The Zorro character was inspired by a real-life
19th-century outlaw called Joaquin Murrieta Carrillo, (1829 – July 25, 1853), whose
gang was responsible for a series of cattle-rustling, robberies, kidnappings
and murders during the California Gold Rush of the early 1850s. There is scant
historical evidence Murrieta was anything other than an opportunist and a
criminal, but as early as 1854 he had been turned into a romantic figure and a
champion of the people in a best-selling book.
The popular legend said that he was a Sonoran
forty-niner, a vaquero and a gold miner and peace-loving man driven to seek
revenge when he and his brother were falsely accused of stealing a mule. A
posse hung his brother, horsewhipped Joaquin and gang raped his wife who then
died in his arms.
Swearing revenge, Joaquin hunted down each
member of the posse and killed them. The state of California then offered a
reward of up to $5,000 for Joaquin "dead or alive." Murrieta quickly
became a symbol of Mexican resistance to the influx of Anglo-Americans into
California, and equally his apprehension became a priority and a point of pride
for the leadership of the young state.
And that’s where the legend ends.
In 1853, he was captured and killed in an
ambush laid by members of a new law enforcement agency the California Rangers, laid
by Ranger Harry Love, who brought in a human head claimed to be Murrieta’s. The
head, along with the hand of one of his companions, was pickled in brandy and
displayed all over California. In 1879, O. P. Stidger was reported to have
heard Murrieta's sister say that the displayed head was not her brother's and
there were numerous sightings reported of Murrieta as a middle aged man. His
preserved head was destroyed during the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
A year after his death, book entitled The
Life and Adventures of Joaquín Murrieta: The Celebrated California Bandit
by John Rollin Ridge appeared. The Ridge dime novel contributed to the legend,
especially after a portion of Ridge's novel was reprinted in 1858 in the California
Police Gazette. This story was picked up and subsequently translated into
French. The French version was translated into Spanish by Roberto Hyenne, who
took Ridge's original story and changed every "Mexican" reference to
"Chilean".
In 1919, Johnston McCulley, inspired by the
John Ridge novel, was inspired to create
his fictional character Don Diego de la
Vega—Zorro. (Zorro is the Spanish word for fox).
McCulley produced The Mark of
Zorro which was originally published as The Curse of Capistrano, in
1919 , as a serialized novel It was republished
as a book, in 1924, under the title The Mark of Zorro.
The book tells of the story of
Californio Don Diego Vega, alias 'Señor Zorro', in the company of his deaf and
mute servant Bernardo and his lover Lolita Pulido, as they oppose the
villainous Captain Ramon and Sgt. Gonzales in early 19th-century California
during the era of Mexican rule, before it became a U.S. state. It is set
amongst the historic Spanish missions in California, pueblos such as San Juan
Capistrano, California, and the rural California countryside.
McCulley's book drew the attention of then
super star Douglas Fairbanks Sr, who was the driving force behind the movie
version, the first movie version, which came out in 1920. Fairbanks and the
production team changed the title from McCulley's original, The Curse of
Capistrano, to The Mark of Zorro, and introduced many of the elements that were
to become part and parcel of the Zorro persona - the Z-shaped sword strokes,
Zorro's habit of slicing candles and leaving them burning. McCulley's Zorro
wore a wide sombrero, in contrast to Fairbanks' small flat-brimmed hat and the
screen legend was born.
