a
huge desire to have

that access to the Pacific.

The people who negotiated
and signed the treaty,

they had no idea that
California all of a sudden

was worth a whole lot more
than anybody had known.

At the time the
treaty was signed,

gold had already been
discovered in California,

but the news hadn't gone from
California to Mexico City.

The discovery of gold in
California happened within

200 hours of the signing

of the Treaty of
Guadalupe-Hidalgo.

In other words,
at the very moment

that we acquired the far West,

it began to be revealed

that this far West was the
richest place on Earth.

Individuals use that as
somehow the justification

or the proof that that is
exactly what God intended.

That God intended
this land for you,

and then God rewards
us with gold.

[Kevin] At the
time, telegraph lines

and railroad tracks
have not even

crossed the Mississippi River,

and news of the gold strike
spreads by word of mouth,

first to nearby Oregon,

then by ships to ports
in Mexico, Peru, Chile,

and China before finally
reaching the East Coast.

Gold was discovered
in Sacramento in 1848,

but they really didn't
get there until 1849.

That's why they're called the
49ers instead of the 48ers.

And there were only
really two ways

you could get to
California, sea passage,

if you had money
for the sea passage.

The other way, to go overland

through the mountain passes,

incredibly arduous
journeys either way,

but still they came.

That siren call of,
"Gold, gold, gold,"

rang through the newspapers,
and they came in thousands.

[Kevin] Thousands of Americans

who once longed for their
own piece of land to farm

now swap their
plows for gold pans

and blaze a trail to California.

The gold rush fundamentally
alters the American dream.

Suddenly, there
are these stories

about people striking it rich,

and in a day's work
gaining a fortune

that would've been, in
other cases, years of labor.

And then that just causes
an explosion of immigration.

[dramatic music]

So in 1848, you have about
1,000 white people living

in what is the state
of California.

Within two years,
you hav 100,000.

Within another year,
you have over 200,000.

[Kevin] California
was once home

to around 300,000
Indigenous people.

Then in the 1540s,

the Spanish came looking for
the legendary City of Gold,

known as El Dorado.

They did not find it,

but in the late 1700s,

they built a string
of religious missions,

enslaved the local Indians,

and forced them to
convert to Catholicism.

Disease wiped out
thousands of Natives.

By the time Mexico gains
its independence in 1821,

California has lost almost

half of its
Indigenous population,

and now, even
Mexicans are rapidly

being outnumbered by the 49ers,

white Americans from the
East ready to take the land.

The irony for the
Mexicans who are there,

for the people who
occupy those lands,

is that they're now
deemed foreigners.

White Americans believed that
because they won the war,

they're entitled to this gold.

It's a habit of
the American frontier

that people arrive before
the law gets there.

When that happens, there
will be disputes about land.

And there are no rules.

People are staking claims,

but that's just them
saying, "This is my spot."

If you think there's a miner
that's doing better than you,

and if that happens to be a
Chinese, Mexican, or other,

there's no one stopping you.

If you have more might, if
you have more firepower,

you have more men,
to take that claim.

And if there's resistance,
there's violence.

[Kevin] Under Mexican rule,

California was a distant
northern province

beyond government control.

Even in U.S. hands,
it's still not a state.

There's no Constitution,
no courts, and no police.

Gangs run rampant in
this lawless land.

Newspapers inflame readers

with tales of bandits
and murderers.

The most famous of all,
a Mexican gang leader

who goes by the name of Joaquin.

There's this murky region
in between, where fact,

historical documentation,
meets the legend.

There was a person
named Joaquin Murrieta

that people have identified.

We do know he's born around 1830

in a small town
in Sonora, Mexico.

Joaquin Murrieta is
one of many thousands

of Mexican miners in
Northern California

trying to make a go of
it like everybody else,

panning for gold,
digging for gold,

and he apparently enjoys
a fair amount of success.

[Kevin] Some accounts
suggest Joaquin

was pushed off his land
by American settlers.

Forced to give up mining gold,

Murrieta turns to stealing it.

In the state of California
at this time in 1852,

there are reports that
there's a bandit named Joaquin

on a murderous path, robbing
people, stealing horses,

killing people in
the gold fields.

You begin to see all
these stories circulating

in the newspapers
about various bandits,

which they begin to attach
the name Joaquin too.

[Kevin] One event in late
1852 cements his reputation

as the most feared outlaw
in gold rush California.

Joshua Bean is
a military veteran

and eventually becomes
the mayor of San Diego.

And when he retires
from that profession,

he opens a saloon
in a small town

in Southern California.

One evening there's
a brawl over a girl.

In the aftermath of that,
Bean is walking home,

[suspenseful music]

when he's attacked
by persons unknown.

[gunfire blasts]
[woman screaming]

And killed.

[gun cocking]
[gunfire blasting]

The person behind
these murders is a ghost,

a phantom who
strikes in the night,

and then someone
offers testimony

that gives up the
name Joaquin Murrieta.

"Joaquin Murrieta did it."

Finally, the Phantom has a name.

[pensive music]

[Kevin] In the late 1840s,

dreams of gold bring
thousands to California.

Some come out to make money
off this influx of miners.

Others come to
rob them outright.

As violent crimes run rampant,

the name Joaquin echoes
through the gold fields.

When gold was
discovered in California,

it hadn't been formally
made into a territory,

so there was no government
in California at that time.

[Kevin] California applies
for statehood in 1849,

but with the nation divided
over the future of slavery,

a crisis ensues.

After the war with Mexico,

there is all this new
territory out West

that is gonna have to be
admitted to the Union eventually

as slave state or free.

The admission of California

to the Union would
mean a free state,

and that would tip the
balance in Congress,

and that was something
the Southern states

could not possibly accept.

[Kevin] Eventually,
a deal is reached.

The Compromise of 1850

aimed to appease
both North and South.

One of the key components
of the Compromise of 1850

is let the territories decide
as they apply to statehood

whether or not they're gonna
be a free or enslaved state.

[Kevin] In exchange,

the South gets a harsher
Fugitive Slave Act.

The newly established
territories

of Utah and New Mexico

will decide on the issue
of slavery themselves.

And California joins the
Union as a free state,

but the new government
can barely make

an impact on the
widespread banditry.

California's a vast territory,

so it's gonna take
years before California

actually is able to unfold the
basics of state government.

[Kevin] Trying to
impose law and order,

like-minded settlers
form armed posses

and call themself
Vigilance Committees.

In 1852, a vigilante
group in Los Angeles

investigates the
murder of Joshua Bean.

Taking the word of a
former gang member,

they pin the crime
on a Mexican bandit

by the name of Joaquin Murrieta.

But for most Californians,

he will continue to be
known simply as Joaquin.

The Stockton newspaper,

the Sacramento newspaper,

the Los Angeles newspaper

aren't reporting the
stories of Joaquin.

It was sensationalized
in the press at the time,

and because newspapers
have to sell copies,

and so the more lurid
stories would come out.

Newspapers are
reporting all sorts

of things attributed to Joaquin.

That he dresses in black.

That he seems to be
somehow immune to gunfire.

And this leads to
speculation that maybe

he's wearing some
sort of chain mail.

"He's an
outstanding horseman."

"He's a sharp shooter."

"He'll knock you off
a horse at 50 paces."

Right as the California
gold rush is happening,

what is really striking
in American culture

is the rise of mass literacy.

We're beginning to
get public schools.

Many more people can
read than before.

This is also coinciding
with a newspaper boom

that takes place in
the United States

from just 200, 50 years before
to more than 2,000 by 1850.

This would not
be possible without

the cheapening of of
the printing process.

Suddenly the printing
presses are everywhere,

mass producing material.

[Kevin] By early 1853,

the press has tied the name
Joaquin to at least 20 murders.

Joaquin is striking
out against the Yankee,

but he's also reportedly
robbing the Chinese

and killing Chinese miners.

[dramatic music]

And in one case,

Joaquin sets upon
a Chinese camp.

Joaquin kills many
of the Chinese miners

[gunfire blasting]
[suspenseful music]

and takes $6,000 worth
of gold dust from them.

[Kevin] Newspapers
continue to add

to the growing list of
crimes committed by Joaquin.

Some even speculate there may be

more than one
bandit by that name.

The coverage creates
a climate of fear.

So, the Anglo fear is
of the Mexican bandit.

And the Mexican bandit
is actually this image

that comes out of
the war with Mexico.

There's a lot of
guerilla resistance.

And so for a lot
of anxious Anglos,

any Mexican male
could be Joaquin.

You know, every Mexican
becomes a potential bandit.

California is a new state,

and this reputation
for being a region

rife with banditry, with
murder, is a big problem.

They want thousands, eventually
millions of settlers,

to come there to
build the economy.

And so there's a
tremendous pressure

on the California government
to solve this Joaquin problem.

[Kevin] As panic grows,
California Governor John Bigler

offers a quick solution:

a $1,000 reward.

But for some it's a call
to arms and chaos follows.

All sorts of people

are interested in
acquiring this bounty,

but there's no real way
to know who Joaquin is.

So Joaquin became somebody
who served as a pretext

to arm vigilantes to roam
the countryside and kill,

potentially threatening
Spanish speaking people.

[Kevin] For three months,

vigilante squads
openly target Mexicans,

who, in their eyes,
look suspicious,

but the bounty goes unclaimed.

Anxious Californians
demand further action.

When California is
trying to figure out

how to deal with Joaquin,
they look to Texas,

because Texas has recently
created the Texas Rangers.

[Kevin] Originally
formed to defend

Americans in Texas
from the Comanche,

the Rangers have expanded
their responsibilities

and their range, venturing
south of the border

during the Mexican-American War.

The Texas Rangers
acquire a lot of fame

during the war with Mexico as
this sort of anti-guerilla,

anti-bandit force.

[Kevin] In May 1853,

Governor Bigler signs a bill

creating the California Rangers.

Their goal: To find Joaquin.

But it's still unclear

if Joaquin is a
single bandit or many.

So the bill names five potential

Joaquins for the
rangers to apprehend.

So California
copies this idea.

That we need a heavily armed
paramilitary organization

that is gonna impose order

where there is banditry
and lawlessness.

But their principle tools are

violence, intimidation,
and murder.

The governor of California
has now sanctioned

the California Rangers
to go after Joaquin

without due process.

[dramatic music]

So he's basically
empowered a death squad.

[Kevin] Throughout
the spring of 1853,

Mexican outlaw Joaquin
evades vigilantes

even with a bounty on his head.

California Governor John Bigler
hopes that by establishing

the state's first
official police force,

he can end the chase.

Our Republic is based on due
process and the rule of law,

and yet on every frontier,
extralegal activity occurs.

And so the governor of
California creates the Rangers,

who are really just
a group of people

willing to do the wet
work for California

under a very slight
patina of legality.

[Kevin] One man is
chosen by popular demand

to lead the Rangers
in their hunt.

An army veteran
turned bounty hunter

with a reputation
for killing fugitives

he's already captured:

a man named Harry Love.

There is as much lore
about Captain Harry Love

as there is Joaquin
Murrieta in lots of ways.

In one description, he's
half man and half alligator.

Harry Love had come to
California looking for gold

and ended up finding
something else.

And what he found is that his
ability to kill other people

was, for him, more lucrative
than his ability to find gold.

Harry Love had military
background from the Mexican War.

He had been a Texas Ranger.

He's someone who could be
trusted to hunt people down.

You don't mess around with
Harry. He'll kill you.

[Kevin] With Joaquin
making national headlines,

Love sees a chance to get
famous too, by killing him.

So he handpicks
a posse of gunmen

who are also ready to
do whatever it takes.

So Captain Harry Love

assembles a group
of about 20 Rangers.

These are young men,
probably 20s and 30s.

We don't know a
whole lot about them.

They were probably
several of them,

if not most of them, miners,

who didn't strike it
rich as they had hoped

and are looking for other
things to make some money.

[Kevin] As hopeful
immigrants pour

into the furthest
edge of the nation,

gold is on the decline.

For most Californians,
the rush is over.

By '52, those early pickings

of gold are gone, or depleted.

And every time the gold
becomes harder to find,

it becomes more
expensive to find.

And then you have to develop
new technology for panning.

And then eventually there is
what's called hydraulic mining

where they change
the course of rivers,

and erode away cliff sides
and then you mine that.

And eventually
they chase the gold

to the underground seams
where it originates.

People who go out to California
to mine gold discover

that they're just like coal
miners in Pennsylvania,

and they're working
for somebody else.

And in some ways,
it's a microcosm

of the Industrial Revolution

that's taking place in America

just about this time
and a little bit later.

What we see is
this transition from

a situation of
individual opportunity,

you know, that fellow
down there with the pan,

to one of big business,
of corporate power.

It's the story, of
course, that we see,

especially in the far West,

that we see unfolding
over and over again.

[Kevin] As gold
becomes harder to find

miners seek their
fortunes elsewhere.

For the California
Rangers in 1853,

killing Joaquin offers
a much needed paycheck:

$150 a month for the hunt,
$1,000 for the kill.

That's the equivalent
of $40,000 today.

But Joaquin could be anywhere

in the 160,000
square mile state,

and the Rangers have just
three months to track him down.

So you have an
elusive character.

Weeks and weeks and weeks,

Love and his California Rangers,

they're asking people
here, people there,

"Have there been any
sightings of Joaquin?"

There are rumors that Joaquin

is moving between
Sonora and California.

He could be hiding
in the mountains

and disguising himself
in urban environments.

He seems to appear
out of nowhere,

just kills somebody and then
disappears almost as quickly.

It sounds at times as though
he's in two places at once.

So there is a robbery
and a murder over here,

and there is a vengeance
murder over here,

but nobody could get from
here to there in that time.

[Kevin] By July 1853,

the Rangers have spent
two months hunting

without a trace of Joaquin.

Harry Love must have
been getting very antsy.

The pressure is building.

We have to apprehend
or kill this Joaquin.

[pensive music]

[Kevin] Throughout
the summer of 1853,

Captain Harry Love
and his Rangers

scour Northern California
for a bandit named Joaquin.

Now these are all
relatively young men,

armed to the teeth.

Well, a $1,000 was
a lot of money.

They were intent
on being successful

in capturing and or
killing Joaquin.

[Kevin] Newspapers
follow their pursuit,

and their sensational stories
paint the Golden State

as a lawless land.

But California is changing.

As Americans come with more
than just dreams of gold,

they're here to build
homes and start families.

Most people who
went to California

went thinking that
it was temporary.

They would go, they would
make their fortune,

they would come home.

But they looked
around, and they said,

"Well, California's
kind of a nice place."

In the 1850s,

California is getting populated.

Places like San Francisco

and San Diego were
becoming cities.

They were destinations.

[Kevin] Letters and
stories spread the allure

of California to
cities back East,

and a newly popularized
technology plays a vital role.

Migrants are now
sending back photographs

as proof of their prosperity.

Most of these
people couldn't really

even afford the suit
that they were wearing

when they had these
photographs taken,

but by sending a
success photograph,

kind of a selfie back to
Boston or to North Carolina,

and your kin see that, and
they say, "See, he was right.

We should follow him."

[Kevin] But for Native
Americans across California,

the flood of settlers
unleashes a nightmare.

The people who are most
endangered by American rule

in California in the
1850s are Native peoples.

At the time of
European arrival,

California was the most diverse

and densely settled portion
of Native North America.

California had over a 100
different Indigenous languages

and a diversity of
Indigenous peoples

that is hard to summarize.

In the two decades after

this acquisition by
the United States,

the Native population
of California's reduced

from about 150,000
to 20 or 30,000.

Their population
plummeted due in part

to factors we could
consider unintentional,

like the spread of disease.

To a terrible extent,

the intentional practices
of the U.S. state arming

or at least enabling vigilantes
to kill Indigenous peoples.

[Kevin] For
California gold rushers,

a plot of land is a
potential jackpot.

For settlers, it's
an opportunity

and both want the Native
population out of the way.

Migrants from nearby
Oregon are among

the first to attack
Native Californians,

sometimes claiming
revenge for the killings

of Christian missionaries,
Marcus and Narcissa Whitman.

But the new state government
soon takes the lead.

Governor John Bigler
even raises funds

to exterminate Native people.

The state is paying bounties,

both sponsoring militias

and paying irregulars
to kill Indians.

[Kevin] As violence
becomes routine practice,

local militia and
vigilante groups

are responsible
for killing as many

as 16,000 California
Indians with the state

spending around $80
million in today's money.

In hunting down Mexican
outlaw Joaquin Murrieta,

Harry Love follows
a well-trodden path

of state sanctioned violence
against non-Americans.

Newspapers and their
readers are rooting for him,

but his time is running out.

Harry Love has a
three month deadline

to find this elusive,
poorly described person.

As he gets closer and
closer to that deadline,

there's tremendous pressure
on Harry Love to find Joaquin

and maybe even, in the back
of his mind, to get creative.

There were lots of Joaquin's

in the state of California,
Mexican origin people.

If you put a bounty on the
head of someone named Joaquin,

who is to say that the
person you apprehend

is actually the
person you say he is?

[Kevin] Just three weeks
before his contract expires,

Love gets a lead.

Harry Love and his
Rangers apparently

find the brother-in-law
of Joaquin,

and they make a deal with him.

"We won't arrest you or kill you

if you tell us
where Joaquin is."

He says they're in what
is today, Fresno County.

So Harry Love and
the Rangers go there.

Love and his men come upon

a group of
Mexican-looking peoples

in an area called
Arroyo de Cantua.

[tense music]

Love and the
California Rangers

have identified this encampment

where Mexicans have
a number of horses

and determine that some of
these horses are stolen.

So in their minds, this is
Joaquin and his bandits.

So it doesn't take much

in that encounter,
in that exchange,

to get heated and
the guns drawn.

[dramatic music]

Stop!
Hey, whoa!

Drop your weapons!

[gunfire blasting]

There's a shootout,

and some of the bandits scatter.

And Joaquin almost
makes his escape.

He's wounded.

And as they come to him
in his dying moments,

he said, "Don't shoot
me. I'm already dead."

[gunfire blasting]

[Kevin] But killing
this Mexican bandit

is no guarantee that
Love will get his bounty.

So Harry Love
believes he has Joaquin,

but he has a problem, which is,

there's no real
way to prove this.

That could have
been a Mexican,

that maybe was named
Joaquin, maybe not,

but Harry Love was gonna
collect that money.

[tense music]

[pensive music]

[Kevin] On July 25, 1853,

Harry Love and the
California Rangers succeed

in their mission finding
and killing the bandit,

Joaquin Murrieta.

[gunfire blasting]

Determined to claim his reward,

Love removes the outlaw's head

and preserves it in
a barrel of alcohol.

[knife thudding]

There's a lot of question,

particularly in the
Mexican community,

about whether Harry
Love ever got Joaquin

or whether this is just
some poor hapless Mexican

with his head in a jar.

There's no way to
prove that it's Joaquin,

but fortunately for Love,

state officials are dying to
have this problem go away.

So when he presents
the severed head,

they say, "Great!
Job well done."

The banditry is done with.

[Kevin] Harry Love
collects the $1,000 bounty

for killing Joaquin Murrieta

and splits it with his Rangers.

The grateful California
government later rewards him

an additional 5,000, which
he keeps for himself.

And with his newfound fame,

he sees yet another
way to profit

off the dead Mexican bandit.

Right here!

[crowd shouting]
Joaquin Murrieta!

Harry Love realizes there's

still value in
this severed head,

and so he puts it on display
and charges admission.

[tense music]
[crowd shouting]

This is shocking and
barbaric by our standards,

but it's actually part
of a long tradition.

For hundreds of years,

people that have run afoul
of the state, of the king,

have had their heads severed,

put on a pike as a
warning to anybody

who would think about
defying the state's power.

[Kevin] To Americans
in California,

Harry Love is a hero.

By killing a feared
Mexican outlaw,

he's made the new state
a safer place to live,

but the legend of
Joaquin will not die.

So after Harry Love

and his men decapitated
Joaquin Murrieta,

the newspapers started
circulating rumors

that they had gotten
the wrong man.

Some newspapers claimed that

Joaquin Murrieta had
escaped into Mexico.

Other newspapers claimed that

he continues to
exist in California.

Because if Joaquin's not dead,

or at least we can
claim he's not dead,

we can continue to publish
stories of his exploits,

stories of his deeds
and sell newspapers.

[Kevin] A young
Cherokee journalist

is paying close attention.

John Rollin Ridge finds
his way to California

like so many other people
in 1850, to strike it rich.

[Kevin] After
failing as a miner,

Ridge turns to journalism

and sees a chance
to hit pay dirt

by spinning the Joaquin
story out of the headlines

and into a popular novel.

But he also has an axe to grind.

John Rollin Ridge grew
up in Cherokee Nation

and watched as his homeland
was stolen by settlers.

[Kevin] Two decades earlier,

President Andrew Jackson
signed the Indian Removal Act,

which forced Native Americans
in the East off their homelands

and onto unfamiliar
territory in the West.

The Jackson
administration is determined

to remove Native Americans
from the Southeast,

from Georgia and
that wider region,

because that's
rich, fertile land

that is perfect
for growing cotton.

[Kevin] Beginning in 1830,

Native nations in the Southeast

are expelled from their land.

But the Cherokee
resisted removal

under the leadership
of Chief John Ross.

But for some, it
seemed inevitable.

John Rollin Ridge
was part of a family,

which became known
as the Ridge Party,

believed that their best chance

of sustaining Cherokee society

was ceding their lands
east of the Mississippi

and taking up lands in the West.

[Kevin] Against the
wishes of the tribe,

Ridge's father,
grandfather, and uncle

all signed a treaty with
the U.S. government,

giving up 7 million acres of
Cherokee land in the East.

The federal government
organizes a series

of deportation campaigns
that bring the Cherokee

and other Southern Indians
to what we now call Oklahoma,

which was at the time
known as Indian territory.

[Kevin] The Trail of Tears
saw an estimated a 100,000

Native Americans removed
from their homelands.

Along their journey west,

15,000 would die
from disease, hunger,

heat and cold, including
4,000 Cherokee.

As a 12-year-old,

Ridge witnessed his
father stabbed to death

for his role in the removal.

For Ridge, a Cherokee rider
still seething at his enemies,

Joaquin Murrieta represents
the underdog who fights back.

What Ridge does, is he takes
all these stories about Joaquin,

and he formulates them into a
really compelling narrative,

because he wants to create
a sympathetic character.

[Kevin] Ridge's character
is still a young Mexican

who goes to California
in search of gold,

but then, he adds a twist

with a dramatic new backstory.

Joaquin meets the
face of American racism.

And as the story goes,

these American miners
come to his claim.

There's violence that ensues.

[suspenseful music]

They rape his wife
in front of him.

He's beat to a pulp
and left to die,

[all shouting]

and that sets him off
in this path of banditry.

Seeking revenge

against the gringo.

[Carlos] In Ridge's novel,
there are also moments where

we see Joaquin Murrieta
protecting the people

who he sees as suffering
in an unjust society.

[man catcall whistling]

[gunfire blasting]

So on the one hand,

he could be a valiant
protector of his people.

[gunfire blasting]
[man grunting]

And on the other hand,

the bandit, the
murderer, the cutthroat.

So the story told by
John Rollin Ridge,

those 12 miners, he finds
them and kills them all.

[gun cocking]
[gunfire blasting]

[Kevin] As Harry
Love is celebrated

as a hero for killing
Joaquin Murrieta,

Cherokee writer
John Rollin Ridge

writes his own
version of the story,

with Murrieta as the
hero seeking vengeance

against the miners who
attacked him and his family.

[gunfire blasts]

It's the first novel ever
published by a Native American,

and he hopes people
will see in its pages

the true history of California,

but it's a flop.

Ridge never met
the financial success

that he felt was his due,

and ended up dying in his
40s of a brain disease.

[Kevin] But tall
tales of the Wild West

are now getting
popular across America.

In 1859, portions
of Ridge's novel

are plagiarized by the
California Police Gazette.

But this version of the
story makes several changes.

Joaquin is portrayed
as a villain,

a robber who killed for money,

and the posse that hunts
him down are the heroes.

The story gets
retold and retold,

dime novels of the 19th century,

and then into the
early 20th century.

It's translated into French,

into Spanish, into
other languages.

It's republished in
Chile and Argentina.

[Kevin] Over time, the
story of Joaquin the outlaw

is overtaken by the narrative
of an avenging hero.

A popular Spanish folk
ballad depicts him

defending his people
in an unjust society.

And Joaquin becomes known as
the "Robin Hood of El Dorado".

Ridge's narrative of Joaquin
as this sympathetic vigilante,

the underdog seeking
righteous justice,

creates this wider
web of stories

and legends about this
Joaquin character.

He was fighting against
the invading Americans,

the Yankee, the gringo,

so he's elevated to

a folkloric hero
in lots of ways.

[Kevin] In the decades
after Joaquin's death,

[gunfire blasting]

California will transform
from a lawless mining hub

into a booming and
diverse economy.

People realize there's
money to be made,

not simply from
gathering the gold,

but from attracting
people to California.

Once people got
there, they realized

that there was gold
in every direction.

There were fertile valleys
like the Central Valley,

which now produces one-fifth
of all the food in America.

Families start to come

and instead of living
in shanty towns,

they built communities.

Vigilantism is replaced
by actual police forces,

and courts, and
judicial systems.

And so California ceases
to be a frontier place

and becomes a place of
permanent American settlement.

[Kevin] Even as
California changes,

the legend of Joaquin lives on.

As a kid growing up in
Los Angeles in the 1950s,

you couldn't help but know
about Joaquin Murrieta.

I heard it from my father,
and then saw it on television.

Joaquin Murrieta has
come to embody the sense

of possibility that one
could reinvent oneself,

whether as a miner
or as a bandit,

and seek something different.

So the story of Joaquin
is really of a piece

with other stories about
larger than life figures

in the American West.

Great outlaws of the West,

the Jesse James, and
the kind of people

who emerge in this
Western literature.

Myth and reality often,

as in so much about the West,

get conflated with one another,

get entangled with one another,

gets hard to distinguish
one from the other,

and ultimately sometimes
what matters most

is what people
believe to be true.

If people believe
in Joaquin Murrieta,

then maybe that's ultimately
what matters most.

[dramatic music]

The severed head displayed
by Captain Harry Love

is eventually destroyed

in a San Francisco
earthquake in 1906.

Nobody will ever know

if it truly belonged
to Joaquin Murrieta.

But the Murrieta legend
reveals the turmoil

of the California gold rush,

transforming a Mexican outlaw

into a folk hero fighting
for the oppressed.

Over the following years,

as settlers continue
to flock West,

another legendary
figure will emerge.

This time in the Kansas Plains,

John Brown will leave
violence in his wake

and his actions will help push
the nation towards Civil War.