Legends Are Made of These

 

In the Sunday newspaper, I saw a short review of a new book, Zorro's Shadow: How a Mexican Legend Became America's Superhero by Stephen J. C. Andes.  Thus the inspiration to look into the Zorro story, especially because of growing up with the well-produced Disney television show beginning in 1957 and starring Guy Williams (who personifies Sade's "Smooth Operator" song).

Television's "The Lone Ranger," we find, was based on a lawman in the Old West named Bass Reeves who was actually Black.  But that would not have played with the mid-century American audience.  Neither would the real-life characters behind the legend of El Zorro (The Fox).

 In 1919, a pulp magazine (above) published a five part serial by Johnston McCulley on the exploits of   Californio Don Diego de la Vega during the Spanish era in Alta California (1769 - 1821).  It was an immediate hit, followed by 65 more pieces by McCulley and a movie in 1920 starring Douglas Fairbanks.  Tyrone Power, Alain Delon, Antonio Banderas and many others over the next century appeared in successful Zorro films, not to mention plays, a musical, television shows both acted (one in Spanish) and animated, and a comic strip and books.  The character was irresistible, possessisng all positive human qualities along with superior skills, wit and daring.  Batman was, some think, based on Zorro (mask, cape, adventures at night, a daytime identity, fighting for justice and not gain), but already the superhero mold was being cast, as Batman was above the restraints of gravity and the limits of human ability.

 The two main historical personages our fictional hero was based on were not such fine gentlemen.

Salomon Pico (1821 - 1860) from central California was related to the last Mexican governor and his father was the manager of Rancho del Rey San Pedro.  He was given a large Mexican land grant in 1844, but the fateful year of the Gold Rush arrived soon after and he lost his land to squatters as well as his beloved wife.  Proud and wronged, he vowed vengeance, trading cattle and horses by day but riding at night down a path of violence, claiming to have killed 39 Yankees.  He was protected by fellow Californios who also were being dispossessed, seemingly disappearing into the air when chased.  Pico fled to Baja California where he held posts under an official who was an old military colleague.  But a new governor succeeded who was bent on ridding the state of outlaws, and Pico's eventful life was ended by a firing squad.

Joaquin Murrieta (1829 - 1853?) was as aggrieved by the invading Americans as Pico.  Arriving from Mexico to participate in the Gold Rush with numerous members of his family, his claim was taken away and he was falsely accused of stealing a mule. Solid facts about Murrieta are sketchy, but his legend in California, Mexico and Chile (because of a fictional claim he was born there) reverberates today as an avenger of wrongs.  Not that he didn't thereafter commit many of his own, from horse thievery to robbery and murder of ranchers, travelers and many Chinese miners.  One by one, his gang members fell: a stepbrother hanged early on, a brother-in-law killed during a shootout; even the notorious Three-Fingered Jack went down with him in the final face off, gunned down by a posse. His severed head was preserved in a large glass jug filled with alcohol as proof in order to collect the reward.  The grisly display was last seen at the Golden Nugget Saloon in San Francisco, before disappearing in the 1906 earthquake.

Their stories were embellished and published over and over again by newspapermen and sundry other highly imaginative writers, eventually coalescing into the Spanish-American Robin Hood/Scarlet Pimpernel folk hero we know as the dashing Zorro.